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| During his time in New Haven, Robert issued a series of five large broadsides, each completely different in content, and therefore design. All of them (averaging in size 17 by 25 inches) reflect the joy he experienced designing and working with type.
The first in the series was Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "Poem" (1986), featuring a tipped-on reproduction (color copy) of his painting Earth First, (The Dark Stand). Set in Linotype Bodoni and printed on Rives paper. The edition was 150 numbered copies. When Robert showed the finished piece to Ferlinghetti, the poet was enthusiastic. When Robert asked if he could perhaps offer some for sale through his San Francisco bookshop, City Lights, he exclaimed, "It's wonderful! But we could never sell it to our customers."
"A Woman's Plea for War" (1986) reprints Olive Schreiner's essay from Century Magazine, October 1914. Edition of 150 copies set in Linotype Granjon and ATF Garamond, incorporating an image from an old copper engraving, and printed on Frankfurt laid or Japanese Masa paper. The author points out that women "have in all ages produced, at an enormous cost, the primal munition of war" and "will end war when her voice is fully and clearly heard in governance of state." The author was born in South Africa in 1855. Despite having no formal education, she became an outspoken writer and passionate crusader for women's rights and against racial injuctice.
"Valley Railroad" (1986), created in collaboration with Oliver Jensen (the founder, with some friends from Yale, of the famous hardbound quarterlies American Heritage and Horizon), reproduces two old Victorian wood engravings, various typefaces and borders. It advertises, in a period style, a steam locomotive running the Connecticut Valley Line in the 1980s. Printed on Japanese, Nideggen and Rives papers (different color combinations on the different papers). Edition of 159 numbered copies.
Newspaper and early color comics are among Robert's many printing-related interests. From his collection he selected a Betty Boop strip (1987), reproducing it from a single large zinc engraving to print the black. He then cut linoleum blocks to fill in each of the areas of color (a total of seven color runs).
The last in the series was "Birdbrain" (1989) by Allen Ginsberg. Robert's initial design for this poem had the text set centered. He was surprised when Ginsberg - not someone who ever seemed bound by convention - objected to the layout, saying that poetry should always be set flush left. In his second design, Robert adorned the border of the sheet with drawings by a family friend, David Hechtlinger, who knew like Ginsberg when they had been institutionalized for a time. These images upset the poet even more than the original text setting, and he refused to sign the broadside. Edition of 150 copies set in Linotype Baskerville and printed on Frankfurt Laid paper.
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