BOOKS
The Argument of Innocence:
A Selection From the Arts of Kenneth Patchen Scrimshaw Press, San Francisco, 1976 Peter Veres, editor Introductory essay by Peter Veres Foreword by Miriam Patchen Paperback: 90 pages From the back cover: Somehow the Beat poet label has always clung to Kenneth Patchen's name. He did read his poetry in jazz clubs in the late 1950s, but he hated labels of any sort. He read his poetry in public for money since his own and his wife's endless medical bills demanded more money than any poet could dream of in a lifetime of publication. Patchen was not a Beat poet; he was a brave and generous lyric artist with an undying hatred of oppression and hypocrisy. For forty years he poured forth his love of life and beauty to a world which, finally, would and did listen to him. At the end of his life those New Directions paperbacks stood as a monument to his spirit and his mind. Though the world was still insane, he had an audience. Few people know the breadth of Patchen's artistry. Those who love his poetry and prose have seen black and white renderings of his paintings and drawings in his books but it is only with this publication of The Argument of Innocence that Patchen's friends can see, in color, the extraordinary vitality of this man. |
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ (UCSC)
Special Collections and Archives
Kenneth Patchen Archive
Guide to the Peter Veres Papers
Collection Summary: Correspondence, manuscript pages, and clippings relating to "The Argument of Innocence: A Selection From the Arts of Kenneth Patchen". Included are a transcript and audio recording titled "Miriam Patchen, an interview with Peter Veres", 1974.
Special Collections and Archives
Kenneth Patchen Archive
Guide to the Peter Veres Papers
Collection Summary: Correspondence, manuscript pages, and clippings relating to "The Argument of Innocence: A Selection From the Arts of Kenneth Patchen". Included are a transcript and audio recording titled "Miriam Patchen, an interview with Peter Veres", 1974.
You can see some of the inside pages on Google Books.
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KATI'S STORY: RECOLLECTIONS OF TWO WORLDS
by Catherine Veres as told to Peter Veres Publisher: AuthorHouse, 2009 Perfect Bound Softcover 340 pages, Size: 8.5x11 Also available as an E-Book from AuthorHouse Based on a decade of taped conversations between Kati (Catherine) Veres, and her son Peter Veres, KATI’S STORY: RECOLLECTIONS OF TWO WORLDS is the multigenerational story of a Jewish family. It takes us from mid-nineteenth century villages in Hungary during the Austro-Hungarian Empire to cosmopolitan Budapest before, during, and after World War II, and finally to post-war New York City. It is also the story of a culture that transformed from tolerant to virulently intolerant in a single generation: Kati’s father served as an officer in the Hungarian army during WWI but was deported and killed during WWII. Sensing the coming disaster, Kati went to England to give birth to her first child, hoping that a British birth certificate would protect him against anti-Semitism. She returned to Budapest to be with her ailing parents, survived the war and its aftermath with her husband and two sons, and found a way to immigrate to New York to be near her brother, Gabor Carelli, who became a principal soloist at the Metropolitan Opera Company. In her new world, she built on her sewing skills to become an assistant dress designer of high-end bridal gowns in the then vigorous New York garment industry and later a pattern maker at Simplicity Patterns. Augmenting Kati’s story is a large selection of family photographs and official documents, many in color, dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, which remarkably survived the war and emigration in excellent condition. Also included are several color maps indicating places mentioned in the text, family trees, and footnotes about historical and geographical details. |
US HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM ARCHIVES
PETER VERES FAMILY COLLECTION
Collection Summary:The collection consists of artifacts, audio recordings, documents, film, and photographs relating to the experiences of the Deutsch, Krausz, and Veres families in Budapest, Hungary, before and during the Holocaust – when some family members were deported to camps or lived in hiding – and after their postwar emigration to the United States. Dates covered:1844-2010
Provenance: The collection was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2010 by Peter Veres.
PETER VERES FAMILY COLLECTION
Collection Summary:The collection consists of artifacts, audio recordings, documents, film, and photographs relating to the experiences of the Deutsch, Krausz, and Veres families in Budapest, Hungary, before and during the Holocaust – when some family members were deported to camps or lived in hiding – and after their postwar emigration to the United States. Dates covered:1844-2010
Provenance: The collection was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2010 by Peter Veres.
