Allen Ginsberg and Roy Lichtenstein: La Nouvelle Chute de l’Amérique
Initiated in 1991 by French publisher Jean-Claude Meyer and completed in 1992, this deluxe unbound volume resulted from a collaboration between poet Allen Ginsberg and artist Roy Lichtenstein. The book features eleven poems from Ginsberg’s renowned collection The Fall of America: Poems of These States, 1965–1971 (1972), which are printed in English with French translations and accompanied by ten etching and aquatint prints by Lichtenstein on Velin d’Arches paper produced by Albert Dupont at Atelier Dupont-Visat, Paris.
Lichtenstein’s colorful prints, made in his signature style, include both dense compositions of industrialized urban subjects, such as “Bayonne en Entrant dans NYC,” and sweeping natural landscapes. In keeping with the spirit of Ginsberg’s reflections on the United States during a culturally and politically tumultuous era, Lichtenstein’s print accompanying the poem “Amérique” reimagines the nation’s flag with diagonal red stripes and blue Benday dots, while the poet’s antiwar anthem “Hüm Bum!” is paired with an image of stylized explosions.
Publisher: Éditions du Solstice, Paris
Publication date: 1992
Contributors: Allen Ginsberg, Roy Lichtenstein
Printer: Atelier Dupont-Visat, Paris
Format: Twenty-five four-page signatures and ten etchings and aquatints in cloth case in cloth slipcase
Dimensions: 14 5/8 × 19 3/4 × 2 3/8 inches (37 × 50 × 6 cm)
Pages: 100
Languages: English, French
Edition: Edition 68/80 + 45 HC
Signed: Book: Signed on colophon by Allen Ginsberg and Roy Lichtenstein; Prints: Initiated and signed by Roy Lichtenstein
