Sainte Roseline – The Miracle of the Roses – Warja Lavater
Sainte Roseline – The Miracle of the Roses by Warja Lavater / accordion-fold book object in plexiglass case, 4.38 x 6.25 inches, published by Editions Maeght in Switzerland / first published in 1986, this is an unsigned and unnumbered edition / with plexi case
“Book-object illustrating the story of Saint Roseline in pictorial language. Designed by Warja Lavater and produced in original lithography, this imagery, 39 pages long, unfolds over several meters. The symbols are translated into French, English, German and Japanese.”
“For this tale dear to Marguerite Maeght, Warja Lavater describes to us in her colorful language the life of Saint Roseline who, in the Middle Ages, clandestinely distributed provisions from the castle of his father. The miracle happens when one day in January her father appears in front of her while she is hiding bread in her apron that she is about to give to the poor. Spreading her arms, she discovers in amazement her apron full of roses.”
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An early progenitor of the artist’s book genre, Warja Honegger-Lavater was born in Winterthur, Switzerland in 1913. She worked as an illustrator for the magazine Jeunesse from 1944-1958, and moved to New York shortly thereafter where she began a wonderful series of artist’s books.
All of Honegger-Lavater’s books were made using the accordion-fold binding. Her aesthetic has been aptly described as “very clean, very Swiss.” Each book tells a story, sequentially, like traditional books, but varying from them by rarely using words. Instead she chooses a symbol to represent, for example, a character, as in the red dot standing in for Red Riding Hood in Little Red Riding Hood.
