With a series of 100 woodcuts, master engraver George A. Walker presents in black and white the portrait of a man whose life has played out among the grey shadows of the media industry.
Walker’s latest wordless novel introduces a measure of silence to one of the most outspoken and talked-about figures in modern Canadian history. The Life and Times of Conrad Black documents the eventful life of the Canadian-born media baron, from his earliest childhood influences, to his rise to power at the helm of Hollinger International, his membership in the British peerage, and the ruin of his business and his good name after being convicted of fraud. Stripped of the facts and circumstances but roughly ordered chronologically according key milestones in Black’s life, Walker conveys meaning not through verbal allegation, but through visual implication, presenting a unique perspective of Black’s life and the conditions that shaped it.
The Life and Times of Conrad Black is a story of wealth and power, perception and reality, truth and lies, but Walker’s images teach us that no story has only two sides. This story is a polygon of meaning, and no one side contains all of the truth.
The Life and Times of Conrad Black originated as a limited edition of 13 copies hand printed in Walker’s studio in Leslieville, Toronto.
221 Pages
8.75" x 5.5"
2013
George A. Walker (Canadian, b. 1960) is an award-winning wood engraver, book artist, teacher, author and illustrator who has been creating artwork and books, and publishing at his private press since 1984. For over twenty years Walker has exhibited his wood engravings and limited edition books internationally, often in association with The Loving Society of Letterpress (and The Binders of Infinite Love) and the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild ( C B B A G ). Walker is the illustrator of the first Canadian edition of Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass books (Cheshire Cat Press). George A. Walker was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Art for his contribution to the cultural area of Book Arts.
The Porcupine’s Quill is an artisanal book publisher that values the art and craft of the book in form and content. They specialize in acquiring work by Canadian authors whose voices are new, underrepresented or verging on oblivion, with a particular focus on books that represent the intersection between literature and other creative disciplines: between text and image, memoir and music, letterpress and offset.