Freya Diamond ~New Mexico

"Art of the Altered Book", Albuquerque Journal April 26th, 2013: "Former Los Angeles painter and designer Freya Diamond turned to book arts after taking a class on dreams from fellow Santa Fe book artist Victoria Rabinowe. Diamond discovered the form fit all of her skills - her painting and cutting and measuring techniques. She produces three-dimensional and collage work. Many open accordion-style with paper "flags" popping from all sides of the piece." Add this paragraph to the description of "Janet Fish"

Leonardo's Mona Lisa,
A Body of Work
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2004.
Open, signed and numbered, edition.

4.375 x 8.5"; six leaves. Opens to 20". Flag structure. Illustrated paper-covered boards with ribbon closure.

This bookwork is a variation of the Body of Work series in that instead of dressing the artist in works by that artist, Diamond dresses the subject of a famous artwork – Mona Lisa – in images from its creator's – Leonardo da Vinci's – body of work.
$225 (Last Copy)

Chinese Erotica
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2009. One-of-a-Kind.

4.25 x 5.75"; 5 unnumbered leaves. Opens to 25". Three layer carousel book with ribbon closure.

Several images from early Chinese art depicting couples in amorous sexual positions. The image on the top layer of the carousel book is one of a male voyeur, looking in on the young copulating couples.

China Club web site: "The origins of Chinese erotica can be traced back to a series of depictions of lovemaking found on sculpted bricks from the eastern Han period around the first century A.D. The date might be a little misleading as Chinese erotic art really began its development around the 10th century A.D., with the growth of the courtesan culture and the prosperity enjoyed by many merchant cities throughout Southern China."
(SOLD)

Dolls of Africa
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2011.
Open edition, each signed and numbered.

4.25 x 8.5" closed, extends to 20"; six figures. Flag structure. French Speckletone (text) paper used for the accordion.; King James (cast coated) for heads, bodies, and legs. All lined with French Speckletone cover paper. Arches Text Wove endpapers. Decorative paper-covered boards with paper title.

"Dolls of Africa" contain six three-dimensional images of dolls found in Africa. The dolls, from left to right: Ngide, Turkana peoples, Kenya; Tsobi, Ga peoples, Ghana; Namchi doll, Cameroon; Dibik, Watotoga peoples, Mangola, Tanzania; San peoples, Namibia; Ngide, Turkana peoples, Kenya.

"Smithsonian Libraries, Artists’ Books and Africa: Unique Visions: : "Pop-up books are familiar as children’s books, though they have a venerable more serious history. Dolls of Africa by American Freya Diamond is a simple, whimsical pop-up, revealing a panoply of beaded and bedecked cut-out dolls, borrowing from African dolls."
(SOLD/Out of Print)

Don Quixote,
A Cast of Characters
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2005. Open, signed and numbered, edition.

4.375 x 8.5"; six leaves. Opens to 20" . Flag structure. Photocopied black-and-white illustrations hand-colored by the artist. Illustrated paper-covered boards with ribbon closure. Paper title label on front board.

A variation of the Body of Work series. Using Gustave Doré's engravings, this bookwork presents 6 characters from Don Quixote, including Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and Dulcinea.
(SOLD/Out of Print)

Emily Carr, A Body of Work
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2010. Open edition, signed and numbered.

4.375 x 8.5"; six leaves. Opens to 20". Flag structure. Illustrated paper-covered boards with ribbon closure.

Drawing upon Canadian Emily Carr's work, inspired by the indigenous peoples and landscapes of the Pacific Northwest, Freya Diamond dresses the artist in her own canvases (Zunoqua of the Cat Village, Vanquished, and Sunshine and Tumult).
(SOLD)

European Erotica
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2009. One-of-a-Kind.

4.25 x 5.75"; 5 unnumbered leaves. Opens to 25". Three layer carousel book with ribbon closure.

From Art and Popular Culture website: "In Europe, starting with the Renaissance, there was a tradition of producing erotica for the amusement of the aristocracy. In the early 16th century, a woodcut album (The Ways) was created by the designer Giulio Romano, the engraver Marcantonio Raimondi, and the poet Pietro Aretino. In 1601 Caravaggio painted the Love Triumphant. The tradition is continued by other, more modern painters, such as Fragonard, Courbet, Millet, Balthus, Picasso, Edgar Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, [and] Ego Schiele, who served time in jail and had several works destroyed by the authorities for offending turn-of-the-century Austrian mores with his depiction of nude young girls."

