art design

Hardcover. NY, Assouline, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 160 pages. This is the first comprehensive survey of the work of Paul Himmel (b.1914) and the first publication about his work in 40 years. The son of immigrant Bohemian intellectuals, Himmel took up photography as a teenager and studied graphic journalism under art director Alexey Brodovitch. He worked from 1947 to 1969 as a professional photographer for such clients as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, and several of his photos were included in Edward Steichen's "Family of Man" exhibition. By 1969, he had become disenchanted with photography and retrained as a psychotherapist. An exhibit of his photographs in New York City in 1996 brought him back to public attention. Himmel's photographs are genuinely fresh and unusual. Many are high-contrast, emphasizing the design and patterns contained in an image; subjects range from New York City scenes to nudes reduced to grainy vestiges to color abstractions. This monograph richly reproduces Himmel's engaging pictures of humanity in all its variations and is recommended for all fine art and photography collections.

Softcover. London, Phaidon Press, reprint, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Softcover, 255 pages, b&w and color photographs throughout. Light fading to dust jacket spine. Else a very clean, tight copy. "Paul Rand (1914-96) was a pioneering figure in American graphic design. Adopting what he called a 'problem solving' approach to design, he drew on the ideas of European avant-garde art movements, such as Cubism, Constructivism and De Stijl, and synthesized them to produce his own distinctive graphic language."

Hardcover. New York, Praeger, 1st US, 1953, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 64 pages. Hardcover. Black & white illustrations. Introduction and Translation by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy. Dust jacket with chunk of paper missing at top of spine, some additional lesser chipping along edges - jacket now protected with clear plastic cover. Clean, unmarked text.

Hardcover. NY, Mark Batty, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 160 pages. The volume offers a significant selection from the run of Peel Magazine, which exposes the key influence in the recognition of urban stickers, in particular in the USA.A good overview of artists, thematic selections, are peppered with fair interviews, and other elements of urban culture such as decorated or tuned-up toys, or several forms of street art without losing much track of stickers as such.

Hardcover. NY, Mark Batty, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 160 pages. The volume offers a significant selection from the run of Peel Magazine, which exposes the key influence in the recognition of urban stickers, in particular in the USA.A good overview of artists, thematic selections, are peppered with fair interviews, and other elements of urban culture such as decorated or tuned-up toys, or several forms of street art without losing much track of stickers as such.

Hardcover. Phaidon, 1st thus, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 304 pages. Working in graphic, architectural, and product design, Pentagram is one of the most respected firms in the world. A collection of the work and thought of the Pentagram partners, this lavishly illustrated and--not surprisingly--beautifully designed book helps to explain the unique qualities of organization and creativity that have allowed the firm to prosper since its beginnings more than 20 years ago. The candid and insightful discussion of the business and artistic processes of design is useful for students as well as seasoned professionals. While the tone is occasionally a bit self-satisfied, the final feeling conveyed is that of a ceaselessly open and growing entity, astonished at its success, justifiably proud of its work, and aware of its status as an anomaly. Recommended for all collections with a focus on design.

Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics Books, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in pictorial covers with a die-cut hole for title. 316 pages in color and b&w. Perfect Nonsense tells the complete story behind one of the most innovative and under-rated Golden Age artists, classic children's illustrators, and nonsense poets in American history. For more than 50 years, George Carlson created thousands of distinctive and dynamic cartoons, comics, riddles, and games that thrilled both children and adults with their fanciful spirit and nonsensical humor. Perfect Nonsense focuses on Carlson's prolific work as a gag cartoonist, children's illustrator, commercial designer, and art instructor from 1907 to just before World War II. Decades before his celebrated Jingle Jangle Comics, Carlson forever altered the nature of children's publishing during his tenure as chief artist and designer for the pioneering children's pulp, John Martins Book. Carlson turned the magazine itself into a toy, filled with seasonal games, holiday cut-outs, curious crosswords, graphic exercises, puzzles, riddles, rebuses, and more. Clean copy.

Softcover. London, Tate Gallery, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 216 pages. A key figure in the history of British Pop Art, Blake is one of the most influential and original artists working in Britain today. Central to Blake's work since the 1950s has been his fascination with popular culture, ranging from music to Hollywood icons and wrestling stars. Perhaps his most famous engagement with Pop came with his design for the cover of The Beatles' album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. With this and other works he helped create a specifically British pop aesthetic that defined an era. A prolific artist, he has utilised a variety of media including painting, drawing, collage, sculpture and printmaking; this study focuses principally on his two-dimensional works and provides the first thorough survey of his paintings from the 1950s through to the present. It will include major icons of twentieth-century art, such as Self-Portrait with badges (1961), and Have a Nice Day, Mr Hockney (1981-3), but will also feature many lesser-known works including his recent, major work The Marcel Duchamp World Series.

