Untitled (Joyce Hartley), 2025

a diptych of 1) the pale turquoise blue cover of the first edition of james joyce's ulysses has the title and author's name in white, thin, serif typeface. and 2) the limitation page from the edition, which is printed with info about the first 1,000 copies, the paper they're on, and which are signed vs numbered. this one is number 478 of the edition of 750 on handmade paper, and it is inscribed below in black ink: "This copy of Ulysses belongs to me, Marsden Hartley, arrived in Berlin, April 1, 1922/ from Paris" which is kind of wild because it was only published a couple of weeks before that. Anyway, somehow Georgia O'Keeffe ended up with this, and then her groupie/handyman/caretaker/heir to her entire fortune and controller of her and alfred stieglitz's legacy, juan hamilton, got it. hamilton sold it in 2019 at sotheby's along with a bunch of other stuff. and now (as of feb 2025) he has died.
Study for Untitled (Joyce Hartley? James Marsden?) Or I should really just call it, “This copy of Ulysses belongs to me, Marsden Hartley,” 2025, prints of some kind, 4to, 242 x 190 mm

I have no idea why, maybe it’s the limpid blue of the unusually clean dust jacket, or the corny way he inscribed it with,

“This copy of Ulysses belongs to me,
Marsden Hartley,”

But as soon as I saw it, I wanted to make a print diptych of the cover and limitation page of Hartley’s first edition copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

OK, this isn’t why why, but I’m pretty sure I would not have thought of it without seeing Robert Gober Potato Prints BTS.

Oh, interesting, that was within just a couple of days of seeing these 1920s Marsden Hartley paintings.

[Also, though Arches is obviously everywhere, Verge d’Arches seems to be a term or paper type only associated with Ulysses and like two other works. Is there a backstory there?]

March 5, 2019, JAMES JOYCE | ULYSSES. PARIS: 1922; FIRST EDITION, MARSDEN HARTLEY’S COPY, formerly owned by Alfred Stieglitz and/or Georgia O’Keeffe and then Juan Hamilton [sothebys]