american art

Softcover. Boston, University of Massachusetts Press, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 116 pages, 68 color, 14 b&w plates. Indochina Arts Project of the William Joiner Foundation. Essays by Quach Van Phong. Tran Viet Son, Lucy R Lippard and David Kunzle. Clean copy.

Hardcover. San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 1st, 2007, Book: Near Fine, Dust Jacket: Near Fine, 244 pages illustrated in color. Scholarly essays accompany this monograph on the Japanese-American artist. In publisher's shrinkwrap. Published to coincide with a series of major exhibitions extending beyond 2007, Ascending Chaos is the first major retrospective of Japanese-American artist Masami Teraoka's prolific and acclaimed work thus far. In Teraoka's paintings which have evolved from his wry mimicry of Japanese woodblock prints to much larger and complex canvasses reminiscent of Bosch and Brueghel the political and the personal collide in a riot of sexually frank tableaux. Populated by geishas and goddesses, priests, and politicians, and prominent contemporary figures, these paintings are the spectacular next phase of a wildly inventive career. With essays by renowned art critics who discuss how Teraoka's work inventively marries east and west, sex and religion, Ascending Chaos is a critical overview of this cultural trickster.

Hardcover. Washington, Smithsonian Books, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 292 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Color and black and whote photos throughout. Clean, tight copy. The Smithsonian holds more than 13 million images spanning over 150 years of taking and collecting photographs. This largely unknown body of photography (most never before published) represents nothing less than the Smithsonian's effort, in the name of all Americans, to describe and comprehend the world. Open anywhere in these pages to be plunged into the history of our modernity, and see what the Smithsonian deemed important to document and preserve. The famous, the infamous, and the never-before-seen are here in a remarkable "democracy of images": Amelia Earhart, Abraham Lincoln, P.T. Barnum and Tom Thumb, John Brown, Frederick Douglass, Lucille Ball, Greta Garbo, Babe Ruth; the earliest views of the moon and the earliest panoramic view of Damascus; rare Native American photography; views of Asia, Africa, and the American West; photographs of early flight, and much, much more. By recording the act of seeing, and of what was seen, both photography and the Smithsonian have shaped our sense of ourselves, as individuals, as a people, and as a country.

Hardcover. New York, Harry N. Abrams, unknown, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 116 pages, illustrated throughout in color and b&w. Red cloth. pictorial dust jacket. Beautiful copy in shrinkwrap. In this landmark volume we see the photo-realist painter at work and the works themselves in progress, together with many superb reproductions of her completed paintings.

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press , 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 250 pages, 116 color pates. burgundy cloth covers in a slipcase.

Hardcover. Charlottesville VA, University Press of Virginia, 1st, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 553 pages, 348 full-page portraits in b&w. Includes a catalogue of 3,800 silhouettes by the artist. Very good in a crisp, unclipped dust jacket. Auguste Edouart was the most prolific silhouettist ever to work in this country. Arriving from France in 1839, he traveled throughout the United States contracting enough projects in six years to fill over fifty albums; at the same time he created a biographical record of the most famous Americans of the period. This volume contains the most, and the best, of Edouard's silhouettes every to appear under a single cover.

Hardcover. Somogy Editions D'Art , 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Still in publisher's shrinkwrap. Full color exhibition catalogue of the new retrospective exhibition of Saint-Gaudens' work, the first in Europe since 1900. Venues include the Muse des Augustins, in Toulouse (February 2-May 30, 1999), and the Muse national de la Cooperation Franco-Americaine, at Blrencourt (June 26-October 18, 1999). The artwork covers Saint-Gaudens' entire career, from the cameos done during his youth, to sophisticated portrait reliefs, public monuments and coins. The essays contribute new scholarship on the sculptor's career and art, including his decorative art designs for Tiffany's, personalized pencil caricatures for friends, and the development of the monument to Charles Stewart Parnell in Dublin, the last public monument Saint-Gaudens saw to completion.

Hardcover. London, Carpet Bombing Culture, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 200 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy. Full page color photographs throughout. Tight copy. A look deep inside the crumbling apocalyptic landscape of America through the eyes of Photojournalist Seph Lawless.

Softcover. NY, Gagosian, 1st, 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 316 pages. Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at Gagosian, New York, in 2023, this striking illustrated catalog celebrates the centenary of the iconic photographer's birth. Over one hundred celebrated artists, designers, musicians, writers, curators, and figures from the world of fashion were asked to select a photograph by Avedon and elaborate on the ways in which both the image and artist have made an impact on their lives. Participants include Hilton Als, Naomi Campbell, Elton John, Spike Lee, Sally Mann, Polly Mellen, Kate Moss, Chloe Sevigny, Taryn Simon, Christy Turlington, and Jonas Wood."Avedon 100" celebrates Avedon's enduring influence on photography and makes clear his profound impression on visual culture worldwide. The book represents various periods from his oeuvre, including the widely known In the American West series, images of the social justice movement, classic portraiture, advertising, and fashion work. Includes a foreword by Larry Gagosian, texts by Derek Blasberg and Jake Skeets, and an essay by Sarah Elizabeth Lewis. Red remainder dot on bottom edge otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Boston, MA, Museum of Fine Arts, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 348 pages. 259 illustrations, including 152 plates in full color. Surveys the vast medium of watercolor through the 19th and early 20th centuries, displaying artist such as La Farge, Prendegrast, Wyeth, West, Marin, Homer, Sargent and many others. The first full scale book published documenting the outstanding collection of watercolor at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Blue cloth, dark blue lettering to spine and front cover. Beautiful pictorial dust jacket displaying Homer's "The Blue Boat". Like new.

