For the production of this "first major monograph" of Albert Wein's work,
I worked closely with art dealer Abby Taylor, who, along with
Boston Athenaeum curator David Dearinger and the Wein estate, has been
working to bring Albert Wein's work back into public awareness.
Abby wanted the book to be highly pictorial, with little or none of the
"white space" often present in books of this type. Accompanying text
had to be integrated into the framing of the sculptures and set directly
against the images' backgrounds. She envisioned few graphical
flourishes, with text presented in a clean and unobtrusive sans serif font.
I believe she felt this approach would best adhere to the aesthetic
sensibilities of the artist himself.
These goals, at times, presented some challenges. For one, sculpture
is obviously a three dimensional art form, and Wein's work in particular
epitomizes the dynamism of such three dimensional works.
Further complicating matters was the fact that most of the images
were supplied by the artist's family, and some of these were not
necessarily shot with the intention of creating a book.
Since we did not have many of the sculptures in our possession,
reshooting certain of them from more favorable
angles was not an option.
This project also involved a good degree of textual research.
Many of the sculptures had never been catalogued, and much of the
information concerning creation dates and the like was dubious. Quite
a bit of
archival detective work was necessary to properly date the works
in order to achieve the goal of presenting the works in sequence of their
creation.
In the end I believe we overcame the challenges of this project and
created an aesthetically pleasing tribute the artist and his life's work.
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