Scope and Contents

Page 39 is titled Dante in Italy and Phillips writes, "Italy again in search of Dante with Beatrice.First to Milan to deliver Cantos to Henry and Alison Meyric Hughes & Massimo Valsecchi, Thence to Venice where my Virgil (W. H. Mallock) had lingered in A Human Document. thence to Manoria ..and to Raverna where D died and where his bones are now concealed..." Travels continued in Italy with a photograph by Pella of Tom in the doorway of Dante's tomb. The left side of the page contains several architectural drawings of chapel facades. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

On page 35 Philllps describes Dante in Columbia. He writes that on May10, 1980, "In Bogata giving lectures/film...First trace of Dante is this worst of all covers for the comedy." The paperback cover is collaged onto this page and it also contains a photograph of Tom wearing a sweater knitted by Astrid Furnival showing a head of Dante. Other collaged elements are an "el Diablo" match book cover and a photo from the Medellin newspapaer of a burnt figure. Phillips also writes that a street in Bogata is called Calle de Purgaturio. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

On page 36 Philllps has many small drawings of ideas for future works.iIn the upper left corner are two grid-like ideas for the Sackner Archive painting. Phillips also writes of plans for exhibitions of his work and disappointments. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

Page 37 titled "Thinking of Dante in Miami" Tom writes. " From Medelin via Bogata to Miami where I was met by thhe Sackners and taken to Venice (!). Marvin and I checked through his files: he now has a set of the pre-fire Dante proofs and is the first in the USA to receive his cantos XIII, XIX, XV, VII. Left an extra set with them .I will be powerfully represented in the Marvin & Ruth Sackner Archive of Visual and Concrete Poetry. Tom also describes a flashy Miami Beach party that he attended with the Sackners. The center large image on the page is a computer portrait rendition of Tom from a t-shirt purchased in a Miami mall. "Left on the 18th and back to Peckham and reality." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

Page 38 consists of a large collaged comic book image seemingly from Dante with two large nude winged super-heroes flyng into each other over the word SHOOOM. The border around this collage is painted in large stencilled letters and reads, "vandalised art work received from Nicks' vandalized and stolen vehicle" Around this border are double lines of Phillips' micrographic writing describing his work on the Divine Comedy project. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

The blurb on the back cover reads, "From the nine circles of Hell all the way to Purgatory & Paradise, a graphic adaptation of the classic poem as only Seymour Chwast imagines it." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

Although it is unlikely that Chwast was aware of the Dante paintings of Paul Laffoley, there is a similarity in the tondo drawing and the cartoon-like quality of the figures in the descent through the ten circles to purgatory, -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

This print is one of the proofs for the first edition of Phillips' Dante's Inferno. The completed prints were destroyed in a fire at the Editions Alecto studio and never published as an edition. Phillips subsequently redid the prints in a different manner although he borrowed some of the imagery from the first edition. The prints in a limited edition and a trade edition book were published by Phillips and Thames and Hudson, respectively. This print illustrates the canto in which Dore depicts Charon rowing a boat in the river Acheron in a lake with Phillips' comments from A Humument with the words, "bitter boating." This work was shown at the Sackner Archive during Art Basel Miami December 2001. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

This print is from the first version of the work which was mostly destroyed in a fire at Editions Alecto. Less than three copies of the prints from the first version survived. Some images of the prints were recycled in the second version of the book but this was not one of them. This print depicts blurred, Italian text in large, colored stencilled letters on a grey and brown background. In the left lower corner, Phillips has inserted a Humument fragment which reads, "yawning before him like a gulf in the depths of a dream the entrance to hell - memory as mourning merely - To the insensible." A handwritten selection in Italian from the Dante canto for which the print is illustrative has been placed in the upper center half of the print. Finally, Phillips has written 'NO' in the center of the print perhaps because he was dissatisfied that the handwritten text had not been properly centered. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

This print is one of the proofs for the first edition of Phillips' Dante's Inferno. The completed prints were destroyed in a fire at the Editions Alecto studio and never published as an edition. Phillips subsequently redid the prints in a different manner although he borrowed some of the imagery from the first edition. The prints in a limited edition and a trade edition book were published by Phillips and Thames and Hudson, respectively. The print depicts a bust of Dante with a Humument text that begins, " six now, - with him there, the foremost in Europe - that poets of poets..." This work was shown at the Sackner Archive during Art Basel Miami December 2001. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents This print is one of the proofs for the first edition of Phillips' Dante's Inferno. The completed prints were destroyed in a fire at the Editions Alecto studio and never published as an edition. This print depicts intertwined figures suggesting sexual intercourse. Part of A Hument page has been collaged onto the print with a poem that reads, "all the time -For all the time - a curse for ever! - a tissue of interlacing twofold consciousness - ourselves united - passion all the time." Phillips subsequently redid the prints in a different manner although he borrowed some of the imagery from the first edition. The prints in a limited edition and a trade edition book were published by Phillips and Thames and Hudson, respectively. Tom Phillips altered this image in Canto V in his final version of the Inferno such that the calligraphic text was eliminated, the background was changed from black to gray and pink, a giant phallus with balls was depicted, and only the Humument text without...

