Chasewicz, Nil.Ex Libris: Bookmarks.Warsaw, 1992

Nil Kasevych. Bookmarks = Ex Libris.

Warsaw: published by the Ukrainian Art Circle “Spokiy,” 1939. — Printed by P. Szwede (Piotr Szwede), Warsaw; assembled by K. Kiezhowsky, printed by T. Urbanek. Limited edition of 200 copies: 25 bibliophile copies with the owner’s name and 175 numbered copies; this copy is No. 112. The woodcuts were printed by hand on handmade Japanese paper.

The publication cover is made of thick gray paper and fastened with two metal staples: the title “EX LIBRIS OF NIL KASEVYCH” is stamped in gold. On both sides of the cover is a trace of an adhesive label that once covered part of the surface; on the back cover, there are scattered spots. On the page stating the edition size is the author’s handwritten signature, which appears on every copy in the edition. Condition: good.

A lifetime edition signed by the author. Limited to just 200 copies—a bibliographic rarity. The woodcuts are works of art in their own right.

INFORMATION

The album reproduces bookmarks (ex libris) that Nil Kasevych carved and printed by hand before 1939. Among the reproduced works are the ex libris of the President of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in exile, Andriy Livytskyi, featuring a globe against the backdrop of an architectural structure; the mark “From the Books of Ivanna Levytska,” depicting a seal near an open book; and another landscape mark. The album includes a list of all the reproduced ex libris, stating the technique and dimensions in millimeters.

Nil Kasevych (1905–1952) was a Ukrainian graphic artist, later an underground artist and soldier of the UPA. Born in Volyn, he lost a leg under the wheels of a train at the age of seventeen; he studied at the Rivne Gymnasium and the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, and while still a student, became a co-founder of the Ukrainian art circle “Spokiy.” In the 1930s, he exhibited in Lviv, Prague, Berlin, Chicago, and Los Angeles; in 1937, he won third prize at the International Exhibition of Prints in Warsaw. During and after the war, he worked underground under the pseudonym “Bei-Zot”—cutting propaganda graphics for the UPA and designing awards and decorations; he died in battle with Soviet state security forces in Volyn in 1952.

The album was published by “Spokiy”—a Ukrainian art circle founded in Warsaw in the early 1920s by Ukrainian art students; Kasevych was a member from its inception. The edition was printed by Piotr Szwede in Warsaw in 1939, just a few months before the occupation of Poland. This is one of two pre-war ex libris albums by Kasevych—the second, “Ex Libris of Nil Kasevych,” was published in Philadelphia that same year, 1939—and, judging by the handwritten signature on every copy, the last edition the artist managed to release before the underground period of his life.