Depero Futurista

1927. DEPERO, Fortunato. Depero Futurista. 118 ff., printed on various paper stocks, of which some are coloured; most versos blank. Illustrated with 28 halftone plates in text, 2 in colour. Line-block illustrations and typographic designs throughout, many printed in red and black. Oblong 4to, 245 x 322 mm., bound in flexible blue boards, printed in black and white, secured with massive metal bolts, as issued. Preserved in a black cloth box. Milano/ New York/ Paris/ Berlin: Edizione Italiana Dinamo Azari, 1927. Depero's famous "Futurist bolted book," from his own design, is an anthology of his theatrical and commercial designs from 1913 to 1927, long regarded as one of the avant-garde masterpieces in the history of the book-object, and likely the inspiration for Duchamp's Boite en valise. "Depero Futurista exemplifies many of the Futurist innovations: witty typographical effects, the use of colored inks and decorated paper, and the brilliant idea of dynamo binding, making the book seem like a machine" (Jentsch). "[This] book Is Mechanical, bolted like a motor, Dangerous, can constitute a projectile weapon. Unclassifiable, cannot fit into a library with the other volumes. And therefore it is in its exterior form Original, Invasive, and Assaulting, like Depero and his art" (from the preface to the work). Stated limitation of 1000 numbered copies (never completed). Discreet ownership stamp on front free endpaper, and faint trace of ownership stamp on title-page. Head of spine a little bumped, overall, a fine copy. Jentsch, The Artist and the Book in twentieth Century Italy No. 177. See: Del Junco, Futurist Depero, 2014.