Atlanta: Nexus Press, 1998. 200 loose cards, 4-1/2 x 6-1/2 in., offset printed in color. Housed with yellow ribbon in a blue cloth box stamped in gilt to top face. Fine.
First bookwork by the celebrated Ivorian artist Frédéric Bruly Bouabré (1923-2014), a selection of images from his decades-long project Knowledge of the World, a poetic cataloging of the people, objects, folklore, and abstract concepts that make up the universe. Largely self-taught, Bouabré began making art in his twenties, while doing ethnological work on his native Bété language and culture as a civil servant for the colonial French government. Long considered one of Africa's great artists, only in recent years has his work come to be recognized in the West. In 2022, he was the subject of a large retrospective, World Unbound, at MOMA. This publication stands among the most exhaustive representations of his work, each of the 200 cards featuring a reproduction of one of his drawings with its original border of hand-lettered French text. Published in collaboration with the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) Cultural Olympiad. Uncommon now in the trade.
