In 2000, I did an alphabet book for my daughter called Bembo’s Zoo. The whole book was illustrated with animal images using only the letters of their names. When it was time to publish the book, my editor asked me for an author’s photo and I decided to use the same process to make my own portrait. From then on, I created portraits of writers.

I tried to match the typefaces in two ways: first to writing style, second to a peculiar feature of their faces. A letter is much more than a representation of a symbol—it depicts a period, a certain mood and perhaps, in this book, the spirit of the artist.

In the second part of the book, I played with images, creating faces out of old engravings and silhouettes. There is a part of the human brain whose purpose is to identify facial patterns. This specialization aided and protected our ancestors, who, in order to survive, learned to recognize faces. From email emoticons to the man on the moon, we constantly look to reconstruct this pattern and to recognize it.

Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich's images embody playful exploration without sacrificing refinement and grace.