This carousel book uses erotica from these earlier artists (Courbet's Le Sommeil is one). On the carousel's outer layer little cherubs innocently, almost obliviously, surround and protect the couples coupling within.
(SOLD/Out of Print)

Frida Kahlo
A Body of Work
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2003. Open edition, signed and numbered.

4.375 x 8.5"; six leaves. Opens to 20". Flag structure. Illustrated paper-covered boards with ribbon closure. Paper title label.

Freya Diamond: "I've 'dressed' Frida in her own artwork."

Her clothing comes from The Broken Column, The Love Embrace of the Universe, The Dream Bed, and Self Portrait with Monkeys.
(SOLD/Out of Print)

Georgia O'Keeffe
A Body of Work
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2009. Open edition, signed and numbered.

4.375 x 8.5"; six leaves. Opens to 20". Flag structure. Marbled paper exterior with ribbon closure.

Freya Diamond: "I've dressed Georgia in her own artwork."

Diamond has used several paintings including Sunflower and Red Hills with White Shell. The pastedowns are from Ink Moon and Blue Lines.
(SOLD/Out of Print)

Goddesses
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2011. Open edition, each signed and numbered.

4.25 x 8.5" closed, extends to 20"; six figures. Flag structure. Illustrated paper-covered boards with ribbon closure. End paper illustrations of Birth of Venus by Odilon Redon. Paper title label on front board.

A variant in the Body of Work series. It contains six three-dimensional figures found in paintings of women in mythology. They are from left to right:

1. Evelyn de Morgan by artist unknown
2. Spider Woman-Earth Mother by Frank La Pena
3. Diana the Hunter by Orazio Gentileschi
4. Cherokee Woman representing Selu the First Woman by Murv Jacob
5. (one of) the Elements by Diego Rivera
6. The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli

(SOLD/Out of Print)

Janet Fish
A Body of Work
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2009. Open edition, signed and numbered.

4.375 x 8.5"; six leaves. Opens to 20". Flag structure. Illustrated paper-covered boards with ribbon closure. Paper title label on front board.

Janet Fish and her art work are featured in this Body of Work piece. As is the norm, the artist is dressed in her own artwork. Boston-born Fish studied sculpture and printmaking at Smith College and Skowhegan Summer School, and was one of the first women artists to receive an MFA from Yale in 1963.

Wikipedia (7/9/2021): " Janet Fish (born May 18, 1938) is a contemporary American realist artist. Through oil painting, lithography, and screenprinting, she explores the interaction of light with everyday objects in the still life genre. Many of her paintings include elements of transparency (plastic wrap, water), reflected light,[1] and multiple overlapping patterns depicted in bold, high color values. She has been credited with revitalizing the still life genre."
(SOLD/ Out of Print)

Mary Cassatt,
A Body of Work
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2004. Open, signed and numbered, edition.

4.375 x 8.5"; six leaves. Opens to 20". Flag structure. Marbled paper exterior with ribbon closure.

The work of American painter and printmaker Mary Stevenson Cassatt (1844-1926) highlighted the lives of women, with special emphasis on mothers and children.

In depicting Cassatt's wardrobe of six dresses, Diamond has used several paintings including the portrait Woman in a Loge. In addition, the pastedowns are images of In the Garden.
(SOLD/Out of Print)

Matisse Odalisques
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2007. Open edition.

4 x 5.75"; five leaves. Carousel structure with five openings, each three-layered. Illustrated paper-covered boards with ribbon closure.

Diamond uses works like Odalisque with Magnolias and Odalisque sur fond rouge to form a theater in the round.

On the subject of odalisques Matisse with characteristic honesty said: "I do odalisques in order to do nudes."
(SOLD/Out of Print)

Matisse Odalisques of Other Artists
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2007. Open edition.

4 x 5.75"; five leaves. Carousel structure with five openings, each three-layered. Illustrated paper-covered boards with ribbon closure.

In this theater in the round, Freya Diamond has used Matisse "painting other artists' models in his studio setting." Matisse had arranged an Oriental alcove in his Nice apartment.

