Helfgott, Gloria ~ California
(1928 - 2007)

Editioned work by Helfgott
Bookworks evoking Helfgott's Jewish heritage
Heavens and stars bookworks by Helfgott
Words and language bookworks by Helfgott

Imagining Corners
By Gloria Helfgott
Pacific Palisades, California: Gloria Helfgott, 2006. One-of-a-Kind.

8 X 6 x 6" structure made of two independently rotating boxes. On the four sides of each box is a flap-fold (4 flaps per side) with painted maps. Materials: acrylic paint, Nepalese papers, Davey board, and wood. Housed in four-sided cloth-covered drop box (the four sides actually drop) lined with red ultra suede. The box sides are released by ribbons held by decorative beads. Signed by the artist on the bottom.

Gloria Helfgott: "The painted maps on the accordion fold are of the Northern and Southern hemispheres as they would have been imagined by an explorer in the Age of Discovery. The known names of countries during this period are hand printed under the title on the top of the box."
$2,000

Outrageous Women, Audacious Men
By Gloria Helfgott
Pacific Palisades, California: Gloria Helfgott, 2006. One-of-a-Kind.

Two irregular accordion structures, one of five panels with one end-panel split (about 13.5 x 19" extended) and one of three (about 13 x 12" extended). Each structure composed of Japanese papers over Davey board. The Outrageous Women panels consist of cream-colored handcut paper ballerinas on a black background; the Audacious Men panels have black handcut paper ballet dancers on a purple background. The larger five-panel accordion shows silhouettes of the corps d'ballet with choreographic footprints on opposite side. Housed in drop leaf cloth box lined with ultra suede. Box lid illustrated with two metal dance figures and cut-out paper title.

Outrageous Women, Audacious Men captures the magic of ballet – the seeming suspension of physical laws and the delicate complexity of intricate pattern. The alligatored texture of the Japanese paper echoes the simple-seeming yet complex balance of strength and grace.
$2,400

3 x Eva
By Gloria Helfgott
Pacific Palisades, California: Gloria Helfgott, 2005. One-of-a-Kind.

5.25 x 10"; 34 pages (including flyleaves), four of these being fold-out pages. Bound by Helfgott in purple leather with a 1" strip of tiny brass rods splitting the front board from top to bottom. Laid into a purple suede clamshell box lined with purple paste papers.

This book of homage is part Eva Hess, German-born minimalist painter and sculptor who died of brain cancer in 1970 at age 34, and all Gloria Helfgott, American book artist and aesthetic engineer, aficionada of private writing systems. The book points to and reflects both – minimalist design of thread, hidden and revealed by paper folding and cutting, captioned by enticing and enigmatic markings.
$1,800

Cast of Characters
By Gloria Helfgott
Pacific Palisades, California: Gloria Helfgott, 2005. One-of-a-Kind.

4 x 5 x 4.75" closed; about 29" open. Basically a double-sided accordion structure, with five linked boxes. (There is at each end of this basic structure a simple one or two section pamphlet, acting as preliminaries and free endpages and which make this work even more book-like.) Each box is divided front and back into two shallow spaces by a common solid middle, creating 10 spaces wherein Helfgott houses her collage, identifying labels or initials, and busts or small metal figures. Collage includes hand-drawn elements, photocopies (?), and colored papers. Busts cast by Helfgott. Housed in black cloth box with black ribbon pull.

Each page is diorama-like, a shallow three-dimensional collage with abstract and referential allusions to the characters using collaged papers, bust or figurine, and historical illustration. Among the cast are Cassius, Brutus, Tiberius, Pompey, Cicero, Augustus, Cassius, Caesar, Mark Anthony, and one your-choice character.
$2,100

Lives of the Saints
By Henri de Régnier and Gloria Helfgott
Pacific Palisades, California: Gloria Helfgott, 2002. One-of-a-Kind.

