The Sunne Rising (Number 4 from John Donne Songs & Sonnets)

June Claire Wayne

An image from the portfolio John Donne Songs & Sonets: Lithographs by June Wayne, consisting of 15 lithographs plus text and portfolio.

Lithos printed by Marcel Durassier (the French master printmaker who also collaborated with Picasso, Matisse, Dali, Chagall, et al); the typographers were Bruder Hartmann of West Berlin. Quoted from Mary W. Baskett's The Art of June Wayne:

". . . in the fall of 1958, Wayne was back in Paris doing lithographs with Durassier again, intensely involved with the Donne imagery, and intent now on publishing a 'livre de luxe' of the love poems. The result of a lithographic marathon which spanned approximately seventy days and nights between October 15 and December 25, 1958 was the book, 'John Donne, Songs and Sonets, Lithographs by June Wayne.' . . . The images themselves, have the power to change one's vision, to kindle a rethinking of the structure of the universe. They provide a powerful yet sensitive accompaniment to the poems."

Arguably Wayne's masterpiece, representing a watershed moment in the history of lithographic printing.