Etching on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
Dante’s Inferno
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/tom-phillips-1764" aria-label="More by Tom Phillips" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Tom Phillips</a>
colophon
Purchased 1983
abstraction
adults
book - non-specific
crowd
Dante, ‘Divine Comedy: Inferno’
dedication
female
groups
Hell
inscriptions
Judaeo-Christian imagery
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
male
man
non-representational
nudes
objects
people
quotation
reading, writing, printed matter
religion and belief
symbols and personifications
text
woman
paper print etching
[colophon]
image: 292 × 204 mm
Purchased 1983
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/phillips-colophon-p07989" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07989</span></a> <b>Colophon</b>
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<br/>Etching 11 1/8 × 8 (292 × 204)</p>
<p>Inscribed ‘Tom Phillips’ centre and ‘lxxxiii’ and ‘of the edition proper consisting of one hundred copies this is no.77’
<br/><i>Lit</i>: Tom Phillips, Dante's Inferno, 1985 (bound edition of the complete work)
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<br/>This work consists of Phillips's own translation of the Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. Each of the 34 Cantos is accompanied by an introductory image and then three illustrations opposite the text of the poem. In an introduction in a booklet published by Waddington Graphics in 1983, the artist writes:
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<br/>The Inferno is Europe's harsh masterpiece of eschatology: magnificent descriptions alternate with bleak but moving confrontations with the range of Man's baser potentialities; through these we come to know Dante's own beliefs, trials and visionary hopes. We also acquaint ourselves through his <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/n/narrative" title="Glossary definition for 'Narrative'"><span>narrative</span></a> with the complete scope of mediaeval learning: we see the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/renaissance" title="Glossary definition for 'Renaissance'"><span>Renaissance</span></a>, so to speak, at first light. However remote in epoch and name are the characters, time drops away and reveals to us real people: we recognise them and know their modern counterparts.
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<br/>Phillips's illustrations are intended to provide a visual commentary on the text. He has employed a rich visual language which includes some text treated as in his long series of ‘Humument’ works. In these, text from the same Victorian novel is taken out of context and blanked out with paint and other <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/medium" title="Glossary definition for 'Medium'"><span>media</span></a> to produce new meanings in a way related to some concrete poetry in which words are strung out down a page. He has also translated a wide variety of other kinds of printed imagery, particularly <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/engraving" title="Glossary definition for 'Engraving'"><span>engravings</span></a> and <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/photograph" title="Glossary definition for 'Photograph'"><span>photographs</span></a>, into these <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>prints</span></a>.
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<br/>Phillips began work on the Dante project in 1976 but a fire at the Kelso Place studios of Editions Alecto destroyed most of the first year's work. He started again, setting up his own studio in Peckham to be both print workshop and publisher under the name Talfourd Press (after the name of the road). Much of the proofing and printing was done there although Phillips also used the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/screenprint" title="Glossary definition for 'Screenprint'"><span>screenprinting</span></a> workshop Advanced Graphics and, in one instance, another screenprinting workshop, Coriander. The typography was done by Ian Mortimer and printed at IM Imprimit, using the typeface Walbaum. The work was printed in an <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/edition" title="Glossary definition for 'Edition'"><span>edition</span></a> of 185 copies in loose sheets; the edition was completed in 1983. Later, a bound facsimile edition was printed by Hansjorg Mayer, Stuttgart, in conjunction with the artist; this included Phillips's notes on each Canto and was published by Thames &amp; Hudson.
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<br/>This entry has been approved by the artist.
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<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/><i>The Tate Gallery 1982-84: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions</i>, London 1986
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<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-13T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
abstraction adults book - non-specific crowd Dante, ‘Divine Comedy: Inferno’ dedication female groups Hell inscriptions Judaeo-Christian imagery literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) male man non-representational nudes objects people quotation reading, writing, printed matter religion and belief symbols and personifications text woman