We wanted the catalogue to represent a kind of composite portrait of the artist, her own version of a “slave narrative.” Also, we wanted to avoid what has become a cliché in presenting the artist’s work—black silhouettes against a white background.

We set the tone by including the full text of Kara Walker’s piece Letter from a Black Girl. The subtitle of exhibition is lifted from a passage in this work, and thus we placed it on the half-title page and worked backward to the cover, using the complete text in the proper order. The approximate size, shape and materiality of the book (but not the typography or layout) reference a compendium of slave narratives from the mid-1940s. We emphasized Walker’s language by amplifying the titles of the artworks, which utilize a very ornate, antebellum prose.

The support of the artist and museum administration was vital for such a controversial cover and allowed the design system to be implemented unwaveringly. When our distributor expressed concern about the cover’s potential impact on wholesale demand, we self-censored for North American trade distribution with a vertical armband that temporarily obscures the profane language.

“Stark typography over cloth cover conveys the depth of this book’s message from the start.”