Artists' work featured are from the left: Magritte, Modigliani, Cezanne, Botero, Dufy
(SOLD)

Miriam Schapiro,
A Body of Work
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2004. Open, signed and numbered, edition.

4.375 x 8.5"; six leaves. Opens to 20". Flag structure. Illustrated paper-covered boards with ribbon closure.

"Miriam Schapiro (b Toronto, 15 Nov 1923). American painter and collagist of Canadian birth. ... In the 1950s she specialized in gestural abstractions and in the 1960s in hard-edge paintings. In the 1970s Schapiro developed a method of collage, assemblage, and painting that used found or saved material relating to women's lives and traditionally female skills such as embroidery and quilting, calling it femmage." (answers.com)

Robert Yassin, Executive Director, Tucson Museum of Art, from the
introduction of the exhibition catalogue Miriam Schapiro: Works on Paper: A Thirty Year: Retrospective: "Few artists occupy a more imposing position in the history of contemporary art than Miriam Schapiro. Through the extraordinary body of work she has created over the past half century, and the example she has set for women artists everywhere as a leading figure in the feminist art movement, Ms. Schapiro has had a profound impact on the art world."

Diamond has created six dresses for Schaprio using the artist's work. The pastedowns are from Moving Away.
(SOLD/Out of Print)

New Mexican Santos
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2009. Open Edition.

4.25 x 8.5"; 6 figures. Flag structure. Ribbon closure. French Speckletone (text) paper used for the accordion; King James (cast coated) for heads, bodies, and legs. All lined with French Speckletone cover paper. Arches Text Wove endpapers. Decorative paper-covered boards with paper title.

A variant in the Body of Work series. It contains six three dimensional figures of New Mexico's carved Santos: Our Lady of Solitude, ca 1860 -1880; Our Lady of Sorrows, ca 1875-1907; Saint Lucy, ca 1988; Saint Agnes, ca 1991; The Virgin Mary, ca 1996; and Saint Gertrude, ca 1997.

Santos of New Mexico, Collector's Guide: "Four hundred years ago, the Spanish came to the New World and brought significant changes. One of the most lasting changes was their faith, Catholicism. Santos (painted and carved images of saints) have lived in the homes of Hispanic New Mexican as well as Native American families for hundreds of years. The missionary priests needed 'visual aids' to help explain the stories of the saints and the Passion of Christ to the native peoples and used printed images from Spain. At first, some statues were brought from Spain and Mexico, but the responsibility for making santos was handled by Franciscan friars and then by local craftspersons and artists, many of whom set up schools.... Village processions and celebrations centered around the treasured santos that were on display in the church and morada."
(SOLD/Out of Print)

Picasso's Dora Maar
A Body of Work
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2009. Open edition, signed and numbered.

4.375 x 8.5"; six leaves. Opens to 20". Flag structure. Illustrated paper-covered boards with ribbon closure. Paper title label on front board.

A variant in Diamond's Body of Work series, this one based on work produced by Pablo Picasso using Dora Maar, his companion of the late 1930s and early 1940s, as the model.
(SOLD/Out of Print)

Picasso's Marie Thérèse
A Body of Work
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2010. Open, signed and numbered.

4.375 x 8.5"; six leaves. Opens to 20". Flag structure. Illustrated paper-covered boards with ribbon closure. Paper title label on front board.

A part of Diamond's Body of Work series. In this variation she dressed the artist's model in canvases she appears in. Marie Thérèse Walter was Picasso's model from 1927 to about 1935 (and was the mother of his daughter, Maya Widmaier-Picasso).
(SOLD/Out of Print)

Tamara de Lempicka
A Body of Work
By Freya Diamond
Sante Fe, New Mexico: Freya Diamond, 2009. Open Edition.

4.375 x 8.5"; six leaves. Opens to 20". Flag structure. Illustrated
paper-covered boards with ribbon closure. Paper title label.

Tamara de Lempicka (1898 - 1980) is best known for her Art Deco-mode portraits in which stylishly dressed woman celebrate themselves with in-your-face frankness.

Drawing upon Lempicka's works including Portrait of Mrs M, Portrait of Ira P, Young Lady with Gloves, Woman in a Yellow Dress, and Portrait of the Duchess de la Salle. Diamond dresses Lempicka in a wardrobe of her own art.
(SOLD/Out of Print)