Rare Bookstore and Edition Frank Albrecht

Benn, Gottfried, „Der Stadtarzt“. With woodcuts by Felix Martin Furtwängler. 4°. Halfcalw with colored engraved woodblock in cloth-slipcase respectively cloth with mounted woodcut in board slipcase. 64 respectively 56 pages with 17 respectively 10 full-page colorwoodcuts as well as 6 woodcuts in the text.

Typesetting by Offizin Haag-Drugulin in the secondary bold Gill. Typographical lay-out and printing of the text on 250 gramme Hahnemühle-Kupferbütten (handmade paper) by Klaus Raasch, Hamburg. Printing of the woodcuts from the original woodblocks by the artist. The cloth-binding with the mounted woodcut and the board slipcases of the standard edition were produced by the bookbindery Steinkuhl in Hamburg. The halfcalw of the choice edition with the mounted original woodblock and the cloth-slipcase was made by Roland Meuter in Ascona, Switzerland.

The Press comments
Just in time for the Frankfurt Book Fair of 1996, a very special collection from the poetical works of Gottfried Benn appeared in Germany, a selection of those of Benn's poems which by their haunting imagery and perception mirror his experiences as a medical doctor. It is, above all, the juxtaposition of and interplay between Benn's poetry and the powerfully relentless woodcuts created by Felix Martin Furtwängler (born in 1956) that draw us into the extraordinary force field of this bibliophile edition. Benn's poems, taken mostly from Morgue (1912) and Fleisch (1917) disrobe the ego of any higher purpose and claim, limit it to its mere physical existence. They evoke a picture of the individual exposed in a world of war, disease and decay, a world in which only artistic form, where only poetry offers any last restistance. Vis-á-vis Benn's eruptive and yet strangely melancholic images: Furtwängler's apocalypticly expressive horror visions of a mankind marked by fear and powerlessness. Furtwänglers woodcuts figures do succeed in maintaining their autonomy as artistic impression of that total annihilation threatening man today. And yet; the depictions enter into a direct dialogue with their poetic counterparts: through their strong lines and secure balance of light and shadow, with their underlying pessimism, and not at least by representing a last, desperate revolt springing from artistic determination and will alone. The result ia a tableau that – crossing the limits of genre, style and generations – portrays both, human suffering from the pain of existence itself (Benn) and from the realization that survival of mankind as a whole is no longer assured (Furtwängler). Karin Clark in "Deutsches Ärzteblatt"

Stadtarzt
Stadtarzt, Muskelpresse,
schaffensfroher Hort,
auch Hygienemesse
großes Aufbauwort,
wunderbare Waltung,
was der Hochtrieb schuf,
täglich Ausgestaltung,
Schwerpunkt im Beruf.

Normung selbst der Gase,
amtlich deputiert,
ob die Säuglingsblase
luftdicht funktioniert,
vorne Prophylaxe,
hinten Testorgan,
und die Mittelachse
schraubt sich himmelan.

Zuchttyp: Faustkaliber,
strebend Buhnen baun,
Pol- und Packeisschieber,
Luftverdrängungsclown,
Rundfunk und Refraktor,
Wort verkommne Zahl,
Wort als Ausdrucksfaktor
gänzlich anomal.

Wunderbares Walten,
dort der Affensteiß,
hier der Hochgestalten
Licht- und Höhenreiß,
und als Edelmesse,
Gottes Gnadensproß,
züchtet Muskelpresse
Pithecanthropos.

Gottfried Benn, „Der Stadtarzt“. With woodcuts by Felix Martin Furtwängler. Large format. Printed on handmade-paper. Schriesheim, Verlag Frank Albrecht, 1996.

Choice edition in halfcalf with mounted, colored woodblock in cloth-slipcase with 17 signed full-page colorwoodcuts, 6 colorwoodcuts in the text as well as an original-collage as frontispiece. Limited to 10 copies, numbered from I to X. – ISBN 3-926360-10-0 sold out

Standard edition clothbound in board slipcase with 10 full-page colorwoodcuts and 6 woodcuts in the text, signed by the artist in the imprint. Limited to 50 copies, numbered from 1 to 50. – ISBN 3-926360-11-9 Euro 450,-

Single-leaf print with a signed colorwoodcut by Felix Martin Furtwängler as well as a signaturefacsimile of Gottfried Benn. Quer-Folio. Limited to 90 copies, numbered from 1 to 90. – ISBN 3-926360-12-7 Euro 75,-