Gabriella Solti, A Family Story, 2010-2013
limited edition artist book
(images are digitally printed on Epson inkjet printer, text is letterpress printed from polymer plates; paper stock is Ilford Galerie smooth matte double sided photo paper; front and back cover are made of aircraft plywood with red silk spine)
"A Family Story" is a limited edition photobook with text printed letterpress. The book is based on found photographs, beautiful Kodachrome slides from around 1960, that I found in an old plastic bag in 2005. After extensive research in 2008 and reading hundreds of pages of Holocaust era restitution documents an intriguing story has started to unfold that led me to the descendants of the Bloch-Bauer family, wealthy industrialists and prominent patrons of the art in early 20th century Vienna. The family escaped the Nazis during the night of the Anschluss and settled in Vancouver in 1938. They anglicized their name to Bentley, established a successful furniture veneer business which became later Canfor (one of the largest lumber companies in the world) and became prominent business leaders in Canada. During the Second World War they manufactured the plywood for the famed Mosquito bombers.
Still I knew little about the found pictures, the minute details that would make these images come alive, that would support my vision for this project that a life lived rests in the details of the everyday. Fortunately, when I contacted the Bentley family who are depicted in the pictures, and shared my goal with them to learn their personal stories and make a limited edition hand made book that combines the photographs with oral storytelling, I received generous response. Peter Bentley who was eight year old during the Anschluss invited me to his home and I heard stories from the lovely to the peculiar to the horrific, the real stories of his family. This book was transcribed from his oral story and so has his lively speaking voice. The beautiful images in this book, vernacular photography at its best, were made around 1960 by his father Leopold Bentley, a talented amateur photographer.
This book is still in the making (in April 2010). At the time I conceived the project in 2008 I had no experience in letterpress printing and not much experience either in scanning and preparing slides and photographs for high quality printing. It took a lot of time and a lot of hands-on learning and (costly) experimentation to produce the quality I envisioned. Indeed by the end of 2008 I found my project so ambitious that it scared me. I decided to learn letterpress printing by making another book, "The Sensory Delights of Text" first, a recent Alcuin Award winner, which I completed last year and returned to the Bentley family story in September 2009. I completed the printing of 10 books by December which is less than the final edition but the result is very satisfying. Binding the book on the other hand is more complicated than I thought. Finding the aircraft plywood for the cover in the right quality and right size is not easy. I found some good quality wood recently and I spend all my free time cutting, sanding and waxing the wood. I handmade the book clothes for the red silk spine, too. This project is a labour of love and my most ambitious project to date. I hope Mr. Bentley will enjoy holding the book in his hand when I will give him his copy at the end of the year. I definitely should finish all copies of the book by then.
