Art Hazelwood

Art Hazelwood is a San Francisco–based artist, printmaker, educator, curator, and activist whose work spans political posters, fine-press artist books, relief prints, painting, and public art. Known for combining social critique with traditional printmaking techniques, he has worked for decades with grassroots movements and homeless rights groups, organized exhibitions and print collectives like the San Francisco Poster Syndicate, and taught at the San Francisco Art Institute. His prints are held in major collections including the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, Stanford Special Collections, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, and he has authored and contributed to books on art and homelessness.

Journeys to the Moon and Sun

A book of prints

12 color etchings with linocut borders

11 pages of text printed letterpress within a linocut border

Edition of 20 (10 sets bound, 10 sets loose in portfolio boxes)

Art Hazelwood has created this series of prints based on the book Journeys to the Moon and Sun by Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655). Cyrano was the true life inspiration for the romantic figure of Edmond de Rostand's nineteenth-century play. He was a satirist, swordsmen, poet, and philosopher who indeed had a prodigious appendage. This translation from the original French, based on the 1662 edition, was made by Timothy Hampton, Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley.

Gargantua in the Vineyard

An accordion book of prints

on handmade cotton paper

edition of 25

Francois Rabelais (circa 1490 - 1553) and his satirical writings on the illustrious giants, Gargantua and Pantagruel, were the inspiration for this book of prints, Gargantua in the Vineyards, by Art Hazelwood.

Rabelais was a scholar of erudition, a mocker of manners, a defender of appetites, an adherent of wine, and a champion of laughter.

This continuous image book is made up of 10 separate prints joined together into one, as well as a cover image, title page and colophon. The image area measures 12" x 180" (inches). It was Published in an edition of 25 at Eastside Editions, Sonoma, California.

Pulcinella in Hades

accordion fold book

8 feet of continuous 4 plate color etchings

Edition of 20

Pulcinella, a character from the commedia dell’arte, takes the place here of Christ in the Harrowing of Hell. He takes the place of Orpheus in search of his beloved Eurydice. Why an underworld journey should be treated as a comedy can perhaps best be explained by the tremendous amount of literature to back up the view that Hell is a merry place. Comic journeys to Hell and Hades are long standing traditions. Comedy goes to Hell. 

It should be said that many great books were read or reread in the course of selecting the marginalia text. David Avery was an essential comrade to Art Hazelwood in this search and in the joy of discovering so many texts. For the optimal viewing experience Pulcinella in Hades should be viewed while listening to the opera Orfeo ed Euridice by Gluck.

Seventeen people were asked to write in their own hand the literary marginalia selected to accompany the text. Many complained that their handwriting is terrible. Many were correct.

Pulcinella in Hades is an accordion fold book with eight feet of continuous four plate color etchings, vertically descending into Hades. The etching techniques used aresugar lift and spit bite aquatints with engraving. David Avery printed the images with help from Art Hazelwood on Hahnemühle Copperplate paper.

The images and the text are bound together in a book form with Japanese silk covers and an embossed cover image. The book has a dual function. It has a removable spine so that it can not only be paged through like a traditional book but it can also be folded out and suspended as a scroll from a cord attached to the book. Klaus-Ullrich S. Rötzscher bound the books at Pettingell Book Bindery, Berkeley, California.

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