In 2001 Laurie Simmons began a body of work she called Instant Decorator, taking as its starting point an interior decorating book of the same name published in 1976. The photographs that grew from it are collage-like, opulently furnished with accessories and characters set into dramatic tableaux. They are striking and playful at once, and they carry hints and references that reward slow attention. Nazraeli Press gathers the project as One Picture Book Two #12, a hardcover volume with 13 four-color plates and an original signed photograph.

The book’s place in the One Picture Book Two series shapes what it is. Each title in that series pairs a compact gathering of plates with a signed print, and here the print measures 5 by 6 inches and carries Simmons’s signature. The edition is limited to 500 numbered copies. The result works on two levels: as a concentrated look at a single defined project, and as an object whose signed print keeps a direct connection to the artist’s hand.

Simmons’s wider subject has often been the staged environments of domestic life, and Instant Decorator carries that inquiry into the territory of interior design. Working from a period decorating manual, she draws out the artifice in its promises of comfort, taste, and self-expression, producing scenes that are lush and knowingly constructed. The plates preserve that double character, holding visual pleasure and critique in the same frame.

Simmons’s photographs are held by institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Walker Art Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the Hara Museum in Tokyo. A numbered edition with a signed original print, focused on a single series, gives collectors a considered way to engage with that work.