Hardcover. NY, Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, 1st US, 1935, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards with a green cloth spine with fraying to top and bottom. Decorative endpapers with lots of elephants against a marbled blue background, no dust jacket. Oversize, 14 1/2" tall. The 3rd Babar book. Babar and Celeste build a city for the elephants. Imaginative and rich color artwork throughout 48 pages with hand-lettered text. Covers with edges and corners worn, light soiling. Several pages with mild soil, stain to edges, margins. One page loose. No markings. Overall a good copy of the scarce first American edition.

Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin , 1st, 1930, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 356 pages, 27 b&w illustrations, index. Black cloth spine over blue boards, spine label. SIGNED BY BEAUX on the title page and dated June 1st 1931. Scarce thus.

Hardcover. Montreal, Drawn and Quarterly, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 250 pages, color illustrations by Mumford. Light bump to top of spine. Bright dust jacket. Not overtly political, Bagdad Journal presents portraits of life from all sides of the polarizing conflict. With sketch pad and notebook in hand, Mumford illuminates the routine activities of a nation in turmoil-from the individual soldiers of American platoons to Baghdad residents going about their daily lives amid the chaos surrounding them.

Hardcover. Washington D.C, National Portrait Gallery, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. For this exclusive collection of postcards, David Bailey, one of the worlds most distinguished and distinctive photographers, has chosen a selection of images from his archive some familiar, others previously unseen. This box of 36 portraits, reminiscent of Baileys acclaimed Box of Pin - Ups (1965), demonstrates the extraordinary range of people that he has captured during his long career;

Hardcover. Washington DC, National Portrait Gallery, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. For this exclusive collection of postcards, David Bailey, one of the worlds most distinguished and distinctive photographers, has chosen a selection of images from his archive some familiar, others previously unseen. This box of 36 portraits, reminiscent of Baileys acclaimed Box of Pin - Ups (1965), demonstrates the extraordinary range of people that he has captured during his long career;

Hardcover. Daylight Books, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 104 pages. Barmaid presents images by American photographer John Arsenault, who worked at the Eagle LA as a barback, or "barmaid," as Arsenault liked to refer to the position. The series consists of customer and employee portraits, interior landscapes from the bar, and self-portraits. These photographs reflect an insider view of the iconic bar.John Arsenault is a Los Angeles based photographer. His photography is internationally exhibited and is included in the Nerman Museum & Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.The Massachusetts native attended the School of Visual Arts, and since then has been lending his unscripted, unusual and totally authentic work to clients ranging from The New Yorker and Volkswagen to Goldman Sachs and Out Magazine

Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 336 pages. Crockett Johnson is best known today for his children's books, notably 1955's Harold and the Purple Crayon, but his paramount creation was the celebrated if obscure newspaper strip Barnaby, which, from its distinct visual look (minimalist, Thurberesque drawings; typeset word balloons) to its wry, understated humor, was unlike anything else ever to hit the comics page. When five-year-old Barnaby Baxter wishes for a fairy godfather, what he gets instead is Mr. O'Malley, a pint-size, minimally magical sprite sporting an overcoat, tiny pink wings, and an ever-present cigar (his "fine Havana magic wand"). These initial 20 months of strips also introduce other characters: Barnaby's concerned parents (who, naturally, never see their child's supernatural companion), his young friend Jane, Gorgon the talking dog, and Gus the ghost. Praised by the intelligentsia (Dorothy Parker called Barnaby and his cast members "the most important additions to American arts and letters in Lord knows how many years") but never widely popular, the strip ran for a decade, from 1942 to 1952. This first volume collects all the strips from 1942 and 1943.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 1968, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, ex-library copy with residue to endpapers, stamping to copyright page, spine sticker. 155 pages, illustrated with color and sepia tone plates. Documents the years when John Russell Bartlett (1805-1886)was commissioner of the Mexican Boundary Survey of 1850. A very nice collection of images drawn by a better than average hand. They depict the scenes witnessed by Bartlett along with a biographical text recounting the artist and his travels.

