About Sunrise Is Coming After Awhile / Limited Editions Club
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on.
–From “Mother to Son.” By Langston Hughes.
From these glorious poems, it is easy for us to see why Langston Hughes is so beloved and admired. As is Phoebe Beasley, the painter chosen by Dr. Maya Angelou to illustrate these poems with her six colorful silkscreen prints. Phoebe Beasley is the only artist whose work has twice been awarded the Presidential Seal (Bush and Clinton). Her silkscreen prints express “the love and humor that come out of Black family life” in compositions that range from “wit to subtle beauty and tenderness, at times, reflecting the influence of Picasso, Lawrence and Bearden.” Dr. Angelou not only selected the poems and the artist, she also wrote the illuminating Introduction and the Afterword!
The Limited Editions Club was founded in 1929 by George Macy (1900-1956) to publish finely made and finely illustrated limited editions of the classics of literature - and of a few carefully selected contemporary titles. Most of the books were beautifully illustrated with original artwork by leading book illustrators. George Macy also commissioned some major fine art artists to illustrate LEC books with original finely printed etchings, lithographs, and engravings, which were bound into the books; including artists such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Marie Laurencin and other members of the Paris School of Art. He also commissioned a number of American masters of that period, largely from the Social Realism and American Regionalism schools of art. Included were Reginald Marsh, Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Steuart Curry. Sidney Shiff (1924-2010) acquired the LEC in 1978. Over the next decade, Mr. Shiff gradually changed the focus of the club, and eventually began producing only Livres d'Artiste illustrated with original artwork by major "fine art" artists, rather than by major illustrators and graphic artists. The artists commissioned by Mr. Shiff include such lofty names as Jacob Lawrence, Balthus, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Elizabeth Catlett, Francesco Clemente, Ellsworth Kelly, Sean Scully, Alice Neel, and others. When Shiff passed on March 18, 2010, his wife, Jeanne Shiff, became president of the publishing company. There has been no indication of future books in the publisher's pipeline.