Arion Press is proud to collaborate with acclaimed artist Vincent Valdez to present Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Valdez has created 20 original pen-and-ink drawings—many enlivened with ink washes—to bring Vonnegut’s anti-war classic roaring to contemporary relevance. Two sweeping depictions of the destruction of Dresden in 1760 and 1945 appear on the front and rear end sheets of the Arion edition. The full suite of drawings reflects Billy Pilgrim’s fractured psychological landscape as well as the external collective psychosis of a world engaged in perpetual warfare. Altogether, the body of work coalesces into what Valdez calls a “visual testimony of transformation, hope, love, and survival in 21st-century America.”
Valdez worked at Arion Press for 6 weeks onsite in 2023 creating drawings for the book as the inaugural King Artist in Residence. This period of creative incubation nurtured a singular collaboration with the Arion bookmaking team around the design and format of the final presentation. The result is a remarkable edition whose unique binding evokes a military dossier with motifs derived from wartime ephemera in Valdez’s own family archive.
Limited to 210 copies. Quarto, 9-1/4 x 7 inches, 200 pages with 24 unnumbered pages for drawings with washes and color, plus 2 imprinted translucent overlays. There are an additional 8 drawings rendered in black only. 20 drawings in total, including the artist’s interpretations of Vonnegut’s 3 original sketches. Printed by letterpress from metal types cast onsite. Military dossier binding motif in a modified “dos rapporté” style, with paper over boards and titling imprinted on the front cover in red and black inks. Signed by the artist. Arion Press publication #126, 2023.
