portfolio cover, Fred Deltor; Les Éditions Socialistes

Exhibition Label:
"Machine in a Void: World War I & the Graphic Arts," Mar-2010, Steve Goddard
After military duty in his native Italy, Deltor migrated to Paris in 1922, and then to Mechelen, Belgium in 1928-working in both cities as a furniture carver. The pseudonym “Deltor” is no doubt contrived from “Del Torino” (“from Turin,” the artist’s native province in Italy).
The portfolio includes 12 pochoir (stencil) prints, a printed cover, a preface, and a list of the plates in seven languages. The preface is by Henri Barbusse, the author of Feu (Under Fire)-the highly acclaimed anti-military novel based on the author’s experiences in World War I. In his preface, Barbusse portrays the artist as a mechanic and the figurines as "monstrous mechanical, caricatural puppets, of the royal, imperial and divine." The publishing house, “Éditions Socialistes,” may be spurious.

The plates show 12 enemies of anarcho-socialism as puppet-like figurines from the carnival game “Jeu de Massacre” (sometimes given in English as the game of “Aunt Sally”), in which figures are set up as targets to be knocked down with the toss of a ball or stick-hence the subtitle “12 figures looking for a ball.” The figures are identified by Deltor as: Military, Property, Philanthropy, Social Democracy, Justice, Colonization, Fascism, Police Spy, Parliament, Middle-Spirit, Religion, and Patriotism.