William Allen Word & Image

William Allen Word & Image Artist Books | Ephemera | Multiples | Artworks | Manuscripts | Archives | Conceptual Art | Avant Garde| Mail Art | Concrete Poetry

William Allen Word & Image specialises in the works of Ian Hamilton Finlay; Dom Sylvester Houedard; Concrete Poetry; Visual Poetry; European and South American Avant Garde; Conceptual Art; Artist’s books and ephemera; modern poetry; art theory publications and small press archives.

Ferdinand Kriwet, Sehtexte: Rundscheiben, Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg, Koln, 1960 – 63 (printed 1970). 600 x 600mm each. ...
20/02/2026

Ferdinand Kriwet, Sehtexte: Rundscheiben, Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg, Koln, 1960 – 63 (printed 1970). 600 x 600mm each.

Installation view from ‘Texto + Contexto’, 2017 at Espacio El Dorado, Bogota (curated by William Allen).

These ten circular concrete poetry works were printed in 1970 from a series of twelve Rundscheiben original works by Kriwet. Ferdinand Kriwet was an early pioneer of concrete and visual poetry in Germany. The concrete poetry scholar, Dr Christoph Schulz has given a paper on homosexuality in Kriwet’s work at the Centre Pompidou, which discusses the Rundscheiben series:

“Kriwet mixes words and word meanings from twenty-two different languages, dialects, and sociolects. There are many common languages involved, but also historical and forgotten languages. Rotwelsch may be the most curious language he frequently refers to. The roots of this language go back to the late Middle Ages and etymologically the word “Rotwelsch” can be traced back to the meaning of “deceitful speech.” Many terms have their origins in the languages of the Sinti and Romani and in Yiddish. For the most part, however, German terms are used but they often have a completely different meaning. Rotwelsch was a kind of secret code formerly common among traveling craftspeople and vagrants, and also among criminals––thus for people who moved “outside” of society and its conventions. It stands to reason that Kriwet harbored not only a fascination with their language but also had a sympathy for their outsider status, with which he identified.”

Portrait of Kriwet from the anthology IMAGED WORDS & WORDED IMAGES (Edited by Richard Kostelanetz, New York, 1970.

Guillermo Deisler (ed.), UNI/vers(;) 6, Visual and Experimental Poetry Portfolio - Peacedream Project, Halle/Saale, 1990...
29/01/2026

Guillermo Deisler (ed.), UNI/vers(;) 6, Visual and Experimental Poetry Portfolio - Peacedream Project, Halle/Saale, 1990. Edition of 100. UNI/vers(;) (1987 - 1995) was an assembling mail art magazine, edited by Guillermo Deisler and published in Halle (Saale) in East Germany, where he lived and worked as a stage designer. Deisler had previously been a teacher of graphic art at the University of Chile, before Pinochet came to power, when he subsequently was arrested, before being allowed to go into exile in Europe. In 1986, after 12 years in Bulgaria, Deisler settled in Halle, from which 35 issues of UNI/vers(;) were published. In the early 1960s, he published the visual poetry periodical mimbre (willow rod) through his Ediciones Mimbre, presenting the work of Latin American artists. An active figure in the international mail art community, his collection is now held at the Academy of the Arts, Berlin. This magazine includes original mail art works by various international contributors, including Geza Perneczky, Klaus Groh, Ryosuke Cohen, Ulrich Tarlatt, Jose M de la Pezuela, Giorgia Malossi, César Figueiredo, Shigeru Nakayama, Shozo Shimamoto, Pascal Lenoir and others.

Geza Perneczky, 500 Marxist Cells, the artist, Köln, 1983. 162 x 115mm. Rubber stamped book housed in red stamped envelo...
19/01/2026

Geza Perneczky, 500 Marxist Cells, the artist, Köln, 1983. 162 x 115mm. Rubber stamped book housed in red stamped envelope with the number ‘00402’ of 500 copies. Published on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Karl Marx’s death. Hand-stamped pages in red, blue, brown and black ink. Signed by the artist.