Hardcover. London, B. T. Batsford Ltd., 1st, 1949, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 169 pages. Hardcover. Red cloth edition. Top edge stained red. Illustrated with 126 black & white photographs and a few in color. Previous owners name embossed at top of rear interior dust jacket flap. Dust jacket with darkening to spine, minor smudges at upper left corner - jacket now protected with clear plastic cover. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st Edition, 1907, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover. 126 pages plus 50 plates. Vivid color illustrated tipped-in plates (vibrant, excellent condition) with captioned tissue guards, as well as b/w illustrations throughout. Plates glued to brown heavy stock. Cover boards bound in green cloth, gilt title on spine, gilt title and design embossed on front cover board. Some light spotting to boards and spine, bump to front cover board's right top corner (see image). Binding tight. Spine straight. Pages quite bright and unmarked. Scarce. In Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, J.M. Barrie first created Peter Pan as an infant, living a wild and secret life with birds and fairies in the middle of turn of the century London. This edition is beautifully illustrated by Rackham, one of the leading figures of the Golden Age of British book illustration.

Hardcover. Neshannock PA, Hermes Press, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 191 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Color throughout.

Hardcover. Damiani, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 162 pages. Part of a whole gang of street artists--from Barry McGee to Swoon--who have broken into the art world in the last decade or so, Phil Frost's signature style is a funky tribalism--Hawaii by way of New York City--infused with a quirky sense of art history and design. In the 1990s, Frost honed his skills by painting walls, found objects and street detritus with his intricate, compulsive and highly evolved form of tagging. Frost's gallery exhibitions are crowded affairs, filled with wildly patterned totemic objects and baseball bats while the walls are stacked with colorful mixed media paintings. He crafts his painstaking paintings by collaging layers of found imagery on grounds of symmetrical black-and-white patterning, which he paints with correction fluid, and that often morph into language-like glyphs or symbols. Frost states, "I believe [my work] is indigenous to myself. I believe that within every person there is an indigenous expression of themselves." Including an essay by New York journalist Carlo McCormick and notorious lowbrow artist Pusshead, this is Frost's first monograph, and an invaluable introduction to the evolution of his style.

Softcover. New York, Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 96 pages, illustrated throughout in color and b&w. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to wrappers. A look at book jackets designed by Grushkin, also includes jackets designed by George Salter, Grushkin's teacher. Table of contents, introduction, a biography of Grushkin, book jackets and examples of graphic design by Grushkin. Glossary, biographical sketches of important figures, biographical sketch of the author.

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, The MIT Press, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 362 pages, hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Generously illustrated account [435 b/w photo reproductions] of the photogrphy produced by various well-known Bauhaus associates such as Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Lucia Moholy, T. Lux Feininger, Florence Henri, Herbert Bayer, and others during the mid-1920s and early 1930s. An invaluable compilation of images and information about the work of this dynamic group of artists, designers, photographers and their students who had such an important impact on Western aesthetics and culture throughout the subsequent decades of the 20th century.

Softcover. Monterey KY, Frankfort Arts Foundation, Ltd. Ed., 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, Limited to 310 copies, this being #310. The first section of this handsome book publishes eight poems by Hass. The second section presents poems by Eric Trethewey and eight other poets. Designed and printed by Gray Zeitz at the Larkspur Press in Monterey, Kentucky. Japanese style binding. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. London, Pall Mall Press, 1st, 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, very good copy in original pictorial cloth (designed by the artist), no dust jacket. Preface by Rene Char. 405 illustrations in monochrome, sepia & color. A remarkable record of the astonishing output of Picasso in his mid-eighties, featuring many of his favorite themes: 'the artist and his model, the sultan and his harem, the circus, the pastoral flute player, nude men and women engaged in the games of love'. Mild foxing to front endpapers, otherwise clean. This is a heavy and oversized book and will require extra shipping. International customers please ask for a shipping quote before purchasing.

Hardcover. NY, Harry N. Abrams, 1st, 1965, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in bright dust jacket. Light beige cloth with Picasso signature design in red and blue. 183 pages with 118 tipped-in color plates, and 2 lithographic prints. Previous owner's gift inscription on front fly leaf signed by 14 people. Otherwise clean, like new.

