Material: Kaffee.

(Hamburg).: (Self-published by the artist)., 1975 / 1977.. Original grey tape-backed brown card wrappers.. 4to. (298 x 214 mm).. Unpaginated artist book composed of 100 leaves of A4 paper, each manipulated by the artist (see below), and bound, white label with typed explanatory text and artist's signature and details to rear inner wrapper. Barbara Schmidt-Heins unique artist book, made by hand, using coffee as ink.Composed of 100 A4 leaves, Schmidt-Heins has used coffee as ink and drawn ten horizontal lines (taking up almost the total width of the page) to each recto using a wide, reed pen. The book is signed in pencil and dated '1975 / 5. Ausführung 1977' to the rear inner wrapper; a typed label (see below) with explanatory text is pasted to the same.'Kaffee. Eine breite Rohrfeder in Kaffee getaucht und-verschieden stark auf drückend die Seite durch 10 waargerechte Zeilen nahezu von Kante gegliedert.' (From typed label pasted to the rear inner wrapper).'Why are there exactly 100 sheets in one book? The decision was originally made from the practical consideration that the drawing pads used contained 100 sheets.' (From 'Bookworks' etc).'Here could be mentioned the painter and object books, books as sculpture, as Concept Art, as notation to time sequences, as sequence, with process character, also with musical sore character, frottages, collages, the wide variety of printing processes etc.' (From 'Bookworks' etc). 'An element of the book is also knowledge of its process and origination; the process character not only of the book as a whole, but also of the work on each individual sheet, can only sometimes be directly retraced; very often, the sequence of the work processes can only be reconstructed if one is intimately familiar with the material'. (From 'Bookworks' etc.).The non-identical twins Barbara and Gabriele Schmidt-Heins were born in Rellingen in Pinneberg (near Hamburg) in 1949 and twins studied together at the Academy of Fine Arts, Hamburg from 1968 to 1974. Since 1974, the twins have worked either individually (as here) or in collaboration. The twins are most renowned for their artist books, exhibited to great acclaim at the Kabinett für aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven in 1976, and then more famously at documenta 6, Kassel in 1977. Although this book was conceived originally in 1975, Schmidt-Heins has inscribed it '5. Ausführung' (5th implementation) and dated this version 1977.[see 'Bookworks. Barbara Schmidt-Heins. Gabriele Schmidt-Heins. Original Books from 1972 to 1976', Kunstraum München / Institut für moderne Kunst, Nuremberg, 1977 - B24, pg. 17].