7.5 x 11" semi-circle structure. The core, interior and exterior, are covered by a collage made of strips (.25" wide) of colored papers. The interior is further semi-covered by similar strips of the same colored papers attached only at the top. This layer of paper strips, actually quite stiff as if sized, don't waft in the wind but do provide irregular texture. t varied heights around the interior walls 6 mask-like faces project slightly into this veil of paper strips, each mask mocha-colored, broach-shaped, and expressionless. Housed in maroon cloth-covered box with metal latch closure and lid interior lined with gold paper.

In a 1995 interview, Helfgott said that one of her goals was to create a walk-in book. This could be the model for that book. If this were 10 feet tall, like the cored trunk of a giant tree, covered in papers that suggest human powers of art and craft, graced by allusions to both passion and dispassion, this could be that book. Helfgott also was found of circles, cycles, things that don't end — the lives of saints indeed.
$1200

Le Vase
By Henri de Régnier and Gloria Helfgott
Pacific Palisades, California: 1999. One-of-a-Kind.

7 x 4.5 x 4.5". Eight pages (one for each line of the original French-language version of the poem) of cut-paper strengthened with acrylic paint in see-through plexi box. The pages hang from plexi dowels that fit into notches in the box. Each line is handprinted across the top of the dowel from which the page hangs. The entire structure housed in a gray cloth box with snap closure.

This visual presentation of the poem by French Symbolist Henri de Régnier (1864-1936) is an attempt to present the poem visually and, more or less, at one time. While you may extract each line and admire its colorful cutout rendition singularly, you can also look through the clear box from front, back, or sides to see the pages/cutouts from many perspectives at a glance. In addition, the structure invites you to hang the pages in any order, offering new visual and literary combinations and possibilities.

Gloria Helfgott (from her introduction to So-CALLed Books: diversity in artist’s books from southern California, an exhibition she curated in 1999): "As both fine art and sculptural literature, the artist’s book is a vehicle of discovery and as visually challenging as any painting, sculpture or other form of art, both for the creator and the viewer. The main difference is that the artist’s book is manipulatory and the iconography is not seen all at once."
$1,200

The Deep
By Gloria Helfgott
Warren, Connecticut : Gloria Helfgott, 1992. One-of-a-Kind.

8.25 x 16 x 5.5"; 16 pages. An unrolled scroll drapes through slits in the eight leaves of a stiff accordion (of purple canvas over paper?). The scroll is pierced with green and purple thread in no apparent pattern. Shells hang by green thread from the drapes of the scroll. Materials used: threads, sequins, shells, wood, nautical maps. Housed in custom cloth covered box for standing the accordion-scroll sculpture inside.

Book elements and sculptural elements merge in this nautically inspired work. The scroll laced through the accordion pages is a nautical chart (or perhaps charts) of shipwrecks off the Massachusetts coast. One side of the box is made of 4 flaps that fold out revealing sections of nautical charts. The lid, lined with nautical maps, bends back to form a stage that the accordion-scroll sculpture could be lifted to and displayed on as well.
$1,550

No Grater Love
By Gloria Helfgott
Pacific Palisades, California: Gloria Helfgott. One-of-a-Kind.

5 x 5 x 1" closed. (N.B. With Helfgott's books more often than not, using the term "pages" is misleading.) Two 8-panel accordions back-to-back (so the mountain folds open away from each other), sewn at every other fold to form 4 pouches. The outside (the side most easily seen) of each accordion has tiny line drawings of human figures in various bonding relationships (e.g. two figures coupling, a family holding hands) arranged in 5 horizontal lines, like a line of ants. Each pouch holds an antique grater with handwritten text. Gate-fold front cover tied with orange ribbon. Laid in cloth-covered clamshell box.

Gloria Helfgott: "The book offers a vehicle for exploring multiple variations on an aesthetic idea. My books challenge relationships between word and image. A title or a conceptual pun suggests the shape that the book will take. My first image is usually somewhere in the center of the so-called text, so that I can work forward and backward and am not locked into any preconceived story. I cut or open pages to reveal previous and succeeding images. Alternate materials and found objects drive an ongoing experimentation with solving imagery problems."

No Grater Love used an old-fashioned kitchen tool as a visual pun. Each grater "page" has handwritten text: passion fruit, hearts of artichoke,...
$750

Warren Woods
By Gloria Helfgott
Pacific Palisades, California:2004. Edition of 25.

