Archivale of the month May - Artist's book

Peter Heckwolf: Ips typographus L. The spruce bark beetle or book printer, 1993

In 1992, the Anhaltische Landesbücherei Dessau (ALB) began to build up a collection of artists’ books. The state of Saxony-Anhalt has subsidised the purchase of artists‘ books since 1997 and since then the ALB, which is now part of the Dessau-Roßlau City Archive, has looked after and housed the state collection of artists’ books. Artists’ books are works of art that make the book the subject of an artistic endeavour. These books are published in small editions or are even unique. Artists’ books include book objects, colouring books and illustrated books. An artist’s book from the collection will be presented to the public in the city archive in May 2024. It is the volume ‘Ips typographus L. Der Fichtenborkenkäfer oder Buchdrucker’ by Peter Heckwolf, created in Kassel in 1993.

Peter Heckwolf, born in Dieburg/Hesse in 1957, is a freelance artist and has been artistic director of the printing workshop at the Faculty of Art and Design at the Bauhaus University Weimar since 1994. In the large-format book Ips typographus L., the artist makes the spruce bark beetle his ‘employee’. The original larval or feeding galleries of the beetle within the bark were printed directly onto the paper using letterpress printing. This beetle, also known in German as the Buchdrucker, is an important forest pest. The name Buchdrucker is explained by the similarity of the larval galleries to Arabic characters. The book was published in an edition of 40 copies.