Description
This collection documents the publications and operations of the Trianon Press from the
late 1940s through the early 1980s. The collection contains production materials,
manuscripts, correspondence, publicity, and business records pertaining to both published
and unpublished works of the Trianon Press, general organizational records of the Trianon
Press and of the William Blake Trust, planning materials for exhibitions mounted to
publicize the work of the Press, and personal papers of Trianon Press founder Arnold
Fawcus.
Background
Trianon Press was a Paris-based publisher of fine art books founded in 1947 by Arnold
Fawcus, who directed its activities until his death in 1979, after which his wife and
longtime colleague Julie Fawcus saw several projects through to completion and closed the
Press in 1983. The first Trianon Press book, produced at the behest of the Louvre Museum,
was Les Baigneuses (1947) on the work of Paul Cezanne, facsimiles for which
were made by a unique combination of collotype and pochoir techniques developed by Daniel
Jacomet, whose workshop would be responsible for producing much of the most admired work of
the Press. Upon encountering Les Baigneuses while investigating adequate
means of reproducing illuminations from William Blake's Jerusalem, Blake
scholar Sir Geoffrey Keynes established the William Blake Trust, under the auspices of which
the Trianon Press would produce facsimiles, via the Jacomet process, of 26 of Blake's
illustrated works over a span of 30 years, from 1951 to 1982. In 1955, a second enduring
collaboration began between the Trianon Press and the Abbé Henri Breuil and his assistant
Miss Mary Boyle, resulting in several books reproducing the eminent archaeologist's original
hand-colored tracings of prehistoric cave paintings from Southern Africa. The Trianon Press
also produced seminal works of Marcel Duchamp, Ben Shahn, Fra Angelico, Gislebertus, Robert
Graves, and Aldous Huxley, and contracted with various clients to produce commercial
works.
Extent
576 Linear Feet
482 boxes, 1 map-case folder
Restrictions
Property rights for this collection reside with the University of California. Literary
rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. The publication
or use of any work protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use for research or
educational purposes requires written permission from the copyright owner. Responsibility
for obtaining permissions, and for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more
information on copyright or to order a reproduction, please visit
guides.library.ucsc.edu/speccoll/reproduction-publication.
Availability
Collection is open for research.