17 February 2011

Heiri Steiner Tarot by Mary Steiner-Geringer & Heiri Steiner

Decks done in a naive art-style aren't a modern thing, there where many published in the previous century yet few have had a lasting appeal with collectors as this one. Published in 1968 by Rene Simmen in Zurich (Switzerland) as a majors only deck accompanied by the book 'Das Tarot: Die Welt als Spiel' (The Tarot: The World as a Game).

Just looking at it you can see why it became wanted by collectors, the simple childlike images are printed upon a black backgrounds in lively strong colours, no question about it this deck has personality. The cards seem to take their inspiration from the TdM model and also a bit upon the Papus deck.




The only thing I'm not enthusiastic about are it's backs that are well true '60ies but in a bad way (if you see what I mean)   


14 February 2011

Paul Rodenko & Andre Kerkhoven De Tarot

Not all tarots are printed as cards or loose prints, some only exist bound within a book like this one that was born out of the collaboration between the poet Rodenko and the artist Kerkhoven. Both discipline are linked to each other here with each time a poem and it's corresponding image facing each other.

Paul Rodenko (full name Paul Thomas Basilius Rodenko) was an important Dutch essayist & poet who was the chief critical advocate and apologist for the Fiftiers (a Dutch-Belgian literary movement  for renewal) and for Dutch experimentalism in general, Andre Kerkhoven was a graphic artist specialized in woodcuts. Both men worked on this book in Rodenko's last year and was finished after his death by his wife Jetty.

The first edition of the book was released in a very limited edition of only 15, the year after that it was reprinted in a normal soft-cover non-limited edition and can still be found at a very reasonable price, only a few euro's at most.

10 February 2011

Taylor Mccall Tarot Prints

I've recently moved homes, one of the painfullest and difficult part of the whole wasn't the furniture but my collection, terrified as i was/am of damaging one i've packed them each very carefully and moved them from my parents home to my current location. as a matter of fact i'm still doing that, taking a few, packing them carefully and moving so i can get them a place in my home where they are at their very best, this is off course a wonderful way to get re-accustomed to those treasures i wasn't always able to access regularly before.

This one is one of those treasures, due to it's massive size, 32' x 23" (32" x 16" per 'page') when it's fully opened it is very difficult to move or even simply handle. These silk-screened images are printed and folded in the middle as pages from a huge book, on the left the  description by P. D, Ouspensky (translated by A. L. Pogossky) of  the Major Arcana  on the right the designs Taylor McCall made based on these, by hand-cutting screens for each color. To further the cosmopolitan images of this creation it was printed on hemp paper handmade by the Amatruda family in Amalfi, Italy and hand-pulled for each page up to nine times by serigrapher Hugh Blackwell of London

Limited to an edition of only 150 sets and finally published by Bocaccio Press of Santa Fe in 1975, what is my birth-year so that makes it even more special to me.
 

03 February 2011

Art Postcard Tarot by Marcia McCord

This is the second deck from Marcia McCord that is born out of her love for postcards from by-gone era's more precisely  from the first decennium of the 20th century ,a time of great change both technological as social. It's a limited edition of only 100 - and believe me these baby's are fast to go, especially since it came out October last year, so perhaps they might already be sold out.

Once more the result is a nice limited edition treasure that will, i'm sure of it, any collector of tarot and/or Victoriana very happy. These 79 cards (the normal 78 + the happy squirrel) are displaying a wide range from sources influences and styles, the whole giving this deck a light-hearted feeling that may at many moments get a smile upon your face or a 'how sweet' from your lips.