The Divine Comedy: Dante's Inferno, Dante's Purgatorio, Dante's Paradiso
Brisbane, CA: Trillium Press, Publishers, 2003-2005.
Complete three volume set. Each volume signed by Sandow Birk at colophon, as issued; each numbered 50 of 100. Additionally, many of the full-page lithographs are individually signed by the artist. Illustrated with 209 original lithographs by Sandow Birk, printed by David Salgado on a Mailänder flatbed proof press. 35.3x27.7 cm (14x11"), each volume bound in full leather of various colors stamped in gilt. Fine, with typical fading to blue ink on Paradiso; that volume retains its original slipcase. The other two do not. Sandow Birk is renowned for his nine-year project American Qu'ran in which he hand-transcribed the entire Qur'an according to historic Islamic traditions and illuminated the text with scenes from contemporary American life. Here is its Christian antecedent, his interpretation of Dante, with a contemporary vernacular translation and imagery of American life today: car-centric, saturated with advertising and technology, urban, polluted, and eerily familiar.
Price: $15,000