Artists Books by Peter Chasseaud

Limited Edition Artists Books by Peter Chasseaud

These large, hand-bound, limited edition artists books, incorporating the artist’s poetic texts and black and white photographic images, maps, charts and other imagery, litho-printed on heavy, archival paper, or digitally printed, have been bought by major national and overseas collections and institutions, including the British Library, the National Railway Museum, and the London Boroughs of Camden and Islington Local Studies Centres.

AFGHANISTAN - A JOURNEY (2007 – in production)
Based on the artist’s trip (and b/w photos) through Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan in 1972, seen from today; considers war, identity, memory, history and empires. Photographs, colour maps; 6,000-word poetic text by author. Landscape-format, 12 x 18 inches (30 x 45 cm). 72pp including covers. Digitally printed. A proof of this book was shown at LAB’06.

THAMES – THE LONDON RIVER (2005)
This book, dedicated to John Berger, is a personal poetic response to the Thames, in particular to the London River and its lower reaches between London and the estuary. It considers historical and topographical elements, and the impact of technological, political and commercial pressures and changes on the riverscape, focusing on shipping and the docks.

It incorporates a prose-poem text and photographic images by the artist & author, who has been taking photos of the river and its hinterland since the early 1960s, and also uses other imagery including maps, charts and a dramatic wartime aerial photograph of a German bomber over the London docks. The text is in two sections. The first, The London River, is a three-part journey from the estuary through London to the source – Estuary to The Pool; London; The Upper Reaches. The second, Thames Themes, comprises twelve shorter pieces: The River Gods; Fragments of History; Tides; River Poets; The River’s Colours; Shoals, Deeps and Reaches; Stairs and Wharves; The Docks; London (Toil, Glitter, Grime and Wealth on a Flowing Tide); Memory, years ago from 2005; Rotherhithe Foreshore; Tidal River.

Large portrait-format 20 x 15 inches (50 x 38 cm), blue-grey cloth, case-bound limited edition. Map end-papers of London river and dockland, double-sided pages containing text, 6 maps and charts and 27 half-tone images. 50 copies only, each signed and numbered. Lithographically printed on 310 gsm Somerset tub-sized satin archival-quality paper. Price £600.

KINGS CROSS (2004)
Acclaimed by artists and writers, this incorporates a 2,000-word prose-poem text and photographic images by the artist/author, who has been exploring and taking photos of the station and area since 1959, and also uses other imagery including aerial photographs (some going back to the early 1920s) and a still from the 1955 film The Ladykillers, starring Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers, which was shot in the Kings Cross railway environment.

Large portrait-format 18 x 15 inches (45 x 38 cm), grey cloth, case-bound limited edition, with map end-papers of the Kings Cross area, fold-out, double-sides pages containing the text and 21 half-tone images. 50 copies only, each signed and numbered. Lthographically printed on archival 310 gsm Somerset tub-sized satin paper. Price £500.

New 2007 Project: Willow / Weider / Wilg / Saule, an art and artist’s book project on willow trees to mark the 90th Anniversary of the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele), 1917–2007, involving creation, documentation and presentation of serial images of the willow trees and pollarded willows in the Ypres Salient, West Flanders (Belgium). This project will include the planting in the landscape of growing willow figures.