american art

Hardcover. NY, Norton, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 384 pages. The definitive biography of the greatest cartoonist of the Greatest Generation. "The real war," said Walt Whitman, "will never get in the books." During World War II, the truest glimpse most Americans got of the "real war" came through the flashing black lines of twenty-two-year-old infantry sergeant Bill Mauldin. Week after week, Mauldin defied army censors, German artillery, and Patton's pledge to "throw his ass in jail" to deliver his wildly popular cartoon, "Up Front," to the pages of Stars and Stripes. "Up Front" featured the wise-cracking Willie and Joe, whose stooped shoulders, mud-soaked uniforms, and pidgin of army slang and slum dialect bore eloquent witness to the world of combat and the men who lived-and died-in it. This taut, lushly illustrated biography-the first of two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Bill Mauldin-is illustrated with more than ninety classic Mauldin cartoons and rare photographs. It traces the improbable career and tumultuous private life of a charismatic genius who rose to fame on his motto: "If it's big, hit it."

Hardcover. Five Continents, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in pictorial boards. Born into slavery around 1853-4 on a cotton plantation in Benton, Alabama, Traylor has become one of the most important self-taught artists of the twentieth century, and certainly one of the most celebrated African-American artists, along with Thorton Dial and William Edmondson. The story of Bill Traylor's life and work is a remarkable one. It is a story that deserves attention both nationally and internationally. This publication, generously illustrated with full-page high-quality reproductions, provides a close examination of Traylor's recurrent themes, composition schemes, favored iconography, and contextual information related to the artist's biography, creative process and tools, visual environment, and artistic mindset. Each artwork is considered in a context beyond that of an isolated image and in response to one another, forming a series of intricate and consistent narratives, intriguingly cinematic in its development. The elements of Traylor's biography are the anchors of an individual mythology. Instead of merely being a basic depiction, the subject becomes a visual statement structuring Traylor's mind, bringing together hidden symbols from Kongo Vodou, Hoodoo, Southern Baptist, Freemasonry, and Blues sources, as well as layers of references: slavery, uncensored violence in the Jim Crow era, and turbulence within the black enclave known as 'Dark Town' in Montgomery, Alabama. Bilingual edition in French and English. Still in publisher's shrinkwrap.

Hardcover. US, Reel Art Press, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Large heavy book, 448 pages, illustrated throughout in b&w. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. This breathtaking tome is the definitive and comprehensive collection of Billy Name's black-and-white photographs from Warhol's Factory. Name's photographs from this period (1964-68) are one of the most important photographic documents of any single artist in history. Name lived in a tiny closet at the Factory. He was responsible for the legendary "silverizing" of the space using aluminum paint and foil to complete the instillation. When Warhol gave Name a Pentax Honeywell 35mm camera, he took on the role of resident photographer and archivist. This visual essay, produced in collaboration with Billy name, offers an extensive trip through Warhol's world. Name photographed the day-to-day happenings at The Factory with Andy, including visits from Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, Nico, Edie Sedgwick, Ivy Nicholson and Bob Dylan, and filming Screen Tests and features such as Chelsea Girls, Vinyl and My Hustler.

Softcover. New York, Thumbtack Books, 1st softcover, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Large softcover. Unpaginated. Full page black and white illustrations, text by Rosalie Gomes, red cover with illustration. Light wear to cover; overall a tight, clean copy.

Softcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, reprint, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, A comic-book classic with timely resonance: Blazing Combat was an American war-comics magazine published by Warren Publishing from 1965 to 1966. Written and edited by Archie Goodwin , with artwork by such industry notables as Gene Colan , Frank Frazetta , John Severin , Alex Toth , Al Williamson, Russ Heath, Reed Crandall, and Wally Wood , it featured war stories in both contemporary and period settings, unified by a humanistic theme of the personal costs of war, rather than by traditional men's adventure motifs. What proved to be the most controversial were stories set during the then-contemporary Vietnam War; one such story caused key distributors to stop selling the title. Fantagraphics softcover edition of the sold-out 2011 hardcover, magnificently printed and bound, of these stories, superbly reproduced from the original printer's film negatives.

Hardcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press , 1st, 1946, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 132 pages of text, plus 125 numbered plates in b&w and color. Price-clipped dust jacket with minor wear.

Hardcover. NY, Reagan Books, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 272 pages. Through striking illustrations and stunning photographs, Bohemian Modern explores the unique structural and interior designs that have put California's ultra-chic Silver Lake neighborhood at the forefront of a new style phenomenon. One of the country's most renowned modernist architects, Barbara Bestor has fully embraced and perfected Silver Lake's "bohemian modern" style: a practical philosophy that is Californian in origin but achievable anywhere. It is a look that favors raw, authentic materials, brilliant colors, creative space planning, and a natural flow between indoors and outdoors. The results, as Bohemian Modern presents, are striking: a flawlessly restored Neutra house decorated with both whimsy and restraint, a rooftop constructed for viewing the stars, a lavish outdoor garden delicately integrated into the surrounding architecture, a double-sided bookcase that soars three stories and serves as a functional art installation...there is no limit to the creativity and beauty of Silver Lake style.

Hardcover. NY, Pantheon, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket, 495 pages. Boogaloo--the synonym of choice among the cognoscenti for rhythm and blues--is a stylish and profound meditation on the art, influence, and commerce of black American popular music. At once deeply knowing and keenly observant, Arthur Kempton reveals the tensions between the sacred and the profane at the heart of "soul music," and the complex centrality of "Aframericans" in the evolution of our mass musical culture. What that culture is all about, who owns it, and who gets paid--these are issues of moment in his epic narrative. Kempton brilliantly traces the interconnections among a century's worth of signal personalities, events, and achievements: from Thomas A. Dorsey, the so-called Father of Gospel Music, whose career ("Got to Know How to Work Your Show") sheds light on Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, and James Brown, among others, to the rise of that "handsome Negro lad," Sam Cooke (perhaps the greatest of soul singers) and his definitive crossover dreams; from Berry Gordy Jr.'s infatuation with Doris Day and his sharp business plan to capture and exploit the sounds of young America through Motown ("It's What's in the Grooves That Counts") to the founding of Stax Records and Memphis Soul by a white farm kid who grew up dreaming of being a country fiddler; from the visionary funk of George Clinton to the ascendancy of hip hop ("Sharecropping in Wonderland"), the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, and the story of Death Row Records. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1st, 1908, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Unpaginated, color decorations by Will Jenkins. This antique hardcover book is bound in olive-green cloth boards with a large color paste-down cover illustration of a woman by Will Grefe with gilt lettering. Features a variety of large color plates (about 12) from well-known illustrators of the day, many of which are suitable for framing, accompanied by verses of love. Bright, clean and tight.

Hardcover. New York, Harper & Brothers, reprint , 1923, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 274 pages. Illustrated with full color and black & white plates by Frederic Remington. Brown paper covered boards with cover pastedown of Remington drawing. black cloth spine. Copyright page with 1923 date and Harper's G-B code indicating later printing of 1st edition. Light foxing to outer edges of some pages and plates. Fraying to cloth at top of spine. Light darkening of pages close to gutter. Still an attractive copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Marshall Jones Company, Limited, 1923, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 165 pages. Limited edition, #988/1500. Tissue guard. B&W photographs throughout. Some minor surface wear to covers. Overall tight and clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin , 2nd pr., 1957, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Authorized biography of the early baseball executive who originated the workable farm system, developed efficient scouting, pioneered revolutionary training devises and techniques, and introduced black players to major league baseball. 312 pages includes index.

Hardcover. NY, Prestel, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 208 pages, color plates. Celebrating an experimental decade in the career of Alex Katz, this book introduces audiences to a relatively unknown body of his work. Coming of age as an artist in the 1950s, Alex Katz set out to reinvent representational painting in the wake of Abstract Expressionism. At first, Katz struggled to find an audience, destroying hundreds of canvases. This book surveys the artwork that survived from this momentous decade, one in which he first painted outdoors, innovated with collages, and met Ada del Moro, his wife and muse. The essays in this book contextualize Katz's painting, consider how he and his peers looked at one another, mined 19th-century portraiture, and borrowed from television, advertising, and cinema. The result is a fascinating study of a young artist laying the groundwork for an astonishingly successful career. Fans of Katz will be inspired by the radicality of his early work, and those being introduced to the artist will be struck by its freshness and relevance.

