METAFABLES

148 Full-Color Illustrations from the Metafables Universe

METAFABLES is a large-format art book surveying Andrew Blucha's Metafables universe through 148 full-color illustrations. Published by The Mansion Press, the volume gathers Blucha's recurring figures and symbolic tableaux into a single concentrated object — the most complete presentation of this body of work to date.

The book is produced as a 22 × 31 cm hardcover, printed on 150 g Munken Print White. The choice of paper and format signals an archival intent: this is not a catalogue supplement or a zine, but a production object built to hold up to sustained handling and extended display. The weight and scale of the printed page allow Blucha's line work to read at full resolution.

Blucha's visual method draws on anatomical diagram language, occult symbols, and Victorian silhouettes, assembled with precision and a consistently deadpan register. Each image functions as a self-contained emblematic scene — figures posed against symbolic props, dressed in period clothing, arranged with the internal logic of an illustrated fable. The humor is structural rather than decorative, embedded in the gap between the solemnity of the visual grammar and the absurdity of the subject.

The visual register has points of contact with Gustave Doré's engraving tradition and Roland Topor's surrealist grotesque, but Blucha's rhythm is contemporary — drier, more diagrammatic, less theatrical. The Metafables series operates as a coherent vocabulary rather than a sequence of isolated images, and this volume makes that grammar legible across 148 plates.

For collectors of illustration, dark fantastical art, and the broader surrealist tradition, METAFABLES works as a reliable entry point to Blucha's work. It presents his recurring themes and figures in one volume without editorial mediation. Browse the full range of titles in our Artbooks & Artist Publications collection.