Yoko Terauchi, Loop & Pool, Cairn Gallery, Nailsworth, 1990. Artist invitation card, hand-painted and torn by the artist...
15/01/2026

Yoko Terauchi, Loop & Pool, Cairn Gallery, Nailsworth, 1990. Artist invitation card, hand-painted and torn by the artist. 108 x 150mm. Terauchi’s sculpture and bookworks often explore the limits of space and materials such as paper. One of her most well-known bookworks is Ebb & Flow, Coracle Press, 1988, which involves torn pages with red and blue pigment. This invitation very much reflects that work. The title Loop & Pool would seem to relate to the river underneath the Day’s Mill location of the Cairn Gallery in 1990.





A Christmas exhibition by at Agora Studio, Maastricht, 1977 that involved untuned television sets with snow-like screen...
18/12/2025

A Christmas exhibition by at Agora Studio, Maastricht, 1977 that involved untuned television sets with snow-like screens. Invitation card and nine paintings on stickers.

Season’s Greetings from everyone at William Allen Word & Image.

1. John Sharkey, Openwordrobe/filmpoem, 1966. 596 x 273mm. The phrase ‘&Letraset’ is hand-applied by the artist in black...
11/12/2025

1. John Sharkey, Openwordrobe/filmpoem, 1966. 596 x 273mm. The phrase ‘&Letraset’ is hand-applied by the artist in black Letraset. Design by Sharkey’s wife, Sonia Sharkey. Sharkey was influenced by Augusto de Campos and his poem Cubagramma (pictured three posts prior). In an ICA bulletin, he quotes de Campos and argues that Openwordrobe is a clear illustration of the ideas of the Noigandres poet. ‘Film as a medium does more than reverse the process so that the image moves and the eye is relatively still. It liberates the poet from the restriction of the static surface so that he can determine the area of the poem in depth, breadth and sound, presenting it as a totality of expression.’ Sharkey was gallery manager of the London I.C.A. in the 1960’s.

2. John Sharkey (ed), Structure Number 1, London, Spring 1968. Magazine with contributions by Jeffrey Shaw, Dick Higgins, Al Hansen, Jean Toche, Stephen Willats, and others. Page 8 features Sharkey’s POEM, the format of which is reflective of the Openwordrobe poster – perhaps some of the wordplays come from that film?

3. John Sharkey edited Mindplay - An Anthology of British Concrete Poetry (Lorimer Publishing, London, 1971). In his introduction, Sharkey explains that Ian Hamilton Finlay refused to contribute to the anthology as he felt “outside and uninvolved in what is happening now” amongst other reasons. The anthology leans towards the historic shift from concrete to visual poetry.

4. Destruction In Art Symposium (D I A S), London, 1966. Printed broadsheet. Organised by Gustav Metzger (Hon Secretary), John Sharkey was on the DIAS Committee.

A slightly incongruous group of artists. Miguel Ángel Cárdenas (ink drawing), Ian Hamilton Finlay (porcelain heads), Wol...
18/10/2025

A slightly incongruous group of artists. Miguel Ángel Cárdenas (ink drawing), Ian Hamilton Finlay (porcelain heads), Wolf Vostell (dayglow de-collage), Edgardo Antonio Vigo (traffic light folding card), unkown Victorian craftperson (faux marble paint effect on fireplace).

Noel Forster, Untitled, 1975. 225 x 325 mm. Egg tempera on wooden panel, signed and dated by the artist on recto in whit...
24/09/2025

Noel Forster, Untitled, 1975. 225 x 325 mm. Egg tempera on wooden panel, signed and dated by the artist on recto in white pencil.