Scope and Contents

This print is one of the proofs for the first edition of Phillips' Dante's Inferno. The completed prints were destroyed in a fire at the Editions Alecto studio and never published as an edition. Phillips subsequently redid the prints in a different manner although he borrowed some of the imagery from the first edition. The prints in a limited edition and a trade edition book were published by Phillips and Thames and Hudson, respectively. The Humument text of this print reads, " master -- if these trees could talk, what hard observations were in that ache of wood." This work was shown at the Sackner Archive during Art Basel Miami December 2001. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

This print is one of the proofs for the first edition of Phillips' Dante's Inferno. The completed prints were destroyed in a fire at the Editions Alecto studio and never published as an edition. Phillips subsequently redid the prints in a different manner although he borrowed some of the imagery from the first edition. The prints in a limited edition and a trade edition book were published by Phillips and Thames and Hudson, respectively. The Humument text of this print reads, "truant and hiding, could I such a step? - I could I could I could I could I could - I must - a suicide of tragic temper - made mistakes with me - I long to come back to my face once more." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents This print is from the first version of the work which was mostly destroyed in a fire at Editions Alecto. Less than three copies of the prints from the first version survived. Tom Phillips annotated this print which he reproduced in the final version of Dante's Inferno. The calligraphic, Italian text of the poem on the bottom left corner of this Editions Alecto print was eliminated in the Talfourd Press version. Phillips' commentary in the Thames and Hudson edition of Dante's Inferno iconographical notes and commentary reads, "in a welter of fire Ser Brunetto [Dante's teacher Brunetto Latini] races away across the plain. The figure is from a watercolour that I made from one of Muybridge's indispensable photo sequences from 'The Human Figure in Motion.' Dante's teacher is here seen as if heading for the cloth of green mentioned at the end of the Canto as the prize in a foot-race (in which indeed the runners are naked). The green echoes the shape once again of the lawn of a 'Folly...

Scope and Contents

This print is one of the proofs for the first edition of Phillips' Dante's Inferno. The completed prints were destroyed in a fire at the Editions Alecto studio and never published as an edition. Phillips subsequently redid the prints in a different manner although he borrowed some of the imagery from the first edition. The prints in a limited edition and a trade edition book were published by Phillips and Thames and Hudson, respectively. This print depicts a side silhouette of Dante's face gazing at disintegrating fleur-de lyes. The Humument text of this print reads, "the fire-flies vibrate, some near, some distant. ages among the A pennines - speak stances What grand stances - o Italy - If ever I do resent- my music of the conscious pen - the din the clatter - clatter of purpose pushed." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

This print is one of the proofs for the first edition of Phillips' Dante's Inferno. The completed prints were destroyed in a fire at the Editions Alecto studio and never published as an edition. Phillips subsequently redid the prints in a different manner although he borrowed some of the imagery from the first edition. The prints in a limited edition and a trade edition book were published by Phillips and Thames and Hudson, respectively. This work was shown at the Sackner Archive during Art Basel Miami December 2001. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

This print is from the first version of the work which was mostly destroyed in a fire at Editions Alecto. Less than three copies of the prints from the first version survived. Tom Phillips did not select this image for his final version of the Inferno. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

This print is one of the proofs for the first edition of Phillips' Dante's Inferno. The completed prints were destroyed in a fire at the Editions Alecto studio and never published as an edition. Phillips subsequently redid the prints in a different manner although he borrowed some of the imagery from the first edition. The prints in a limited edition and a trade edition book were published by Phillips and Thames and Hudson, respectively. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

This print is one of the proofs for the first edition of Phillips' Dante's Inferno. The completed prints were destroyed in a fire at the Editions Alecto studio and never published as an edition. Phillips subsequently redid the prints in a different manner although he borrowed some of the imagery from the first edition. The prints in a limited edition and a trade edition book were published by Phillips and Thames and Hudson, respectively. The print depicts concentric, colored semicircles on a gray background with A Humument text that reads, " ten pungent valleys - they smell the wolves' haunt and continue." This work was shown at the Sackner Archive during Art Basel Miami December 2001. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

This print is one of the proofs for the first edition of Phillips' Dante's Inferno. The completed prints were destroyed in a fire at the Editions Alecto studio and never published as an edition. Phillips subsequently redid the prints in a different manner although he borrowed some of the imagery from the first edition. The prints in a limited edition and a trade edition book were published by Phillips and Thames and Hudson, respectively. The print depicts stylized raindrops and the accompanying Humument text reads, "down to position Three - pain, and this repeating wretched wretched rain - the wretched hours stretched and stretched intolerable. Each." This work was shown at the Sackner Archive during Art Basel Miami December 2001. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.