Wir Geschwohrne Ober- und andere Meister des Ehrs. Handwercks derer Steinmetzen, Steinhauser und Maurer in der Stadt Strassburg bescheinen hiermit, das gegenwartiger Gesell Nahmens Johann Samuel Imhoft . . . .

The Elm Press, founded by Mark in 1986, is devoted to publishing fine press artists' books. Most featured Mark's delicate lithographs although she was an adventurous bookmaker who explored many printing techniques and technologies. She had a special affinity to the relationship between word and image, and knew how to complement a poem rather than just illustrate it.

She wrote, "I imagine the book as a continuous picture plane on which word, image, sequence and structure all reinforce each other. What interests me most is the relationship between word and image. I plan no hierarchy of them. An artist's book is a unique form of visual disclosure. It must be slowly savored. It should be held in the hand and carefully considered. Only then are its contents fully revealed."

Anything ends
In its beginning,
The circles turning
Slowly, so slowly,
Quern of the beat
Of the downrunning heart.
The sunlight fell like diamonds
But did not slacken
Remembrance's forewarning
Of cold and dark to come,
The journey retaken
Without end,
Without end.
--from IV. "Ignis" in Journey to a Known Place (1961) Graphic Arts division GAX Z232.M54C37 1961. Gift of Daniel and Mary Jane Woodward.

This is a selection of satirical portraits by the Meiji printmaker Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1916). Although the complete text has not yet been translated, the work reflects the political cartooning Kiyochika created for the journal Marumaru Chinbun from 1882 to 1883. There is a Western feel to the work, the influence of the English cartoonist Charles Wirgman (1832-1891), with whom he studied. Kiyochika's dependence on commissions for book and magazine illustration ended in 1894 with a spectacular series of 70 triptychs depicting scenes from the Sino-Japanese War, after which he turned to painting as an artistic medium. Graphic Arts division GAX 2008- in process

For information in English, read Henry Smith, Kiyochika: Artist of Meiji Japan (1988). Marquand Library NE1310.K85 S62.

Twelve admirable plates, furnished yearly to that facetious little publication, the Comic Almanac [sic], have gained for it a sale, as we hear, of nearly twenty thousand copies. The idea of the work was novel; there was, in the first number especially, a great deal of comic power, and Cruikshank's designs were so admirable that the Almanac at once became a vast favorite with the public, and has so remained ever since.

...In the earlier numbers of the Comic Almanac all the manners and customs of Londoners that would afford food for fun were noted down; and if during the last two years the mysterious personage who, under the title of "Rigdum Funnidos," compiles this ephemeris, has been compelled to resort to romantic tales, we must suppose that he did so because the great metropolis was exhausted, and it was necessary to discover new worlds in the cloud-land of fancy.

...it is very difficult to find new terms of praise, as find them one must, when reviewing Mr. Cruikshank's publications, and more difficult still (as the reader of this notice will no doubt have perceived for himself long since) to translate his design into words, and go to the printer's box for a description of all that fun and humor which the artist can produce by a few skilful turns of his needle. ...thank heaven, Cruikshank's humor is so good and benevolent that any man must love it, and on this score we may speak as well as another.