Taller Martín Pescador's new Green Knight

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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by John Ridland, illustrated by Artemio Rodríguez, printed by Juan Nicanor Pascoe, on paper made by Pasquale De Ponte, Pasquale (Tacambaro, Michoacan, Mexico: Taller Martín Pescador, 2013). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013- in process

Juan Pascoe’s Taller Martín Pescador (Kingfisher Workshop) in Tacámbaro, near Mexico City, has a new fine press translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The large quarto is beautifully design and printed on paper made for the project by Pasquale De Ponte in San Lucas Tepetlaco. The Poliphilus and BemboTitling types were cast by Bradley Hutchinson in Austin, Texas, which (the prospectus tells us) were shipped across the Rio Bravo with many an adventure at the customs office, and finally printed with utmost care at Taller Martín Pescador in Tacámbaro, Mexico, on a Vandercook hand press.

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Linocuts were prepared by the Mexican artist Artemio Rodríguez, who has partnered with Pascoe on a number of projects. According to the press, “The majority of the edition has been bound by the printers, sewn on vellum tapes and laced into a dark green stiff paper cover, the structure reminiscent of a classic limp vellum binding.” Graphic Arts has been fortunately to acquire one of twenty-six copies, lettered from A to Z, set aside to be bound in quarter vellum hard covers with a handsome slipcase, by Jace Graf of Cloverleaf Studio in Austin Texas.

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To read an English language defence of the authenticity of the Arthurian fables in reply to Polydore Vergil (DNB), see:

John Leland (1506?-1552), A learned and true assertion of the original, life, actes, and death of the most noble, valiant, and renoumed Prince Arthure, King of great Brittaine. Who succeeding his father Vther Pendragon, and right nobly gouerning this land sixe and twentie yeares, then dyed of a mortall wounde receyued in battell, together vvith victory ouer his enemies… (Londin: Imprinted by Iohn Wolfe, dwelling in Distaffe Lane, ouer against the Signs of the Castell, 1582) Rare Books RHT 16th-57

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