‘The Bent Leg’ is the first monograph of New York-based painter Ellen Altfest.

Scale was an essential element of the book’s design. The size of the catalogue was based on the artist’s largest painting – ‘The Back’ – which spans both back and front covers. All images throughout the book reproduce the artworks at 1:1 scale, enabling the artist’s high level of painterly skill to be seen. The text pages were designed on a deliberately smaller A4 scale, then placed within the large format page.

Altfest’s interest in capturing the details, textures and colours of skin was emphasised in the choice of materials for the book – from the cover’s smooth Plike paper to the grooved tan colour endpapers and coarse brown binding thread.