All of the audio of my 24 hours of conversation with my mother are in this Collection, here:
STEVEN SPIELBERG FILM AND VIDEO ARCHIVE (USHMM)
PREWAR JEWISH LIFE IN BUDAPEST
Untitled -- George Veres -- home movies
Veres Family Collection
Event Date: 1938-1943
Place: Budapest, Hungary
Accession Info:
2010.81.3 George Veres purchased a 9.5mm Pathe movie camera after his son Peter was born in 1938. Peter donated the two reels of 9.5mm pre-war family films, along with family papers, audio recordings, photographs, and memorabilia to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives in May 2010. The Veres Family Collection (1830s-1987) documents members of the Deutsch, Krausz, and Veres families.
PREWAR JEWISH LIFE IN BUDAPEST
Untitled -- George Veres -- home movies
Veres Family Collection
Event Date: 1938-1943
Place: Budapest, Hungary
Accession Info:
2010.81.3 George Veres purchased a 9.5mm Pathe movie camera after his son Peter was born in 1938. Peter donated the two reels of 9.5mm pre-war family films, along with family papers, audio recordings, photographs, and memorabilia to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives in May 2010. The Veres Family Collection (1830s-1987) documents members of the Deutsch, Krausz, and Veres families.
ELLIS ISLAND INTERVIEW WITH PETER VERES
An interview with me recorded at Ellis Island on September 25, 1997
About my family's arrival to New York, and our lives in Budapest and New York.
A personal history of sorts.
PLEASE NOTE:
The audio is just over an hour long. It is in two parts, with a four minute break of silence.
The first part of the interview goes from 0:00 to 28:55, then silence for almost four minutes to 33:00, then the second part goes from 33:00 to 1:02:21.
An interview with me recorded at Ellis Island on September 25, 1997
About my family's arrival to New York, and our lives in Budapest and New York.
A personal history of sorts.
PLEASE NOTE:
The audio is just over an hour long. It is in two parts, with a four minute break of silence.
The first part of the interview goes from 0:00 to 28:55, then silence for almost four minutes to 33:00, then the second part goes from 33:00 to 1:02:21.
EPHEMERAL GESTURES
Performance Works 1969-1975 Peter Veres Publisher: The Book Patch, 2012 Book Size: 8.5" x 11" Pages: 151 Binding: Perfect Bound This book is a collection of some twenty works performed in the San Francisco Bay Area, designed, produced, and performed in various settings by Peter Veres in collaboration with friends and students. The book presents original documents including scores, posters and descriptions, with dozens of black and white photos. Many were single performance events, but even those that had several performances were meant to be ephemeral and very inexpensive. They were in the tradition of “happenings”, with actors in masks and costumes, with props and sounds, but no words: a sculptural theater. |
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GRASSROOTS DRAWINGS 1972-1978
Peter Veres Publisher: The Book Patch, 2012 Book Size: 8.5" x 11" Pages: 103 Binding: Perfect Bound GRASSROOTS was a progressive community newspaper in Berkeley, CA, published by a collective of activists covering the various political stories in the city and beyond. The book presents the cartoons Veres drew for the paper, coupled with selections from many of the articles they illustrated, as well as some of his incidental drawings for columns and ads. It offers a look back at some of the issues of Berkeley politics, many of which are, unfortunately, still topical today. |
MAKING ART: A MEMOIR
The First TwentyFive Years Peter Veres Publisher: Regent Press, 2019 Book Size: 8.5" x 11" Pages: 286 Binding: Perfect Bound Entering 2018, the year I would turn eighty, I decided to review the artworks I have made over all these years and to gather a selection of them in a book of images and commentary. This is the first volume of that project, a memoir in words and pictures of my first 25 years as an artist.The story begins after World War II finally ended in Budapest in 1945, and as a six-year-old survivor I started my first year in a rebuilt public school. The dozens of school notebooks my mother kept, in an effort to preserve what she could after losing so much during the war, provide the basis for the first section of this book. The many pages I present offer an insight into a form of education – a focus on clarity and skill of penmanship and narrative visual depiction – that I have not seen in America. The images show a young artist developing his visual ideas over a period of four years, at which point my family emigrated from Hungary to America to begin a new life.The second section follows my life in New York from grade school through college. Thanks again to my mother’s instinct for preservation in a life of impermanence, I was able to draw upon scores of my drawings and other works that she kept in the closets of our small apartment. I comment on these images and include notes and anecdotes and photographs of the life and times of a New York kid in the 1950s. The final section is of my years in Cambridge, MA, where I went to study with an Italian sculptor and to get a teaching credential at the Harvard School of Education. |
