Artist Member
Accordion format book; Gelplate monoprints using Speedball woodblock inks on Bond paper and backed with color plan monoprints of the same inks. The cover is gelplate printed book cloth. All type is letterpress printed handset type except the poem (Come Summer by the artist) is from a photopolymer plate. End sheets are Canson Mi Teintes printed with the same monoprint process
Closed: 8.5″w x 11.5″h x .5″d
Open: 6’ 7.5″ w x 11.5″ h 2025
The covers are on the interior and act as a spine to allow the pages to stand as an accordion and be viewed from both sides like a bird’s wings. With an oversized brush on large sheets of paper, the ink is expressively painted in broad and flowing strokes. When folded down, the scale of the marks is magnified and contrasted to the handwritten text and highlights the force of the gesture. Poem is by the artist
Two sheets of 38″ x 26″ paper, folded to 13.5″ x 10″
79″w x 26″h when flat
2021
Modified accordion structure with a fore-edge gusset as a binding. Printed as an inkjet on Awagami Hosho paper and contained in a case structure. The image here shows all the large spreads as a grid. The small gussets are a medical evaluation of brain scans.
Closed: 8″w x 11″h x .75″d
2026
BIO
Richard Reitz Smith is an artist and designer who creates work within the fine arts as a painter, printmaker and book artist. He teaches workshops in the same disciplines and holds a BFA in fine art (painting and illustration) from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA in graphic design from Tyler School of Art. He has worked professionally as a package designer, brand developer, illustrator, teacher/professor and more. His work is included in private and public collections including University of Oxford Bodleian Library, Yale University Beinecke Special Collections Library, and more. Richard teaches workshops upon request in a variety of mediums and techniques: box structures, printmaking, book forms and more.