Hardcover. NY, Dutton, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 496 pages. Dr. Seuss is a classic American icon. Whimsical and wonderful, his work has defined our childhoods and the childhoods of our own children. The silly, simple rhymes are a bottomless well of magic, his illustrations timeless favorites because, quite simply, he makes us laugh. The Grinch, the Cat in the Hat, Horton, and so many more, are his troupe of beloved, and uniquely Seussian, creations.Theodor Geisel, however, had a second, more radical side. It is there that the allure and fasciation of his Dr. Seuss alter ego begins. He had a successful career as an advertising man and then as a political cartoonist, his personal convictions appearing, not always subtly, throughout his books--remember the environmentalist of The Lorax? Geisel was a complicated man on an important mission. He introduced generations to the wonders of reading while teaching young people about empathy and how to treat others well. Agonizing over word choices and rhymes, touching up drawings sometimes for years, he upheld a rigorous standard of perfection for his work. Geisel took his responsibility as a writer for children seriously, talking down to no reader, no matter how small. And with classics like Green Eggs and Ham, and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Geisel delighted them while they learned. Suddenly, reading became fun.

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2024, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly rubbed dust jacket, 560 pages, b&w illustrations. In this first major biography since Fitzgerald's death, music historian Judith Tick draws on deep archival research, family interviews and newly available recordings and concert footage to show how Fitzgerald fused a Black vocal aesthetic with mainstream popular repertoire to revolutionise American music. From Fitzgerald's first audition at the Apollo Theatre to swing-era success at the Savoy, Tick shows how this 'girl singer' broke new ground: as a female bandleader, as a ground-breaking bebop improviser and as the arbiter of the American canon with her Song Book recordings. Yet even as she electrified concert halls and sold millions of records, jazz critics belittled her as 'naive'. Tick reveals instead an ambitious risk-taker with a stunningly diverse repertoire, whose exceptional musical spontaneity (often radically different on stage than in the studio) made her a transformational artist. Remainder dot to top edge otherwise a clean copy.

Cambridge, MA, Candlewick Press, 1st U.S., 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, unpaginated, color illustrations by P. J. Lynch, DVD "Making Fairy Tales" inside front cover, very clean, tight copy, like new. Brought to new life with enchanting illustrations by award-winning artist P. J. Lynch, this comic American folktale concludes with a final, satisfying twist that says much about fate, identity, and the captivating power of bees.

Hardcover. NY, Vendome Press, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 208 pages. Beene by Beene is a journey through Geoffrey Beene's life in fashion, a 40-year exploration that was, by turns, visionary, witty, irreverent, iconic, and timeless. His work was of such powerful clarity, such complete complicity between form and function that it actually teaches us-as all works of art do-how to look. A defining American artist, Geoffrey Beene towers in his field.Pamela A. Parmal provides a chronological survey of Mr. Beene's career as a fashion designer and discusses the evolution of his work. Chapters focus on themes or influences-Woman, Body, Fabric, Comfort, Geometry, Sport, Culture-that were a constant source of inspiration to the designer. Beene won the attention and admiration of other artists, and here we see his work through the eyes of renowned photographers and illustrators, even filmmakers and choreographers.

Softcover. NY, Skyhorse, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 361 pages, b&w illustrations. Burlesque was one of America's most popular forms of live entertainment in the first half of the 20th century. Gaudy, bawdy, and spectacular, the shows entertained thousands of paying customers every night of the week. And yet the legacy of burlesque is often vilified and misunderstood, left out of the history books.By telling the intimate and surprising stories from its golden age through the women (and men!) who lived it, Behind the Burly Q reveals the true story of burlesque, even as it experiences a new renaissance. Lovingly interviewed by burlesque enthusiast Leslie Zemeckis who produced the hit documentary of the same name, are former musicians, strippers, novelty acts, club owners, authors, and historians--assembled here for the first time ever to tell you just what really happened in a burlesque show. From Jack Ruby and Robert Kennedy to Abbott and Costello--burlesque touched every corner of American life. The sexy shows often poked fun at the upper classes, at sex, and at what people were willing to do in the pursuit of sex. Sadly, many of the performers have since passed away, making this their last, and often only interview. Behind the Burly Q is the definitive history of burlesque during its heyday and an invaluable oral history of an American art form. Funny, shocking, unbelievable, and heartbreaking, their stories will touch your hearts. We invite you to peek behind the curtain at the burly show.

Softcover. US, University of Illinois Press, 1st, 2010, Book: Near Fine, Dust Jacket: None, 190 pages, illustrated throughout in b&w. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to wrappers. The paintings, murals, and graphics of Ben Shahn (1898-1969) have made him one of the most heralded American artists of the twentieth century, but during the 1930s he was also among the nation's premier photographers. Much of his photographic work was sponsored by the New Deal's Farm Security Administration, where his colleagues included Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans.Ben Shahn's American Scene: Photographs, 1938 presents one hundred superb photographs from his most ambitious FSA project, a survey of small-town life in the Depression. John Raeburn's accompanying text illuminates the thematic and formal significance of individual photographs and reveals how, taken together, they address key cultural and political issues of the years leading up to World War II. Shahn's photographs highlight conflicts between traditional values and the newer ones introduced by modernity as represented by the movies, chain stores, and the tantalizing allure of consumer goods, and they are particularly rich in observation about the changes brought about by Americans' universal reliance on the automobile. They also explore the small town's standing as the nation's symbol of democratic community and expose the discriminatory social and racial practices that subverted this ideal in 1930s America.