Hughes, Langston.

Sunrise Is Coming After While.

New York. Limited Editions Club. 1998. This Edition Limited to 300 numbered copies, of which this is #142. Signed by Maya Angelou and Phoebe Beasley to Colophon. Illustrated with Six breathtaking collage-like color silkscreen prints by Phoebe Beasley. Tall Folio. 15.5" x 20.5 Bound in full purple raw silk covered boards with gilt titled morocco label, inset to Front Cover. Encased in like bound, velvet lined Solander Box with gilt-titled morocco label to spine. Hand set typography by Michael Bixler in Perpetua, a typeface designed in the 1920's by Eric Gill.

Maya Angelou selected the poems and titled this masterful compilation of Hughes's work in addition to writing Forwards on both Hughes and Beasley.

The beauty of Beasley's work, it seems, lies in its truth. Her paintings tell stories about the lives of real people: the frailty of old age, the plight of the underclass, moments of intimacy, love, humor. Her work was described as "a visual facet of humanism," quoted in the Chicago Defender. "You have to subordinate emotion to good composition," Beasley described her approach to the Atlanta Constitution. "You try to put history in it but you need the composition, too."

Beasley's work is known worldwide and was showcased at the Holler Museum in Bonn, West Germany, in 1989. Her work also appeared at the Eva Dorong Gallery in West Hollywood, California (1983); the Phoenix Arts Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia (1983); Howard University (1984); Museum of African-American Art (1985); Artis Lane Gallery (1986); American Telephone and Telegraph Exhibit (1987); and the Gallery/Tanner (1987, 1988). In addition, she has an impressive list of private collectors, including Maya Angelou, Bill Russell, Winfrey, Ron and Charlayne Hunter Gault, Gordon Parks, and Marla Gibbs.

"Phoebe Beasley's beautiful collages transport you into worlds we move through everyday," says Gordon Parks. "Haunting male and female figures wander through abstractions worthy of standing alone.

A Very Fine, pristine copy, apparently unread. LEC prospectus laid-in.

Item #8568