Hardcover. Boston, Bulfinch Press, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 319 pages, mostly b&w photographs (some color), essays by 7 contributors including Henry Miller. Preface by Jean-Jacques Aillagon. Text essays excerpted from the work of Brassai himself as well as contributions from his wife Mme. Gilberte Brassi and close friends Roger Grenier, Henry Miller, Jacques Prevert and Werner Spies. End-matter includes Biography, Bibliography, Exhibitions and List of Illustrations. Illustrated with 308 photographs, 14 of which are in color. Stated first American edition. A presentation of Brassi's art from his nude drawings and sculpture to his fascination with graffiti but principally featuring on his photographs of nocturnal Paris and the demimonde creatures which inhabited its streets. Remainder mark to top edge, otherwise clean. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Softcover. NY, The Brooklyn Museum, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. Exhibition catalog. Unpaginated, numerous b&w illustrations throughout. Exhibition at Brooklyn Museum November 1972-February 1973. Pictorial stiff wrappers. Slight wear and rubbing around edges and spine, front cover lightly sunned, else a nice, tight copy.

Hardcover. US, Moderne Kunst Nurnberg, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 216 pages, illustrated in color and b&w. Small 4to, boards. This work looks at parallels between Conner's works as an artist and filmmaker. It depicts and discusses his drawings, oil and acrylic paintings, lithographs, prints, photograms and photographs, alongside three of Conner's best-known films: Breakaway (1966), Crossroads (1976), and Marilyn Times Five (1968-1973). Text in English. Like new in publishers shrink-wrap.

Hardcover. NY, Russell Sage Foundation, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 400 pages, b&w illustrations. Little over a century ago, New York and Budapest were both flourishing cities engaging in spectacular modernization. By 1930, New York had emerged as an innovating cosmopolitan metropolis, while Budapest languished under the conditions that would foster fascism. Budapest and New York explores the increasingly divergent trajectories of these once-similar cities through the perspectives of both Hungarian and American experts in the fields of political, cultural, social and art history. Their original essays illuminate key aspects of urban life that most reveal the turn-of-the-century evolution of New York and Budapest: democratic participation, use of public space, neighborhood ethnicity, and culture high and low. What comes across most strikingly in these essays is New York's cultivation of social and political pluralism, a trend not found in Budapest. Nationalist ideology exerted tremendous pressure on Budapest's ethnic groups to assimilate to a single Hungarian language and culture. In contrast, New York's ethnic diversity was transmitted through a mass culture that celebrated ethnicity while muting distinct ethnic traditions, making them accessible to a national audience. Mild fade to spine of dust jacket, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Salt Lake City, Gibbs Smith, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 229 pages, profusely illustrated in b&w. In "Building with Nature: Inspiration for the Arts & Crafts Home" Freudenheim weaves together the lives and philosophies of William Morris, John Ruskin, Frederick Law Olmsted, John Muir, Greene & Greene, Irving Gill, Bernard Maybeck, and others with the dramatic economic, social, design and cultural changes that took place in America between 1876 and 1916. Chronicling both intellectual theory and architectural history, this ground-breaking book will appeal to general readers as well as to those enthusiastic about the Arts and Crafts Movement, its architecture and furniture. Freudenheim demonstrates how the "simple life" manifested in the rustic architecture found in Yosemite, English cottages, Japanese barns, and Swiss chalets, became the basis for the design of the American Arts and Crafts home advocated by these pioneering thinkers. Their devotion to simplicity for both the interior and exterior design of these houses also helps to explain why they embraced plain, sturdy Mission Style furniture. Freudenheim points out how numerous individuals, both American and British, helped spread these ideas across America.