AND GOD SAID UNTO ABRAHAM
An Examination of the Foundation Story of the Bible Peter Veres Publisher: Regent Press, 2019 Book Size: 5.5" x 8.5" Pages: 180 Binding: Perfect Bound FROM THE INTRODUCTION : As the relationship of God to humanity is the central theme of the Bible, so the covenant between God and Abraham is the root of this relationship and the core of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. God makes a binding covenant with Abraham. He promises Abraham that his descendants will become a multitude with a land of their own; that he will bless them as his chosen people if they obey his commands and act in righteousness; that he will be their God. And in accepting God’s covenant Abraham becomes the father of monotheism. How does God manifest his righteousness and his justice? How does he test and judge his people? How should a righteous person act? I set THE STORY OF ABRAHAM near the end of the biblical story, after the death of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. Abraham looks back over his long life and tells his story to his nephew Lot, who has the role of interlocutor. Through my imagined questions and comments, the two speakers reflect on Abraham’s story and present a narrative commentary on the text of the Bible. In THE STORY OF ABRAHAM I have kept the actual biblical text of the story intact in its given sequence, but I have intertwined my invented dialogue with the words of the Bible as a way of commenting on the actions of the characters presented in Genesis. |
THE RED FEATHER
Story and pictures by Peter Veres Publisher: Regent Press, 2019 Book Size: 8.5" x 11" Pages: 24 Binding: Perfect Bound The Red Feather is a short fable of discovery and transformation, of magic and mystery, of flight and pursuit. The richly detailed pictures expand upon the words with complex and unexpected images evoking dreams. |
MICHAEL'S EARLY ART: From Scribbles to Symbols to Pictures
Text by Ruth Veres, pictures by Michael Veres First edition: 2015 Second edition: 2020 Book Size: 8.5" x 11" Pages: 126 Binding: Perfect Bound FROM THE INTRODUCTION Children everywhere – from Africa to Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North America – start out drawing the same things in the same way at the same age. You can’t tell from their art what sex they are, what their culture is, or where they live. Children’s art passes through recognizable stages as young artists make the journey from toddler to kindergartner and beyond. The timing of these stages is determined in part by each individual’s degree of motor coordination and in part by the materials and tools at hand. Kids ages 1 to 4, if left alone to express themselves, develop their art through experiment and practice. They move with gusto, in fits and starts, from expressive scribbles to consistent signs and then to symbols of what they know about the world. Then, around the age of 5 to 7, they begin to assume the style of their own time and place and family. Their art becomes more narrative and more complex, and it moves toward a more realistic representation of what they see. This book presents the artwork of the author’s son through his first 10 years, with scores of full color images and accompanying commentary. |
AND ALL IS YET TO KNOW: A Collection of Poems
Ruth C. Veres 2021 Book Size: 8.5" x 11" Pages: 54 Binding: Perfect Bound These poems have many vital qualities: they are clear but enigmatic, insightful but unpredictable, wise but whimsical, with a disciplined playfulness that make them fun to read. |
A BOOK FOR SUE: Reminders of a Cherished Friendship Peter Veres 2021 Book Size: 8.5" x 11" Pages: 81 Binding: Perfect Bound A collection of images and email correspondence between friends over many years. |
COLORING BOOKS
CURIOUS CRITTERS
A Peculiar Coloring Book 2016
A Peculiar Coloring Book 2016
Twenty original drawings of imaginary creatures for kids and playful adults to color.
Click on images to enlarge. |
AN ANTIC ALPHABET OF TRICKY TONGUE TWISTERS
A Coloring Book 2017
Written by Ruth Veres, Illustrated by Peter Veres
A Coloring Book 2017
Written by Ruth Veres, Illustrated by Peter Veres
Ruth wrote AN ANTIC ALPHABET OF TRICKY TONGUE TWISTERS for kids five years old and up.
Each letter has a 12-syllable alliterative line, like Quirky Quincy quizzed the queen of quaking quokkas. Words that may be unusual are defined, as in this case: quirky : unpredictable; hard to explain quokkas : small, short-tailed wallabies from the coastal areas of southwest Australia; the wallaby is related to the kangaroo. Peter illustrated each letter’s tongue twister in the style of a coloring book. Click on images to enlarge. |