Searching for information about Gerard Ceunis online, I came across the beautifully illustrated catalogue for a major sale of book art, including Belgian and Dutch art nouveau printing and illustrated books, which took place in May 2009 at Arti & Amicitiae, an artsclub and exhibition space on the Rokin in Amsterdam.
Ceunis’ name is associated with two items in the catalogue. The first, listed under ‘Belgian art nouveau book art’, is a single volume that includes two complete years of the short-lived journal Iris, which Ceunis co-founded in 1908. The item, said to be from the library of the writer Maurice Bladel and bearing his bookplate, is described as ‘very rare’. The individual numbers of the journal contain illustrations by Ceunis, along with some by other artists, including Emile Claus and Jules De Bruycker. In addition, the catalogue confirms that the overall design for the journal was also by Ceunis: something I’m not sure I’d realised before, since the signature on the cover is difficult to read in the online image, this being the only issue of the magazine that I’ve seen:
The second item bearing Gerard Ceunis’ name is included in a collection of eight Flemish illustrated books from the years 1899 – 1917. One of these is described as ‘Flandria’s Novellen Bibliotheek, 1910, 1911, 1913. w[ith] cover by Gerard CEUNIS’. Flandria is the Latin name for Flanders, ‘novellen’ means novellas, and a ‘bibliotheek’ is a library: a title which initially confused me, until I realised that this was the name of another journal (or at least, a regular series of publications) produced by Plantijn or Plantyn of Gent in the early years of the last century. I’d come across the name before, in an advertisement which also included a reference to the appearance of Ceunis’ essay ‘Individualism’.
Although the sale catalogue doesn’t include an illustration of the item, I’ve managed to find the image, reproduced above, of a cover designed by Gerard Ceunis for an edition of Flandria’s Novellen Bibliotheek that appeared in 1911. The art nouveau design is very characteristic of Ceunis: it reminds me somewhat of his designs for the exterior of his dress shop in Hitchin market square and even of the interior decoration of his own home, ‘Salve’, in Hitchin, on view in the photograph of the artist that I posted recently.
The Quest for Ceunis 