Books: Boris / Boris Volume 1

This, the first 'book' to be wholly devoted to Boris' artwork, is really a magazine. The inside pages describe it as 'Boris Volume 1' and state 'THIS MAGAZINE IS DEDICATED TO DORIS' (Doris being his first wife.) It was originally published as a limited edition of 3000 copies, individually numbered by hand, with the first 100 also being autographed by Boris. Subsequent edition(s?) were unnumbered. It contains 50 internal pages giving, with the thin card covers, a total of 54 pages and sold for $4.00. Colour printing is confined to the covers only.

The magazine comprises an interview of Boris by Mark Feldman, copiously illustrated with photographs and examples of Boris' work from 1964 onwards. The last few pages give a checklist of Boris' recent (ie up to 1978) fantasy, and other, artwork.

I have used colour images where available which may also show rather more of the artwork than the actual printed illustration.

A word about some of the descriptions below, you need to understand that Boris transfers the individual components of his design onto tracing paper, allowing him to rearrange them slightly, before committing himself to the final painting. (This is all outlined in Fantasy Art Techniques.) I have used the term 'intermediate' to describe these pieces.