Peter Lazarov was born in Bulgaria, and studied there. He was trained in the classical tradition, centred on drawing, especially of the human figure. In 1991 he defected to the Netherlands, where he now lives with his wife and son. His engravings embrace bookplates and cards, but increasingly he is interested in book illustration and independent prints. His work exhibits an immaculate and detailed technique sometimes reminiscent of 19th century steel engraving, combined with the lustrous tone associated with eastern European work, particularly the Russian school. His approach ranges from realist pastoral engravings to semi-abstract and neo-expressionist pieces of great power, and often finds its inspiration in classical mythology and literary reference, while not being explicitly illustrative of either.

Recently, having spent some time in Japan studying mokuhan block printing techniques, his work has evolved further. His free prints, often very large indeed, typically combine blocked areas of pure colour with engraved images of extraordinary fineness and delicacy, and in the frontispiece of this book, traditional wood engraving is combined with a background of pressboard printed in contrasting colours. The artist has also created an unusual abstract pattern paper for the covers.

The blocks presented some new challenges in the presswork: the earlier blocks, from Lazarov’s Bulgarian days, were engraved on whatever wood could be found; they are endgrain blocks, but on a variety of different woods, and varying considerably in thickness. They are also much larger than most engravings Jan has printed before, which will explain our introducing this new larger format. In order to print them adequately, we recently added a Vandercook Universal III, which has a bed size larger than that of our Vandercook Universal I, to cope with some of the work.

This is the first of the Endgrain Editions to appear in the larger format.

Regular Edition: Quarter bound by Rasmussen Bindery in Sienna cloth and patterned paper, printed label on spine.
15 by 10 ½ inches [381 by 267mm]
132 pages. 150 copies.     OUT OF PRINT

US $1800