Prints in the Desert - New Mexico (a portfolio)

Adja Yunkers

This portfolio is Vol. I, No. I, Autumn 1950, the first project by Rio Grand Graphics, edited and published by Adja Yunkers, with assistant editor and treasurer Frederick O'Hara. It includes works by serveral artists and features 6 woodcuts (including the cover), 1 lithograph, 1 watercolor, 1 monospray, 1 linocut, 2 photographs, and typeset poems and prose. The portfolio forward states:

"'Prints in the Desert' is the result of a common effort by the artists represented in this issue; originated by and realized under the guidance of Adja Yunkers, 'Prints in the Desert' came into being for the fun of doing it, to "restore the hand to the printing art and to project a collaboration between the graphic arts and poetry.....The fact that each print in this issue is printed by hand and signed by the artist; that in case of the monotypes, each copy contains a different version, that in each copy there is a different child's paonting or drawing....there are only 220 numbered copies, of which only 200 will be available."

The front and back covers are by Adja Yunkers, woodcuts printed on a rough brown oil paper. Inside are poems or artworks by: Kenneth Lash (A Desert Tune), Frederick O'Hara ("Koshare", 2-color lithograph), Ramon Sender (Gloss of Certitiude), A. Jarrett (photograph), Edwin Honig (Again), Adja Yunkers ("Succubae", 6-color woodcut), Edwin Honig (The Headhunters), Robert Walters ("Whorlworm", 3-color woodcut), Jack Garver (Scribbling has Meaning), an anonymous child's watercolor, Jack Garver ("De Chaco", monospray), Vincent Garoffolo (Dance of the Dossier), an anonymous child's vignette, Herbert Goldman (photograph of a sculpture - Laminated Redwood), Elmer Gorman ("This Sand" - cut by Frederick O'Hara in wood).