80,000 word text and 160 illustrations including
original lithographs and multi-colour line blocks.
Limited edition of 150 signed copies.
Hardback with slip-case, 33.5 x 38.5 cm, 160 pages.
Price £1000 inc p&p.
In 1975, Bill Gadsby of the Gadsby Gallery, Leicester commissioned Rigby Graham to make some twenty paintings depicting his view of Leicestershire. They were for reproduction in a proposed book on the county, in homage to the lithographer John Flower who had, 150 years previously, produced his Views of Ancient Buildings in the Town and County of Leicester.
Gadsby's idea was inspired but he should perhaps have known his artist better. It is a tribute both to his courage and the depth of his pocket that he stayed with the project as it grew beyond his wildest expectations; for when the book was finally published in 1980 it contained over one hundred and fifty paintings, drawings and prints by Graham who had also responded to Gadsby's request for a little text to go with the pictures with an authoritative and formidable text.
The project was a tour de force; Graham's painting and text carefully put together by Trevor Hickman at his Sycamore Press, the whole fuelled by Gadsby's cash. An incalculable amount of time and energy and in excess of £60000 had gone into the making of the 150 copies offered for sale at what now seems a modest £500 each.
Professor Jack Simmons, Britain’s leading expert in local history, declared at the launch of the book that ‘during its making Graham's view has become a vision. One has to go back to 1823 and Turner's Richmondshire to find a topographical book of such stature’.
