Jusqu’à

“Pierre André Benoit, known as P.A.B., left behind the work of a publisher, poet, painter and craftsman of the exemplary book. […] He followed no career plan but built his path through encounters, like an eternal idler. As early as the era of the Alès bibliophiles — a true portrait of the artist as young publisher — Pierre André Benoit understood that he wanted to make books devoted to the defense and illustration of poetry, in which the artist would be an active accomplice. Despite technical progress in printing and the growing stature of the artists he worked with, P.A.B. continued throughout his life to practice the art of making do on a shoestring […] In the rigor and respect of the spirit of the classical book, P.A.B.’s work is a rebuke to the cult of the beautiful book in pure Chiffonnière-mill paper with a covering of platypus skin aged in cask. The book is a modest and essential act. It may not look like much, but its content should delight the soul and the body” (excerpt from a text by Axel Hémery, Curator of the Pierre André Benoit museum-library in Alès from 1993 to 1998).

The few unique books of these poems, made for his own pleasure, were generally given to those close to him and are only rarely offered. We have recorded only about twenty of them, of uneven formats, although PAB must have produced far more.

A delicate binding by Julie Auzillon, using her Origata process, an aesthetic, lightweight and reversible binding technique based on folded papers, without glue or stitching.