Hardcover. Montreal, Drawn and Quarterly, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 120 pages, illustrated throughout in b&w. Light shelf-wear to covers, else a clean, tight copy. The Love and Rockets author, Gilbert Hernandez, returns with Bumperhead, a companion book to Marble Season. Whereas Marble Season explored the exuberant and occasionally troubled existence of the wide-eyed preteen Huey, Bumperhead zeroes in on disaffected teenhood with its protagonist, Bobby.Bumperhead follows Bobby, a young slacker who narrates his life as it happens but offers very little reflection on the events that transpire. He lives in the moment exclusively and is incapable of seeing the world outside of his experiences. He comes of age in the 1970s, making a rapid progression through that era's different subcultures and in a short period of time segues from a stoner glam rocker to a drunk rocker to a speed-freak punk. He drifts in and out of relationships with friends, both male and female. Life zooms past him.Hernandez's approach captures the numbness and raw undirected anger and passion of a young man who waits for life to happen to him, not noticing all the while that it is happening. Subtle and thought-provoking, Bumperhead is a fascinating read.

Hardcover. London, Barrie & Jenkins, 1st UK, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn, price-clipped dust jacket. The first British edition featuring wrap-around color pictorial artwork by Frederick S. Remington (The Sign of the Buffalo Scout,1907). 487 pages. Notes, Bibliography, Index; illustrated in photos, reproductions, double-page frontis map. Clean copy.

Softcover. Boston, Harvard Business School, 1st wraps, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Articles: U.S. Advertising in Latin America, Industrial Structure: the American Pottery Industry, Selling Elegant Glassware, etc. Paperback.

Hardcover. NY, powerHouse Books, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 268 pages. A privileged witness to the glamorous spirit of the 1950s and 60s, Milton H. Greene photographed the greatest artists, actors, and personalities of the twentieth century, including Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich, Sammy Davis Jr., Elizabeth Taylor, Cary Grant, Sophia Loren, Groucho Marx, Audrey Hepburn, Judy Garland, Lauren Hutton, Alfred Hitchcock, Sir Laurence Olivier, Ava Gardner, Steve McQueen, Claudia Cardinale, Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Dizzy Gillespie, and Catherine Deneuve, amongst countless others. Renowned for his fashion photographs, Greene perfectly captured the fantasy, elegance, and beauty of his models, for which he secured assignments from major national publications and prestigious advertising clients. But That's Another Story: A Photographic Retrospective of Milton H. Greene reproduces, in their original clarity and integrity, pictures that have been largely unavailable since Greene's death in 1985. Organized thematically, the book features both the widely published fashion and celebrity series (including the campaign Greene shot for American Airlines in the 1950s), and intimate backstage candids. A whole chapter is dedicated to photos of Marilyn Monroe, where some of her most iconic portraits mix with private moments from her life. Ultimately, Greene's photography invites us back to an era when film and fashion, art and style were at their highest.

Hardcover. NY, PublicAffairs, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The legendary television star tells the backstage stories of the classic comedy of Your Show of Shows, Caesar's Hour , and other landmark programs. It is no exaggeration to say that without Sid Caesar, comedy in America would have been a lot less funny. He was the star and guiding force behind Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour , two of the most innovative programs in the Golden Age of Television, and the writers and stars of those shows went on to create the plays, movies, and sitcoms that we now think of as classic American comedy. So many of our greatest comedy writers - Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, Woody Allen -were part of Sid Caesar's creative troupe. Sid was a master not only of comedic performance, but also of developing characters that the audience could relate to, finding the humor in ordinary situations rather than through vaudeville-type gags. His was a comedy truly drawn from the human condition. Caesar's Hours is Sid Caesar 's artistic autobiography, his account of how these great routines were fashioned and performed, and the interactions that gave birth to them. He takes us inside the famed writers' room, the rehearsal studios, and onto the stage itself, where some of the funniest moments in television history came to life. To read his book is to learn why his intelligent and sensitive brand of humor resonates so much with us, even half a century later. Remainder line to bottom edge otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1st, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 150 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Black and white pictures throughout. Light edgewear to covers, dust jacket covered in plastic sleeve.