Hans / Jean Arps diverse visual oeuvreprimarily consisting of sculptures, reliefs, drawings, collages and printsis world-renowned, yet his sketchbooks remain relatively unknown. Twenty Sketchbooks seeks to remedy this by reproducing as meticulous facsimiles 20 of Arps small sketchbooks and spiral-bound pads, made between 1950 and 1966 and today held at the Fondazione Marguerite Arp-Hagenbach, located in Arps last atelier in Locarno, Switzerland.

This publication allows us for the first time to hold Arps sketchbooks in our hands and thereby gain new insight into his working processes. Some sketches reveal themselves as drafts for fully realized artworks, yet the majority are exploratory works in themselves. Twenty Sketchbooks contains over 400 sketches as well as written notes by the artist. The 20 volumes, each produced at its original size, are presented in a handmade box following the design of the carton in which they were found in Arps archive.



Limited edition of 1,000 boxed sets



Copublished with the Fondazione Marguerite ArpHagenbach, Locarno