Coubine [Kubin] (Othon ou Otakar) - Lot 82

Coubine [Kubin] (Othon ou Otakar) Ɵ Shakespeare: Ten Sonnets. With ten etchings by O. Coubine. Querschnitt Verlag, Frankfurt A-M, 1924. Ten etchings by Coubine. Edition of a single copy no. I on "handmade Pannekoek Dutch paper by Fortuin" with the original drawings, 25 copies (1-25) on the same paper, and 100 current copies, all signed by the artist (26 x 21 cm). Binding: Publisher's green boards in two volumes (one for the book, the other for the original drawings) with a gilt print of one of his drawings on the front cover. In the second volume, the original drawings are matted. Unique copy no. I containing 13 original drypoint drawings, with remarks, and correspondence from the artist, who was one of the leading exponents of the Czech avant-garde. The copy contains an autograph letter signed by Coubine to the art critic Dreyfus, notably concerning a project to illustrate Hölderlin's Hyperion. Alfred Flechtheim's twenty-seventh publication, with decor and typography by Rudolf Koch, is one of the most successful of the interwar period in Germany. Otakar Kubin (1883-1969) was one of the leading Czech painters and sculptors of the 20th century. Born in Boskovice, he changed his name to Othon Coubine after settling in the south of France (in Apt and Simiane-la-Rotonde) at the end of the Great War. Settling in Paris in 1912, where he joined the Slavic avant-garde, he produced a series of expressionist woodcuts entitled La Misère humaine (Human Misery) in 1914. After the war, he illustrated texts by Valery Larbaud, François Mauriac and others. Renowned at the time for the classicism of his Provencal landscapes, flowers and nudes, he became close to Picasso through Marie Cuttoli and her companion Henri Laugier, whose parents lived in Simiane, near Coubine. The pure classicism of Coubine's drypoints and drawings blends perfectly with Rudolf Koch's dazzling typographic composition for this book. Provenance: Othon Coubine; Henri Laugier and Marie Cuttoli.