BOOKS: Cami Retrospective

If you like the work of the French engraver Robert Cami, then you could do more foolish things than try and get hold of a copy of the Robert Cami Retrospective, an illustrated catalogue of a Cami exposition held in Bordeaux in late 1978, early 1979.


Although it will undoubtedly not be a definitive list of all his work, it does detail quite a lot of it. And it starts off with a six page biography (in French only, as is all the rest) which might well come in handy at some later stage.


In total, over 350 works of art are listed, among which private engravings, ex libris, book illustrations (with information on how they're printed and whether they're in the book or included separately) and of course stamps. I'll show some of the stamps listed here in this blog.


I'm already tempted to go and find some of the books which he illustrated, or maybe get hold of some of the ex libris he engraved.


Stamp-wise there's not much news to be honest. What with his stamp work being signed on the actual stamps, there's no new issues to be discovered. The list indicates that it was mostly artists proof which were on show at the exposition though there were also a few which I presume to be progressive proofs (epreuve de travail). Unfortunately there are no illustrations in the stamp chapter, so we'll never know now.


Anyway, all in all a handy little booklet and I'm quite chuffed I tracked it down!

:-)
Adrian