print
- Museum number
- 1990,1123,0.1
- Title
- Object: Adonis LX
- Description
-
Artist's book by Dia al-Azzawi. Within a hand painted box is one original gouache and five lithographs painted in four lithograph colours with hand colouring (gouache and crayon).
Poems by the poet Adonis (Ali Ahmad Said, b. 1930) are inscribed by Azzawi across the folios. Made by Serif graphics, edition 1/6, 1990.
- Production date
- 1990
- Dimensions
-
Height: 41.50 centimetres (box)
-
Height: 39 centimetres (opened)
-
Width: 30.40 centimetres (box)
-
Width: 109.50 centimetres (opened)
- Curator's comments
- Dia al-Azzawi made Adonis LX to celebrate the 60th birthday of the Syrian poet Adonis (Ali Ahmad Said, born 1930). Each page is inspired by a different poem, extracts of which Azzawi has written in his own hand. The compositions are abstract and in bold colour, each containing a haunting face, sculptural in form. For Azzawi making books, for which he likes to use the Arabic word 'dafatir', has long been an intrinsic part of his overall practice.
The poems by Adonis are: (I) ‘The Days of the Falcon’; (II) ‘This is my Name’; (III) ‘A Tomb for New York’; (IV) ‘Isma‘il’; and (V) ‘I Dream and Obey the Sun’s Verse’.
(Venetia Porter, 'Telling Stories: Artists books in the collection of the British Museum' in Robert Hillenbrand (ed.) The Making of Islamic Art: Studies in honor of Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom (Edinburgh University Press 2021)
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Artists making books: poetry to politics
Gallery 43a, 27 October 2022 to 17 September 2023
2006 18 May-2 Sept, London, BM, Word into Art, cat.24a-b
- Associated titles
Associated Title: Poetry of Adonis
- Acquisition date
- 1990
- Department
- Middle East
- Registration number
- 1990,1123,0.1
