Bruce Conner in Book Arts & Special Collections

Bruce Conner, photograph of Superhuman Devotion from cover of Philip Lamantia's Destroyed Works, 1962.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has an extensive retrospective of Bruce Conner's work on display through January 22, 2017. The title of the exhibition, It's All True, refers to something Conner wrote to a friend about how the media represented him.

We were pleased to find some of Conner's work and some Conner-inspired work in our collection, including the Auerhahn Press broadside Two For Bruce Conner, shown below.


Two For Bruce Conner, broadside, Auerhahn Press, 1964

Two Auerhahn Press books in our collection, which were printed by Dave Haselwood, feature Conner's work.

One is Philip Lamantia's Destroyed Works, 1962. The photograph on the cover (seen at top) is a reproduction of a collage by Bruce Conner entitled Superhuman Devotion, a work which is no longer extant. Contents of the book include Hypodermic Light, Mantic Notebook, Still Poems, and Spansule. This book was designed and printed by Dave Haselwood and Andrew Hoyem at the Auerhahn Press, 1334 Franklin, San Francisco, from monotype Caslon on a Hartford letterpress, and published in two editions: the first, limited to fifty copies, handbound in black Bavaria cloth by the Schuberth Book Bindery and signed by the author; the second, limited to 1,250 copies and bound in paper, which is the edition the library owns.

Another Auerhahn Press/Dave Haselwood book in our collection is Bruce Conner / Michael McClure from 1966.

Bruce Conner, cover of Bruce Conner / Michael McClure, 1966.

Their names are repeated on the title page to form a square which encloses a thirty-six point bullet point.

Bruce Conner, illustration from Bruce Conner / Michael McClure, 1966.

1200 copies were printed on sixty-five pound beige cover stock, saddle-stitched into 130 lb cover; text in twelve point Clarendon, and versos printed with Ben Day dot screen. Conner's illustrations alternate with McClure's poems. The original artwork for these images are on display in the SF MOMA exhibition.

Bruce Conner, illustration from Bruce Conner / Michael McClure, 1966.

A third book in our collection with Conner's illustrations was printed by Arion Press.

Title page from Todd Glen's The Ballad of Lemon & Crow, 2002.

Todd Glen's The Ballad of Lemon & Crow, "With illustrations by Bruce Conner and Anonymous Artists," was printed in San Francisco in 2002. The six images are photogravures from collages of wood engravings.

Regarding the "Anonymous Artists" Arion Press has this to say:

"After 2000 Conner announced he was retiring and would not sign or claim any new work as his own. Since then anonymous artists have collaborated to create additional work in a manner similar to that of Bruce Conner. We have no biographical information about the anonymous artists."

From the colophon:

"This is the first printing of The Ballad of Lemon & Crow. The edition is limited to 300 numbered and twenty-six lettered copies, each copy signed by the author and the artist. The book was designed and produced by Andrew Hoyem at the Arion Press with the assistance of Gerald Reddan, Leif Erlandsson, Shannon Kelley, Blake Riley, Charles Martin, and Katherine Case. Monotype English Old Style was composed and cast at Mackenzie & Harris by Peter Stoelzl and Lewis Mitchell. Printing of the type and plates was by letterpress. The intaglio printing of the photogravures was done by R.E. Townsend in Georgetown, Massachusetts. The text paper is all-cotton Ruysdael. The paper for the prints is mould-made T.H. Saunders buff loan. This is book sixty-three from the Arion Press."

Bruce Conner, photogravure, from The Ballad of Lemon & Crow, 2002.

We were really pleased to find more of Bruce Conner's work in our Little Magazine Collection.

In 1961, both his collage and poetry appeared in the first issue of the San Francisco little magazine titled Renaissance which was edited by John Bryan and later absorbed by Notes From Underground.

Bruce Conner, collage, Renaissance, #1, 1961.

Bruce Conner, poem, Renaissance, #1, 1961.

In 1965, his artwork appeared in the first issue of the San Francisco little magazine Fux Magascean! which was edited by Robert R. Branaman.

Bruce Conner, collage, Fux Magascean!, 1965.

In 1971, his artwork appeared in the first issue of the San Francisco little magazine Isthmus which was edited by J. Rutherford Willems and Gary Gach.