War or Peace. Twelve linocuts by Noel Counihan. Poems by Jack Lindsay

Preface by Robert Smith. Melbourne: Gryphon Books, n.d. [1978]. Large oblong quarto, quarter maroon morocco with gilt-lettered boards in matching slipcase, numerous colour plates reproducing Counihan linocuts, additional suite of the plates in black and white contained in a stiff paper maroon folder. Limited to 250 numbered copies signed by Counihan Lindsay. Fine copy.

When Jack Lindsay saw Counihan’s powerful linocuts folio in London in 1950, he was moved to write a poem to accompany each of them. These poems, along with reproductions of the Counihan originals, together with some additional poems by Paul Eluard and Pablo Neruda, were published later the same year, again by Collet’s Holdings, as a booklet titled ‘Peace is Our Answer’. Born in the aftermath of the Second World War, the booklet bore a dedication to the Second World Peace Conference in Warsaw, and the original linocuts from this folio War or Peace were exhibited there in Poland, as well as Counihan’s 1951 exhibition in London (DIMMACK, Max. Noel Counihan. Melbourne: MUP, 1974, p.49).

Counihan returned to Melbourne in 1953, and exhibited these linocuts at Tye’s Gallery in a group exhibition with Vic O’Connor and James Wigley. They received wide critical acclaim, the review in The Age writes ‘If the War or Peace series of lino. cuts are not a convincing social indictment, they succeed as art through brilliant disposition of black and white masses’.

In 1979, Melbourne private press publisher Richard Griffin produced a new edition of the work, again titled War or Peace, offered here. It is a very different style of publication, housed in a half-calf binding and  matching slipcase in line with the emerging trend for deluxe editions, rather that the plain wrappers of both the 1950s editions. The 1979 War or Peace is really a reissue of Peace is Our Answer, as it contains reproductions of the original linocuts along with the various poems, which Lindsay and others wrote inspired by the original linocuts.

A fine private press edition.