“Noel was in my view the most important post-War abstract painter in England and his work combined performance, intellectual rigour and the artist’s craft. It was simultaneously clever and sensuous. He was an influential teacher too and a very gifted musician. But he was also larger than life.” — Dr. Stephen Bury (https://noelforster.co.uk)



















Augusto de Campos, Cubagramma, The Artist/ Noigandres, Sao Paulo, 1960/62. 320 x 240mm. Printed card using various fonts...
18/09/2025

Augusto de Campos, Cubagramma, The Artist/ Noigandres, Sao Paulo, 1960/62. 320 x 240mm. Printed card using various fonts and colours (red, yellow, blue, black, green). There are two versions of this printed composition from 1962. The first is on page 11 of Invencão – Revista de Arte de Vanguarda No.2. Whereas this is the standalone print version on cartridge stock that was more of an artwork in its own right. One of the most ambitious prints/ compositions of that period by one of the founders of Noigandres and the Poesia Concreta movement.





















A collection of black and white photographs of Oskar Fischinger and stills from his films including ‘Motion Painting No....
18/09/2025

A collection of black and white photographs of Oskar Fischinger and stills from his films including ‘Motion Painting No. 1’, ‘Study 8’, ‘Komposition in Blau’, ‘Wax Experiments’, and portraits of the filmmaker who worked on Fritz Lang’s ‘Women in the Moon’. Fischinger was famous for his groundbreaking experiments in abstract film and animation, including creating the Lumigraph (pictured in the first image centre). ‘Using music to give his abstractions a more accessible compositional structure, he paved the way for an art form that came to be known as Visual Music.’ (Digicult). As this is the first Fischinger material we’re featuring, let us know your thoughts on Fischinger in the comments.















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Noigandres Group (Décio Pignatari, Haroldo de Campos, Augusto de Campos, Ronaldo Azeredo), Noigandres 4: Poesia Concreta...
04/09/2025

Noigandres Group (Décio Pignatari, Haroldo de Campos, Augusto de Campos, Ronaldo Azeredo), Noigandres 4: Poesia Concreta, IRWA industria grafica, São Paulo, Brazil, 1958. 400 x 295mm. Cardboard folder containing silkscreens on cardboard, each 395 x 285mm. Includes poem prints by Décio Pignatari, Haroldo de Campos, Augusto de Campos, and Ronaldo Azeredo (in order pictured slides 4-7), as well as some writing on their theoretical practice. Text in Portuguese and English, with translated word key.

According to Mary Ellen Solt [Concrete Poetry: A World View (1968, Indiana University Press)], Noigandres took its name from a line in Ezra Pound’s Cantos, and Noigandres 4 in particular was ‘a synthesis of the theoretical studies and writings of the Noigandres group from 1950 onwards’. The theoretical text is titled ‘pilot plan for concrete poetry’, which the authors refer to as the ‘product of a critical evolution of forms’ and later the ‘tension of things-words in space-time’.

















Jean Toche, Photographic prints, 2001 - 2005. 140 x 102mm. All of these mailouts were sent by Jean Toche from his Staten...
20/08/2025

Jean Toche, Photographic prints, 2001 - 2005. 140 x 102mm. All of these mailouts were sent by Jean Toche from his Staten Island home to various recipients. Each are a numbered edition of 50. Across these numerous dispatches, Toche chronicles life in the US under George W. Bush. Toche was an ardent adversary of the Bush administration, and especially the Iraq War.

Jean Toche (1932-2018) was a radical political artist and poet from Belgium who moved to the United States in 1965. In New York, he founded the Guerrilla Art Action Group (GAAG) with Fluxus artist Jon Hendricks in 1969. GAAG held various artistic interventions and protests in the 1970s. Their infamous 1969 work blood bath involved walking into the MoMA and distributing hundreds of flyers with their demands before tearing their clothes and spilling gallons of beef blood around the gallery. These demands called for the immediate resignation of the Rockefellers from the Board of Trustees at the MoMA, for their shares and direct ownership of companies which invest in ‘chemical and biological warfare research’. (Reference: Hendricks and Toche, Printed Matter, Inc.)





























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