Illustration 63 (Heft 2, 1990)

There are many reasons it’s great to get things from Steven Heller. The top reason is that he has great things. The second-top reason is that when we’re lucky, he’s written about an item, and it saves us a lot of work. He’s written about this particular item in Print. Here’s what he had to say on July 29, 2025:

While looking through boxes of magazines, I recalled recieving Illustration 63: Zeitshrift Für Die Buchillustration (1978–2000), published by Edition Kurt Visel and meticulously edited by Visel. It covered the woodcut, linocut, engraving, and black and white line world of fine book printing.

Each and every issue was printed entirely letterpress, including the generous number of illustrations shown inside. In a pocket the back of the “book” were four original, signed and numbered prints by artists appearing in the issue. Illustration 63 was classically designed but with a dynamism all its own. Each issue was individually numbered. The artists featured were little known in the U.S. and probably in Europe too. There were features in various issues on the engravers Fritz Eichenberg, Karl Rossler, A. Paul Weber and others I used in the NY Times. These were among the conceptual illustrators. Many were not idea driven at all. But the craft was to be admired. It was only in German and no computer translators were in use by 2000. I savored the art itself, although except for the three mentioned above, I had no past or present knowledge of the artists’ lives and work. It was an occasion when I wished I had studied German in high school.

Then, all of a sudden, without warning, the regular bimonthly issues stopped arriving by post. Presumably, publishing a letterpress niche arts magazine was not sustainable.