“The Portrait Series shamelessly offers the pleasures of voyeurism all good books afford... words take on thought’s very form, bringing sensory experience to the reader as directly as ink on paper can allow... (Once) considered too far ahead of his time... now the times are beginning to catch up to him... Who knows? Mr. Lehrer may have finally met the times halfway?”
Julie Lasky, The New York Times Book Review
“Lehrer’s books defy conventional notions of writing and bookmaking... Collectively (the subjects of The Portrait Series) make up a riveting group of eccentrics... Their stories echo in your mind long after the sound of them has ceased...”
Zoe Ingalls, The Chronicle of Higher Education
“In the four new publications by Warren Lehrer... the implications of a new kind of literature... are at last being pursued. (The Portrait Series) is articulated with enormous feeling and care by an author with an ear superbly attuned to the cadences of spoken language. Lehrer, unlike so many contemporary graphic stylists, begins from a deep engagement with content he has created himself...”
Rick Poynor, Frieze
“Lehrer is a 21st century oral history, new journalism mastermind. Studs Terkel in cyberspace. More visceral than most biographies, The Portrait Series is an extraordinary set of books that allows you to physically hold the subjects in your hand as you read their eccentric, strange, dangerous and amazing stories.”
Mathew Finch, WBAI radio
“Unlike many books of oral stories, which fall flat on the printed page, (Brother Blue: a narrative portrait) is so alive, so vibrant, that at times I was sure I was hearing the voice of this remarkable storyteller/philosopher... Absolutely Delightful!
Shanta Nurullah, The Bloomsbury Review
“In Warren Lehrer’s extraordinary books, full of typographic innovation, he seeks to trap sound and speech in time and space on the printed page. The result is theater... reality, fantasy, along with art and literature, travel parallel but inseparable roads..”
Philip Meggs, Print Magazine
“Each book in The Portrait Series is a vibrant visual and narrative biography of an eccentric, prismatic and resilient personality... Riveting! Lehrer defies categorization.”
Linda Kaplan Wagner Gannet Newspapers
“The arrival of the first set of Warren Lehrer’s Portrait Series is something of an event... echoes of Henry Miller... vivid evocations of family life and history... absolutely defining and unmistakable.”
Paul Zelevansky JAB (Journal of Artists’ Books)
“(With The Portrait Series) Lehrer continues his pioneering work in ‘visual literature’ in which the look of the words on the page is as important as the words themselves.”
David Warner Philadelphia City Paper
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