Harold Haydon Crime & Punishment

Peter Brötzmann Wood & Water: Works on Paper in the main gallery.

In the East Wing:
Harold Haydon
Crime & Punishment

In 1936, age 27, Chicago artist Harold Haydon set out to make an illuminated version of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1866 classic “Crime & Punishment.” His notion was to create ink drawings for the novel that would overlay the text on each page, illustrating the action, for instance, as Raskolnikov kills Alena or as he confesses to Sonya. The process began with rough sketches for a total of 10 sample pages. These were refined over several generations, then the final version was transferred to a typeset page, sitting right over the scene that to which the image referred.

For some reason, Haydon’s illustrated “Crime & Punishment” was never brought to fruition. We are left with this very suggestive selection of ten finished proof pages, presented with some of the artist’s initial sketches and a page of font calligraphy, displayed at Corbett vs. Dempsey and published in a 32-page catalog for the first time, available for sale at the gallery and online.