OHA 1992

Primo Levi in the stars

Art: Begun early 1990’s; completed 2003.
Media: linoleum block.
Block (image) size: 14.5 in. H x 21

Some proofs are titled Primo Levi in the clouds.
Some proofs are color; some black & white.

One proof was printed of the first state, which has white penciled notes drawn on it for planned cutting on the block. After  I had inadvertently left it in my kitchen over for too long (only noticed when I smelled acrid smoke) I saw that the entire surface had bubbled. I then shelved the block for some years before I resumed printing proofs from it.

Collections:
Alaska Jewish History Museum, Anchorage. Gift of Eric Tabb.
Atlantic Human Rights Centre, St. Thomas University, Frederickton, New Brunswick, Canada. Gift of the artist.
~
A 3 min., 3 sec. video of a proof of the lino
~
Born in 1911, Primo Levi was raised in a secular Jewish home in Turin, Italy. He studied chemistry. Arrested for anti-Fascist activities, he was deported to Auschwitz where he was slave laborer in a sub-camp of I.G. Farben, the German industrial corporation.
~
In the post-war years he worked as chemist and became internationally acclaimed as a writer of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and sci-fi. Levi died in 1987. Segan’s favorite writings of Levi are The Periodic Table (Il Sistema Periodico); and Moments of Reprieve (Lilit e altri racconti). His best known works address the Shoah (Holocaust).

The Mirror Maker (Schocken Books, NY, 1989) is a collection of sci-fi and fantasy stories.