THE RIver flows into the heaven

Lois Conner / Thomas Palmer

Three waters meet at the Chu frontier,
At Jingmen nine streams mingle.
The river flows into the heavens,
Mountain colors shimmer between being and non-being.
Ahead, command cities float on the river,
Ripples and waves shiver the far sky.
At Xiangyang, beauty of the sun breeze
Gets the old man of the mountain drunk.

Wang Wei, Tang Dynasty

Specifications / Credits

Clamshell Box size (closed): 25 5/8” x 16 1⁄2”
Book size (closed): 24 1/8” x 15 1⁄4”
Image size: 16 1⁄2” x 6 3/8”
Title Calligraphy: Yang Ming Yi
Poem Calligraphy: Fu Yun Chou
Translation: Willis Barnstone
Type set: Gongonooza Letter Foundry
Binding: George Weick
Letterpress: Wild Carrot Letterpres
From Lois Conner’s Collection

Title: The River Flows into the heaven
Photographs: Lois Conner
Photogravures: Thomas Palmer
Poem: Wang Wei / Tang Dynasty
Year: 1988
Letterpress & Hand-pulled photogravure
Publisher: Thomas Palmer
Edition: 55
Number of pages: 21 pages
Number of images: 18 plates

Lois Conner (b. 1951, USA) has been working with a 7x17” banquet panoramic camera for over forty years. Inspired by formal paintings of Ming dynasty dignitaries, in 1982 she adopted the unusual format that has gone on to be a signature of her work. She has worked for extended periods of time in both China and the American West. Conner has drawn her inspiration from the gradual yet profound changes in the physicality of the cities and countryside which have occurred since the adoption of a market economy. The panoramic form allows her to extend the sweep of narrative in her images and to embrace more than one moment concurrently. She uses photography to reinvent a sense of the world through landscape. Conner is the recipient of numerous prestigious grants and fellowships, not least the Pollock-Krasner Award for Artists (2020) and the Rosenkranz Foundation Fellowship for Photography (2019). For more information, visit https://www.loisconner.net/