Hardcover. NY, Rizzoli, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 208 pages. Pictorial photography is noted for its artistic expressiveness, careful design and composition, and muted focus. In 1914 Clarence White (1871-1925) left Alfred Stieglitz's Photo-Secession group, abandoned his ambitions to be a photographic illustrator, and opened the Manhatten-based Clarence H. White School of Photography. Lecturers at his school included Stieglitz, Paul Strand, and Edward Steichen. White's unique teaching skills, especially his encouragement of women students, nurtured the careers of such talented photographers as Margaret Bourke-White, Laura Gilpin, and Dorothea Lange. Presented by the Detroit Institute of Arts and the George Eastman House, this companion volume for a traveling exhibition contains the elegant photographic imagery of White and his students. The clear text by two photography curators imparts how the revered teacher's romantic pictorialism became the foundation for the student's avant-garde modernism. By far the most substantial review of White's work and influence in print.

Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 344 pages. The second volume in a series reprinting in its entirety the syndicated run of Walt Kelly's classic newspaper strip. It features all the strips from 1951 and 1952, which have been collected before, but in now long-out-of print books, and even there they were not as meticulously restored and reproduced as in this new series. Bona Fide Balderdash also reprints, literally for the first time ever in full color, the two full years of Sunday pages, also carefully restored and color-corrected, shot from the finest copies available. This second volume is once again edited and designed by the cartoonist's daughter, Carolyn Kelly, who is also handling much of the restoration work.

Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 344 pages. The second volume in a series reprinting in its entirety the syndicated run of Walt Kelly's classic newspaper strip. It features all the strips from 1951 and 1952, which have been collected before, but in now long-out-of print books, and even there they were not as meticulously restored and reproduced as in this new series. Bona Fide Balderdash also reprints, literally for the first time ever in full color, the two full years of Sunday pages, also carefully restored and color-corrected, shot from the finest copies available. This second volume is once again edited and designed by the cartoonist's daughter, Carolyn Kelly, who is also handling much of the restoration work.

Hardcover. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art/Yale University Press, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. Exhibition catalog with 180 illustrations, 158 in full color. Measures 12x14.5 inches. Introduction by Nancy J. Troy and contributions by Mary E. Davis, Caroline Evans, Jared Goss, Heather Hess, Caroline Rennolds Milbank, and Kenneth E. Silver. Paul Poiret (French, 1879-1944) dominated haute couture in the first decade of the twentieth century. The catalogue features photographs of a number of garments by Paul Poiret, as well as pochoir prints by graphic artists, who created deluxe albums of Poiret's designs for his elite clients.

Hardcover. London, Tate, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 208 pages, color and b&w illustrations. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. Provocative and entertaining, Pop Life examines how artists since the 1980s have cultivated their public persona as a product, and conjured a dazzling mix of media, commerce, and glamour to build their own "brands." Beginning with the grandfather of Pop, Andy Warhol, who manufactured mass-produced wares in The Factory in the 1960s, the book explores Jeff Koons' infamous Made in Heaven series-showcasing his marriage and sexual relations with Italian porn-star and latter-day politician Illona Staller (aka La Cicciolina)-and his stainless steel Rabbit sculpture; an iconic array of golden spot and butterfly paintings from Damien Hirst's recordbreaking 2008 auction; and a reconstruction of Keith Haring's Pop Shop in New York. Takashi Murakami's designs for Louis Vuitton are also included, along with works by Richard Prince, Martin Kippenberger, Tracey Emin, and many more.

Hardcover. NY, InterVisual, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover. Eight intricate and highly designed pop ups engineered by James Diaz. This book takes everyday paper and creates origami that pops! Imagine legal paper transformed into a paper bird orgiami and then it pops off the page.

Hardcover. NY, Thames & Hudson, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 352 pages, color illustrations. While cameo and intaglio portraits, other forms of deluxe jewelry, medals, and miniatures featuring famous personalities have been surveyed, a historian and curator of jewelry and engraved gems, notes that their settings have surprisingly not attracted as much attention. Covering periods from 16th to early 17th centuries Renaissance Europe to the Napoleonic to World War I eras, the author describes the pieces and names their designers in historical and personal contexts. A chapter is devoted to the portrait diamond from the Medici dynasty to the fall of the Romanovs. Clean copy. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.