About the binding:

Full leather stub binding Accordion fold sewn onto stubs; title in turquoise foil “à la chinose” on three onlaid bands of brown leather on the spine; turquoise buffalo leather, with onlays of black and grey snakeskin and brown, partly sanded-off leather, accentuated by tooled dot patterns; trimmed edges, sewn silk endbands; doublure smooth black leather with onlays similar to cover, flyleaf black suede. Slipcase chemise in half-binding style with turquoise leather, covered with black embossed paper (Linson) and lined with turquoise suede; title embossed in black on the spine.

Leather-edged slipcase covered with the same paper (Linson) as chemise.

About the content:

Lucien Scheler: Il suffirait

With colour etchings, relief embossings and collages by Bertrand Dorny

Copy no 72 of 85 of the limited original edition signed by author and artist

Edition Claude Blaizot, Paris 1987. This short and rather macabre text on just two pages is about the sand that “sandblasts” the rocks in the dry and hot wind in Southern France and whips the remains of animal bones lying around. There is no warmth or a hug for humans.

About the artist: Even as a child, Monique Mathieu was fascinated by paper and its feel. Her mother was an amateur bookbinder. After studying art history, she learnt how to bind books and opened her studio in Paris in 1957. Her designs are inspired by nature or the form of letters. Attractive haptics evolve through reliefs, indentations and incisions. Through “calm boldness” and “poetic imagination”, Monique Mathieu reached the forefront of the French art of bookbinding.

The book’s appeal in the simplicity of its physical elements is coupled with Mathieu’s keen sense of poetry and painting, which was fostered further by her marriage to the poet André Frénaud (1907–1993). Until her death in 2024, she worked as a poetry publisher herself.