Boris Eldagsen’s award-winning picture. A photographer...
recycling an inheritance
August 19, 2021
(updated August 19, 2021)
Published by jayInStudio
when the mother of my late partner, john reuter-pacyna, fled germany during WWII, she took only her most valuable belongings. they were limited to two suitcases. amazingly, one of the things she took was a 12-volume set of german encyclopedias attempting to show all the animals that lived on all continents, and in all of the oceans and seas.
i inherited that set of heavy tomes from john, and would sometimes leaf through them. the quality of the images was exceptional. all were original etchings and lithographs. with old-style german lettering that was nearly impossible to decipher. but i knew they couldn’t stay in my bookcase forever. something good had to come of them.
i ended up donating the complete set to my sister, chery baird. and she ended up producing 4 wonderful series of collages using their illustrations. she even deciphered the german enough to look up the animals in english, and added that information to the back of each collage!
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the four series which resulted were: Zoo Zone, Menagerie, Wildlife Preserve, and Dictionary Of Marks.
the Zoo Zone series use only black and white etchings, combined with chery-made papers, and are very wide: 7 x 26″.
the Menagerie series use only the beautiful old colored lithographs, painstakingly created before the advent of color-separation technology. those are 8 x 12″, or 12 x 8″, depending on their orientation.
the Wildlife Preserve series use the large black and white etchings. those are also 8 x 12″, or 12 x 8″, depending on their orientation.
the Dictionary Of Marks series are collages made from the small cut leftovers, arranged abstractly.
i am incredibly pleased that this inheritance has been used in such a creative fashion, and will enrich the lives of the many people who will acquire these collages. a fitting tribute to john reuter-pacyna’s mother’s preservation of them – against all odds!
