William Allen Word & Image

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William Allen Word & Image

William Allen Word & Image specialises in the works of Ian Hamilton Finlay; Dom Sylvester Houedard; Concrete Poetry; Visual Poetry; European and South American Avant Garde; Conceptual Art; Artist’s books and ephemera; modern poetry; art theory publications and small press archives.

04/09/2026

Today, September 4th, is the last day of the Disruptors exhibition at Ben Uri Gallery and Museum , which closes at 5.30pm. The show curated by Ana-Maria Milčić ( Ana-Maria Milcic ) involves various works from our collection, these are four of our favourite pieces. If you’re in town try and swing by!

John Latham, Book of Common Prayer, c.1982

Martha Hellion and Jan Hendrix, As Part of a Diary/Witnesses of a Change/ Move, 1974

Ian Hamilton Finlay, Le Circus, 1964

Hansjorg Mayer, sau aus usa, 1965. The German text translates as ‘pig out usa’.

21/08/2026

Hansjorg Mayer’s Futura series 1-26 (complete set), 1965-1968.

This seminal periodical was recently the subject of an exhibition at the Center for Book Arts Center for Book Arts - Can’t wait to see the catalogue from the exhibition entitled ‘after futura: 26 Broadsides Printed by Hansjorg Mayer’ edited by Camilo Otero and Eva Parra.

These photos are of our archival set. Each folding broadside features a specific artist, starting with Mathias Goeritz and ending with Robert Filliou, with many renowned concrete poets in between. We like that the final issue is horizontal as if a full stop at the end of the series, while also pointing to new ideas, with Filliou’s contribution asking the viewer to “first fold the paper then make a hat”.

06/08/2026

Joe Jones, Fluxus is Dead, Freibord, Vienna, 1980. Edition 16/100, signed and numbered. Original cardboard box containing a small booklet, cassette and a poster. The tracks listed on the cassette are Side A: Wiener Secession, 10th Nov. 1980 Fluxus Is Dead, Im Rahmen Der Austellung “5 Jahre Freibord + 10 Jahre Herbstpresse” - 1 Pianp, 2 Bells, 4 Zitars, 1 Madoline, 2 Drums, 1 Manekino Side B: Asolo, Concerto Por Bambini, 5-7th August 1980 - 12 Pieces, featuring Stellisa Jones. The booklet begins with a short introduction by Yoko Ono, talking about creating a new kind of musical instrument and Joe Jones as a pioneer in this discovery of new music. The box also includes a folded poster of the Austrian writer and poet Peter Alternberg with quotes from his books, printed by Edition Freibord, Vienna. Freibord was an Austrian literary magazine founded in 1976 by Gerhard Jaschke and Hermann Schürrer.

27/07/2026

Milan Knížák was a Czech artist who founded the AKTUAL art group in the early 1960s and was made ‘Director Fluxus East’ by George Maciunas in 1965. Knížák organised and appeared in the first Fluxus concert in Czechoslovakia in 1966, and he was a pioneer of destroyed music. The artist passed away yesterday.

‘On July 22’, 1973 and ‘ART IS ONLY A CRUTCH’, undated (c.1979)

26/06/2026

Rest in peace Astrid Furnival - a unique artistic force. We have enjoyed spending time with you and John when you returned to the Cotswolds. Your textile works are inspirational and I am particularly fond of the flags project Astrid made in different forms for the Dorothy and Dorothy’s Umbrellas project that in 1970 and 1973. Tom Clark of course a vital part of that along with students of Corsham. The postcard pictured here is on our wall. A photo taken by John in France and sent to us by Astrid after John passed. We see it every day.

12/06/2026

A sample of artists publications that are on our table at Biblioteka, see you there!

Biblioteka Art Book Fair at The Warburg Institute
Woburn Square, WC1H 0AB, London

Friday 12 June 12:00 - 20:00
Saturday 13 June 11:00 - 19:00

10/06/2026

We are pleased to be participating in Biblioteka Art Book Fair at The Warburg Institute again this year.

Come and visit us on
Friday 12 June 12:00 - 20:00
Saturday 13 June 11:00 - 19:00

at The Warburg Institute
Woburn Square
WC1H 0AB
London

Bringing together a diverse group of over 60 publishers, book dealers, artists and practicing librarians, the fair spans artists’ books, photography, architecture, critical theory, philosophy, art writing and more. The fair aims to cultivate the discursive field bridging contemporary publishing practices with independent and institutional libraries.

The event is free to attend and open to all.

01/06/2026

On 14th May, the exhibition ‘Disruptors: Fractured Images and Migrant Wordl’ opened at Ben Uri Gallery & Museum, curated by Dr. Ana-Maria Milčić. Ana has combined works from our collection of Neo-Avant Garde practitioners with some Avant-Garde artists such as Kurt Schwitters to trace more than a century of artistic experimentation with the relationship between words and images. Thank you to everyone for coming along to the private view.

1. The gallery window displaying images of our archive
2. The upstairs gallery including Astrid Furnival’s textile works
3. Three prints by Henri Chopin
4. Chatting with my old professor and mentor, Stephen Bann
5. The artist Osman Yousefzada with Cathy Pütz
6. Upstairs gallery

The exhibition runs until 4 September 2026. Gallery hours are Wednesday - Friday, 10am - 5.30pm.

11/05/2026

We are delighted to invite you to

Disruptors: Fractured Images and Migrant Wordl
14 May - 4 September, 2026

at the Ben Uri Gallery and Museum
108A Boundary Rd, London NW8 0RH

This is a collaborative exhibition bringing together works from the Ben Uri and William Allen Collections, alongside additional lenders.

It traces over a century of word-image experimentation, from early twentieth-century avant-garde practice to post-war concrete poetry and conceptual art, exploring how artists disrupt the boundary between reading and viewing while addressing themes of migration, exile, belonging, identity, and meaning-making.

07/05/2026

Octavio Paz, with drawings by Vicente Rojo, Discos Visuales, Ediciones Era, Mexico, 1968.

First edition. Four overlapping cardboard circles, each measuring 255mm in diameter, contained within 260 x 260mm fabric folder. Can be rotated backwards or forwards, revealing different poetic combinations. Each disc bears a different poem: I. Juventud (Youth); II. Pasaje (Passage); III. Concorde (Agreement); IV. Aspa (Cross). The poems are revealed as the top disc is spun over the one below.

The intellectual movement in Mexico dispersed in 1968, in particular after the government Tlatelolco massacre in September of that year (just before the Olympics was held in the city), and repression by the government which led to young poets, writers and artists such as Ulises Carrion, Felipe and Martha Ehrenbeg fleeing to Europe. Paz resigned from his role as Mexican Ambassador in New Dehli, in support of the student demonstrations of the period. Paz wrote about ‘The deeper meaning of the protest movement,’ which he believed was ‘the revelation of that dark half of man that has been humiliated and buried by the morality of progress: the half that reveals itself in the images of art and love.’

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