9 x 15". Paper-covered boards with twig construction on front board. Boards open to reveal six overlapping woodcuts on each inside board. The six woodcuts come from a single woodcut printed on twelve sheets of 5 x 5.5” Johannot paper in 5 colors of waterbased ink. When arranged by the “reader” these woodcut pages, hinged so they can circle back and tuck into themselves, become cylindrical – or, more aptly, trunk-like. Hence, when book is open and pages are arranged or constructed, Warren Woods is revealed. In cloth covered clam shell box.

Gloria Helfgott had happy memories of her time in Connecticut, especially of the city park, Warren Woods. This artists’ book is intended to invoke those soft memories.
$650

Cairn
By Gloria Helfgott
Pacific Palisades, CA: Gloria Helfgott, 2003. Edition of 5 variants.

5.5 x 6.75"; 28 pages, including two fold-out pages and three pop-ups. One black stone with white markings attached to an interior page. Ink markings on Fabriano Ingres paper. Bound in yellow leather boards with black rock covered with white ink markings attached to front board. Housed in black cloth clamshell box.

The private script is based on the inscriptions found on the cairns of Ireland. The center section opens to display a display of interlocking spirals, also modeled on inscriptions found on Irish cairns. The yellow, black, and white palette may suggest phases of the moon and sun?
$650 (Last Copy)

L'Chaim
By Gloria Helfgott
Pacific Palisades, CA: Gloria Helfgott, 2002. One-of-a-Kind.

7.25 x 10.75"; 12 page-like surfaces, but because of folding and cutting it's hard to call them pages. One pullout accordion section. Paper-cutting and paper folding, with watercolor and graphite. Bound in blue leather with leather reversed, displaying the rough, textured side. Concentric circle accent of metal on front board. Housed in blue cloth clamshell box lined with Helfgott's pastepapers.

Helfgott's toast "to life."
$750

In the Beginning
By Gloria Helfgott
Warren, Connecticut: Gloria Helfgott, 1993. One-of-a-Kind.

8 x 9.25 x 1.5"; 5 pages. Modified double accordion with 12 folds of Arches cover paper. Interior pages slip into interior pockets of accordion. Pages painted, cut, collaged, embellished with beads and painted thread. Bound using acrylic modeling paste and paint on archival Bristol board. Glass decorations and collage accents. Painted threads tie closure on both sides.Housed in blue cloth-covered box with velcro closure. Box interior covered with blue cloth accented by handpainted dotted accents.

Gloria Helfgott: "In the beginning was the Word, the theme of the book. Each of the folds has a cutout of the first word of the five books of Moses and the "tablets" represent the text of the Pentateuch. The embellishment of the page is a metaphor for the reverence of the bible as sacred literature."

In 1995-1997 In the Beginning was part of a traveling exhibition to South American and the Middle East sponsored by the US State Department; from 1998 to 2005 it was part of Women of the Book a traveling exhibition that toured the US.
$1,750

Handwriting on the Wall
By Gloria Helfgott
Pacific Palisades, California: Gloria Helfgott, 1987. Edition of 9.

7 x 15 x .5" with 14 pages each 2 x 14" attached to back pastedown. Pages in black with a linear blue design are attached in a fan-like spread. Biblical text (MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN) embossed in blue on front interior. Pastedowns illustrated with idiosyncratic (and unreadable) script. 3 x 4" motif echoing the internal fan attached to front board. Black cloth-covered boards. Housed in black clamshell cloth box lined with black felt and with its white-paper exterior edges illustrated with Helfgott's idiosyncratic script.

A unique visual Interpretation of the Biblical story found in the book of Daniel. At a drunken feast hosted by the King of Babylon, a disembodied hand writes on the wall: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin. Only Daniel is able to decode "the writing on the wall" as a portent of doom. That night the King is murdered.

Handwriting on the Wall travelled extensively in the exhibition "Women of the Book" (1997-2001).
$900

Cosmos After Chaos
By Gloria Helfgott
Pacific Palisades, California: Gloria Helfgott, 2006. Edition of 3.

