[Libri] Art of the Book: Two by Two, Face to Face: A Conversation, 20 September, Mt. Holyoke

[Prof. James Wald (der Geist, der stets verneint)]

Mount Holyoke College Art Museum
20 September
7:00 p.m.

A Conversation Between Brad and Mark Leithauser to mark the opening of:

Two by Two:
Lines, Rhymes, and Riddles
September 4, 2007 through December 16, 2007
A BookMarks Exhibition

“Every good story is of course both a picture and an idea,” wrote  
Henry James. “And the more they are interfused the better.” James  
might have been writing about Two by Two: Lines, Rhymes, and Riddles,  
an exhibition that combines picture, poetry, and the remarkable  
talents of two brothers.

Brad and Mark Leithauser were born in Detroit in the 1950s. Brad, a  
professor at Mount Holyoke, is an award-winning poet and author of,  
among other works, Darlington’s Fall, a novel-in-verse. Mark, the  
chief of design at the National Gallery of Art, is an accomplished  
painter and draftsman. Starting in 1985, the Leithausers began  
collaborating on illustrated works of literature that have delighted  
their audiences.

The Providence Journal praised the brothers’ 2004 book, Lettered  
Creatures, as “a work of sublime charm.” “[Brad] Leithauser’s light  
verse moves nimbly among taut rhythms and relaxed, golden  
conversation, while on the other side of the spread an image of  
deeply humorous exactness lovingly looms.” The Washington Post  
described Brad’s poetry and Mark’s artwork as “living in a world that  
is filled with stuff.” Mark’s drawings “burst their seams (and  
border) with detail, often rendered with the objectivity, precision  
and finickiness of scientific plates torn from some old volume on  
botany.”

Two by Two, which will display the text of Brad’s poems alongside  
Mark’s images, is scheduled to coincide with the publication of the  
brothers’ latest creative endeavor, an illustrated volume of poetry  
entitled Toad to a Nightingale: Drawn-Out-Riddles. The exhibition  
will showcase original artwork from Toad and from Brad and Mark’s  
three previous collaborations: the chapbook A Seaside Mountain,  
Darlington’s Fall, and the aforementioned Lettered Creatures. The  
installation also will feature other of Mark’s paintings, drawings,  
and prints that either inspired or were inspired by Brad’s writings.