AFFEN UND ALPHABETE

[Stuttgart: Manus Press, 1962. Folio (45 x 33.5 cm). Accordion-fold sheets laid into pictorial stiff wrappers. Spine label a bit frayed along the edges, some slipcase rubbing along the extreme edges of the wrappers, otherwise near fine in publisher's pictorial slipcase. First edition of this ambitious undertaking by one of the foremost German woodcut artists of the post-WWII era. This work is comprised of sixteen original woodcuts of stylized apes printed in black (and one in black and red), juxtaposed with typographical experiments. From a total edition of three hundred numbered copies, this is one of sixty deluxe copies with the woodcuts signed in pencil by the artist, and with a separate special printing on Japanese paper of the woodcut for the upper wrapper, signed by the artist in the margin. (Inventory #: WRCLIT57697)