The first two volumes of Günter Grass' Catalogue Raisonné are published this season, and encompass his bestknown graphic work, the etchings (begun in 1972) and the lithographs (begun in 1975) - the fish, cockerels and rats, trees and mushrooms, portraits and self-portraits. Also included are unique creations in which Grass combines visual images with hand-written texts. Readers of his novels will discover a new part of Grass' universe, which, as he once wrote, is "of the same ink" as his writing. Before Gunter Grass achieved worldwide fame as a novelist, the future author of The Tin Drum studied sculpture at the art academies of Dusseldorf and Berlin. Over the past 60 years of artistic life, he has created not only novels, poems, stories and plays, but an extensive body of artworks in a diverse array of media. His writings are inconceivable without their visual counterpart for reasons both private and public. As a matter of method, during the slow, intimate process of painting, drawing and modeling, Grass develops the ideas for new novels. After he has finished a book, he moves back to his studio and his drawing table. As a matter of aesthetics, he created the dust jacket illustrations for each of his first editions, which has lent his literary works a distinctive unified style. These first installments of a five-volume Catalogue Raisonne encompass Grass's most graphic and best-known work-fish, cockerels, rats, portraits and self-portraits, Oscar and the tin-drum player. The complete five-volume Catalogue Raisonne will include his complete etchings, lithographs, watercolors, drawings and sculptures. Readers of Grass's novels will discover a new dimension of his world, which, he once wrote, is "of the same ink" as his writing; others will simply discover an accomplished, unexpected artist.
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