Books published by Four Corners Books

St. Ives: Tate St. Ives, 06/26/07-09/23/07

Young Jim Hawkins has no reason to suspect that Billy Bones, the pensioner who has taken up residence in his father's inn, is anything other than an aging former mariner. But when violent altercations with visitors to the inn leave Billy on death's doorstep, Jim discovers that they all are members of the crew of the notorious pirate Captain Flint, and that Billy has a map that shows the whereabouts of Flint's buried treasure. . . First serialized in a children's magazine between 1881 and 1882 as a coming-of-age story for young readers, Treasure Island has transcended its time and intended audience. Robert Louis Stevenson's novel forged the template for the tale of pirate adventure, and many of its dramatic elements--including buried treasure, treasure maps, and pirate oaths, among others--have become iconic parts of virtually every pirate adventure story written in its wake.

"Girls are powerful" the '70s feminist posters of See Red Women's WorkshopA feminist silkscreen poster collective founded in London in 1974 by three former art students, the See Red Women's Workshop grew out of a shared desire to combat sexist images of women and to create positive and challenging alternatives. Women from different backgrounds came together to make posters and calendars that tackled issues of sexuality, identity and oppression. With humor and bold, colorful graphics, See Red expressed the personal experiences of women as well as their role in wider struggles for change. Written by See Red members, detailing the group's history up until the closure of the workshop in 1990, and with a foreword by celebrated feminist historian Sheila Rowbotham, See Red Women's Workshop features all of the collective's original screenprints and posters. Confronting negative stereotypes, questioning the role of women in society, and promoting women's self-determination, the power and energy of these images reflect an important and dynamic era of women's liberation--with continued relevance for today.

Postgate & Firmin produced some of the best-loved British children's television of the 1960s and '70s, including Bagpuss, The Clangers and Ivor the EngineWorking from a cowshed on a farm in Kent, Oliver Postgate (1925-2008) and Peter Firmin (born 1928) produced some of the best-loved British children's animated television of the 1960s and 1970s. Their iconic productions include Bagpuss (originally aired in 1974), The Clangers (1969-74), Ivor The Engine (1975-77), Pogles' Wood (1966-68) and Noggin The Nog (1959-65). Postgate and Firmin worked together from 1959 through the 1980s, creating popular, beloved characters that appealed to children and their parents alike, like the whistling, mousy Clangers (knitted by Firmin's wife Joan in bright pink wool) in outer space, the saggy, baggy cloth cat Bagpuss and the mild-mannered Viking boy Prince Noggin. Firmin painted the backdrops and created the models, and Postgate wrote scripts, did the stop-motion filming and frequently recorded the kindly, avuncular narration. This book, which includes a preface by Postgate's son Daniel, presents the Smallfilms archive: the puppets and cutouts from these shows (including some of the characters who didn't quite make the cut), along with insights into how they were created. The emphatically handmade models and painstakingly drawn illustrations that came to life in the Smallfilms productions are captured here in attentive, detailed photographs. The archive is presented like "a collection of artifacts in an exhibition detailing some much-admired twentieth-century art movement, like Fluxus or Dada," as acclaimed English stand-up comedian Stewart Lee notes in his introduction. The Art of Smallfilms, full of pipe cleaners, cotton balls, wire and ping-pong balls, celebrates the imagination and ingenuity of two artists who shaped a generation's childhood.

In Prison Landscapes artist Alyse Emdur (born 1983) presents over 100 photographs of prison inmates presenting themselves in front of the idealized landscapes of painted visiting-room backdrops, posing with their visitors and pretending, for a moment, that they are elsewhere. Prison Landscapes explores this little-known genre of painting and portraiture seen only by inmates, visitors and prison employees. Created specifically for escape and self-representation, the paintings of tropical beaches, waterfalls, mountain vistas and cityscapes invite sitters to engage in fantasies of freedom. Prison Landscapes offers viewers a rare opportunity to see America's incarcerated population, not through the usual lens of criminality, but through the eyes of inmates' loved ones. The book includes correspondence with prisoners and an interview with prison artist Darrell Van Mastrigt.