4 x 10.5"; 10 pages. Double-accordion structure with four hinged plexi-glass panels. Title page panel opens (like a simple signature) by ribbon pull and thus contains 4 pages. Housed in cloth-covered clamshell box with light blue suede lining.

The nine planets (including the since-demoted Pluto) appear as uniform circles, differing only in color, in a field of black at the top of nine pages. Beneath the black field are 14 lines (a sonnet?) of continuous but apparently random markings, something like an agitated EEG.
$950

Stargazing
By Gloria Helfgott
Pacific Palisades, California: Gloria Helfgott, 2006. One-of-a-Kind.

6 x 6 x 5" structure made of two independently rotating boxes (each 6 x 6 x 1.875"). The entire structure sits on a thin wooden stand and the upper box is topped by 5 thin concentric rings for diminishing size, like a cap. Materials: oil pigment, ink, and glass beads (representing stars) on acrylic-painted Davey board. Illustrations of constellations combine pochoir and ink line drawings. Housed in cloth-covered drop-top box lined in suede. Title on box lid. Signed on bottom of wood base.

Helfgott called this structure of independently rotating boxes continuous narrative. In this continuous narrative her original drawings depict early views of the constellations.
$2,000

Yesterday's News
By Gloria Helfgott
Pacific Palisades, California: Gloria Helfgott, 1997 - 2006. One-of-a-Kind.

13 x 10 x 1.5" closed; 13 x 80" extended; 8 page accordion with Japanese hinging. Each page is a collage using oil stick, acrylic modeling past, and red (Japanese?) paper on near-white Folio paper, all mounted on black museum board. Front and back boards covered in red ultrasuede. Design on front board suggests interior and includes title. Housed in a cloth-covered drop spine box with ultrasuede lining.

As with many of Helfgott's works, Yesterday's News deals with language and reading. Each abstract collage suggests a newspaper — columns of varied size and shape, text-like markings, written noise. What is black and white and read (past tense) all over?
$1,800

Rhetoric
By Gloria Helfgott
Pacific Palisades, California: Gloria Helfgott, 2004. One-of-a-Kind.

Four 8-page books, each 6.25 x 7.5". The pages of Folio paper are marked (decorated?) with ink, watercolor, crayon, and gouache. Murky red leather-covered boards. Housed in black cloth-covered slipcase (7 x 8 x 4") with wraparound spine and velcro closure. The slipcase is lined with red marbled paper, matching the color of the binding.

This is Helfgott's reaction to the rhetoric of the 2004 US Presidential campaign (although it could just as well apply to most public speech): discourse to produce an effect or to take up time and space. What appears to be text is striking – even interesting – but says nothing.
$1,000

Once Read / Once Red
By Gloria Helfgott
Pacific Palisades, California: Gloria Helfgott, c. 2000. One-of-a-Kind.

7.5 x 8.5" oval, 8.75" high. This section of an oval-shaped cylinder, covered on the outside by black leather with two red-paper insets shaped like Chechnya (?), is made of two hinged hollow sections, which divide it vertically and are hinged to be opened. The hollow sections are stuffed with red and white strips of what was once a text (unnamed) written in Cyrillic. When the oval is opened, the two rectangular "pages" created are covered with a map (transferred or photocopied?) of the southwestern section of the former USSR, with a central circular window (3.25" diameter), which puts a hole in the general vicinity of Chechnya. The window is covered with acetate on which is printed a blow-up section of Grozny (capital) and looks into a space stuffed with toy soldiers of red plastic. This is all housed in a 9.5 x 8 x 9" black cloth-covered box, lidded at one end. The lid has a flap which closes by internal magnets. An irregular piece of white cardstock with line drawings of armed soldiers, fallen bodies at their feet, is tipped on to the underside of the lid with the title (embossed or stamped? in red) on same lid interior.

The direction of this conceptual piece is much easier to see than the structure is to describe. This work questions the limits and durability of human institutions, of language, certainly of 20th-century map and nation makers.
$1,000