The Death of Venus. Lithographs by Mark Beard. Edited with an introduction by Michael Finegold

New York: Vincent FitzGerald & Company, 1983. One of 50 copies only on BFK Rives, signed by Beard on the colophon. Page size: 7 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches. Bound: loose in original wrappers, as issued, in publisher's clamshell box of green cloth and silver kid spine designed as a classic column by Gerard Charriere and Carol Joyce, fine. First edition of this previously unpublished manuscript by Sitwell; the original manuscript notebook is in the collection of Paul W. Motter. Mark Beard has created six color lithographs, plus one five-page black and white lithograph, pulled on Arches paper, each signed and numbered by the artist, for this book. Originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, Beard has had exhibitions at the Studio of Lowell Nesbitt, the Ericson Gallery, Utah Museum of Fine Arts and has won awards from the Henry Doll Foundation in New York and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. His work is represented in many distinguished collections, among them: Harvard University and Yale University, The Chase Manhattan Bank, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the New York Public Library, to cite a few. This is the artist's first livre d'artiste. The lithographs were pulled under the supervision of the artist and publisher at Prasada Press; the text at Wild Carrot Letterpress. A mint copy of this contemporary livre de peintre marking the debut of a major American artist.