In 2004, Scalo publisher Walter Keller suggested to New York artist Anne Chu to create a series of watercolors exclusively for an artists book. Chu, who bases her work both on classical forms and souvenir-shop knockoffs" (Holland Cotter in The New York Times) , started to look for inspiration and chanced upon an old four-volume book called Modes and Manners. As always in her work, both on paper and in sculpture, she uses her wide-ranging sources to trigger her imagination, leaving behind their initial references. The exquisite outcome is a series of watercolors, some of them with allusions to classical motifs such as The Birth of John the Baptist," Masquerader," The Wise Virgin," or The Knave." Their phantasmagoric counterpart are watercolors with titles like Hellish Spirit, Standing Marmet," or Bowing Chimpanzee."
