Beau Geste Press

The independent publishing house Beau Geste Press (BGP) was founded in 1971 by the Mexican artist couple Martha Hellion and Felipe Ehrenberg. With their two children, they moved to a farm in Devon, in the middle of the English countryside, where they formed, with a few friends, including artist and art historian David Mayor, cartoonist Chris Welch and his partner Madeleine Gallard, “a community of duplicators, printers and craftsmen”.

Active until 1976, Beau Geste Press printed the work of visual poets, neo-dadaists and international artists affiliated with the Fluxus movement. Specialising in limited edition artists’ books, they published the works of their own members, as well as those of many of the contemporaries around the world. In the spirit of cottage industry, the printshop adapted costs and scales of production to its needs and kept under the same roof – that of its bucolic branch – all the stages of production, from editorial design and printing to the distribution of books through the postal network.

Although it operated on the periphery of the artistic centres of the time, Beau Geste Press was undoubtedly one of the most fruitful collective publishing adventures of its generation.

Published by the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux in collaboration with Bom Dia Boa Tarde Boa Noite, this reference work traces the history of the independent publishing house Beau Geste Press (BGP) through the books produced by its founding members Felipe Ehrenberg, Martha Hellion, David Mayor and Chris Welch and the many visitors to its rural branch between 1971 and 1976. It is presented as an “unreasoned catalogue” of the entire printed production of the BGP, supplemented by critical essays and unpublished original texts that review the Press’s modus operandi (economy and autonomy of production, distribution of books through the postal service) and give an account of the international influence of this “community of duplicators, printers and craftsmen”.

“The whole work provides a very beautiful catalogue that makes you want to leaf through the often organic publications of Beau Geste Press, which carry a rich history. ” Léa Kowalski, Art Critic
Léa Kowalski, Art Critic