(#69) NOSFERATU:

Edition of 2453 of which 300 copies are signed 1-300, 26 copies are signed A-Z as artist's proofs, and five sets are signed as progressives.

October 3, 1977 Five colors 18" x 24"

Client: Tom Luddy, The Pacific Film Archive, University of California Art Museum, 2625 Durant Avenue, Berkeley CA 94720. Telephone (510) 642-1413. (California: Art on the Road, California Arts Council, 1982; Communication Arts CA78)

(California: Art on the Road, California Arts Council, 1982; Communication Arts CA78)

There's nothing like being un-dead to assure immortality. Bram Stoker's 1897 novel about vampires and werewolves came out just in time to give a century of film makers grist for their dark Satanic mills, and there's no sign of their slowing down. Stoker was for many years the manager of the famous British actor Sir Henry Irving. Perhaps this exposure to the stage was where he got the basic idea of a bloodsucking ghost that preys on the living.

The film should have been called Dracula, but copyright problems forced director F. W. Murnau to find another name. "Nosferatu," meaning "night-flying monster," fits the film's cadaverous star, Max Schreck, to a "T".

And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark Satanic mills?

-Milton [c. 1809], prefatory poem, William Blake (1757-1827)