22 leaves of heavy deckle-edged all rag paper (mostly white, though a few are yellow or pink). Many color linocut drawings including a frontispiece, illustrated title page, 10 full page plates, and 5 smaller textual illustrations. 29x19.3 cm. (11½x7½"), red cloth, lettered in white. One of only 12 copies, each hand-made, hand-written.
"This copy made for Eugene and Mimi Kilgore, renders of hands and souls," as hand written on preliminary page. Mimi (Emilie) Kilgore was a mistress of the great abstract artist Willem de Kooning and apparently his last great love. Color linocut illustrations in red and black, orange and black, pink, orange, blue and gray. Wonderful images include a ringmaster, boys and girls, tiger, bear, horses, etc. All the text is hand-written by the artist Mary Redington Stent. Stent was a California artist, born in San Mateo in 1909. After moving to San Francisco in the 1960s, she became a docent at the De Young Museum and gave painting classes in her garden into the 1980s. Mrs. Stent died in San Francisco on Dec. 18, 1994. Laid in are: 1 page ALs from Stent to Mimi dated 5/11/87; a note from Stent to Mimi dated 1/28/85 on a folded card, printed with Stent's illustration of children fishing; A note and 3 pages of expenses for a party given by Mimi and a friend for Stent; An ANs from Stent to the Kilgores thanking them for the party; 3 photographs of Mary, Mimi and Mimi's husband.