California Time, by Gunnar Kaldewey

(Postenkill, NY: Kaldewey Press, 1987. Kaldewey, Gunnar. Folio. (36)pp. One of forty-five copies in a plexiglass binding by Christian Zwang of Hamburg. Signed by the author/artist/printer, Gunnar Kaldewey. With numerous monochromatic and two-tone illustrations. Written, illustrated, designed, and printed by Gunnar Kaldewey as Volume 5 of the Kaldewey Press series. In 1977, Kaldewey printed New York, his first book about America. Ten years later, California Time was published as a counterpoint to that volume. In it, Kaldewey offers his observations about California's landscapes, both natural and manmade, in prose that ranges from playful to bleak. He sees the landscape with an artist's eye, describing the "simmering city" and the "juicy orange of the West." These verbal images are illustrated in Kaldewey's stylized manner, including one double-page spread showing the Pacific Ocean in aqua and gray on a transparency. A remarkable production by one of America's leading contemporary book artists. Housed in an orange cloth folding box, lettered in silver on the front cover and spine. Together with the original woodblock to the first illustration in the book. Printed in silver, the illustration is of a palm tree, placed across from the text: "It is the sun, the cars and the palm trees. A lot of light. Everything has to do with light." The block was inscribed on the back by Kaldewey in 1988. (von Lucius, pp. 66-69).