art history

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1st, 1940, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Poor, Hardcover, red cloth in a worn and chipped dust jacket with closed tears, 191 pages with index. Dr. Worcester presents a theory of satire, surveying the whole field since Dryden's Discourse of the Origin of Satire and drawing illustrations not only from English but from classical, French, German, and American literature. At the same time he makes a penetrating study of irony and its uses. Name on inside front cover otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Pittsburgh PA, GoodKnight Books, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The Art of Selling Movies presents the first-ever look at 60 years of newspaper advertising for motion pictures great and small. These ads created by Hollywood and adapted by local and regional exhibitors motivated patrons to leave their homes, part with precious income, and spend time in the dark. Because of the high stakes involved, theater operators used wildly creative means to make that happen. They made movie advertising equal parts art and psychology, appealing to every human instinct (especially sex) in an effort to push product and keep their theatres in business. From the pen-and-ink masterpieces of the 1920s and 30s to location-specific folk art to ad space jam-packed with enticements for every member of the family, The Art of Selling Movies dissects the psyche of the American movie-going public ... and the advertisers seeking to push just the right buttons.

Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 288 pages. The impact of the humble American snapshot has been anything but humble. Any American who takes a snapshot contributes to a compelling and influential genre. Since 1888, when George Eastman introduced the Kodak camera and roll film, the snapshot has not only changed everyday American life and memory; it has also changed the history of fine art photography. The distinctive subject matter and visual vocabulary of the American snapshot--its poses, facial expressions, viewpoints, framing, and themes--influenced modernist photographers as they explored spontaneity, objectivity, and new topics and perspectives. A richly illustrated chronicle of the first century of snapshot photography in America, The Art of the American Snapshot is the first book to examine the evolution of this most common form of American photography. The book shows that among the countless snapshots taken by American amateurs, some works, through intention or accident, continue to resonate long after their intimate context and original meaning have been lost.The catalogue of a fall 2007 exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, The Art of the American Snapshot reproduces some 250 snapshots drawn from Robert Jackson's outstanding collection and from a recent gift Jackson made to the museum. Organized decade by decade, the book traces the evolution of American snapshot imagery and describes how technical, social, and cultural factors affected the look of snapshots at different periods.

Hardcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 2016, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, still in publisher's shrinkwrap. This stunning book charts the rich history of the blues, through the dazzling array of posters, album covers, and advertisements that have shaped its identity over the past hundred years. The blues have been one of the most ubiquitous but diverse elements of American popular music at large, and the visual art associated with this unique sound has been just as varied and dynamic. There is no better guide to this fascinating graphical world than Bill Dahl--a longtime music journalist and historian who has written liner notes for countless reissues of classic blues, soul, R&B, and rock albums. With his deep knowledge and incisive commentary--complementing more than three hundred and fifty lavishly reproduced images--the history of the blues comes musically and visually to life.

Hardcover. Baltimore, Racquet Sports Information Service, reprint, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth stamped in gold color in a matching slipcase. Number 550 out of 750. The second English edition of the work. Originally published in French in 1767 and translated into English by Catherine W. Leftwich in 1938. With a frontispiece and 5 plates to the rear. This work discusses how to make tennis rackets and talks about the sport itself. At the time of it's original creation, this work was considered to be one of the most detailed works on the game of tennis. Inscription on front fly leaf otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press , 1st, 1960, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 313 pages. Reprint of the 1864 original. Edited by Benjamin Rowland, Jr. Blue cloth, gilt lettering to spine and front cover. A very crisp, clean and well preserved copy

Hardcover. NY, Hill & Wang , 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 251 pages. Completed in 1825 and enlarged between 1836 and 1862 at the initial cost of $7 million, the Erie Canal not only created an economic revolution in the region but fostered new and unique communities made up of entrepreneurs, canal workers, and farmers. Utilizing a variety of primary resources, but especially the Canal Board Papers, Sheriff (history relates the social history of those who lived, worked, and traveled the Erie Canal before the Civil War. This previously untold story is laced with accounts by businessmen who saw the canal as opportunity, immigrant laborers looking for steady work, and farmers who transported their produce by canal boat. Although all of these groups relayed their complaints, claims, and concerns to the Canal Board, we do not know the responses they received. Still, the issues raised tell a great deal about the local impact of the Erie Canal, and herein lies the strength of the book. Clean copy.

Softcover. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 155 pages. Thomas Dennis emigrated to America from England in 1663, settling in Ipswich, a Massachusetts village a long day's sail north of Boston. He had apprenticed in joinery, the most common method of making furniture in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Britain, and he became Ipswich's second joiner, setting up shop in the heart of the village. During his lifetime, Dennis won wide renown as an artisan. Today, connoisseurs judge his elaborately carved furniture as among the best produced in seventeenth-century America. Robert Tarule, historian and accomplished craftsman, brilliantly recreates Dennis's world in recounting how he created a single oak chest. Writing as a woodworker himself, Tarule vividly portrays Dennis walking through the woods looking for the right trees; sawing and splitting the wood on site; and working in his shop on the chest-planing, joining, and carving. Dennis inherited a knowledge of wood and woodworking that dated back centuries before he was born, and Tarule traces this tradition from Old World to New. He also depicts the natural and social landscape in which Dennis operated, from the sights, sounds, and smells of colonial Ipswich and its surrounding countryside to the laws that governed his use of trees and his network of personal and professional relationships. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY/London, Sotheby's Parke Bernet, Revised Ed., 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 376 pages. 26 illustrations in color, and 420 in black and white. Originally published in 1979. John Harris was one of England's leading Architectural Historians at the time this book was written. He was curator of the Drawing Collection for RIBA. (Royal Institute of British Architects). Each section introduces a period such as: the Age of Estate Cartographers and the Garden Converstations, The Country House and Sporting Art: John Wootton, Peter Tillemans and Others, Caneletto and the Architectural Topographers, Gainsborough and the Picturesque, The Art of Turner and Constable. Harris comments on the artists , their style and pictures.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 224 pages. How does the artist's self-conception change in old age? How does old age affect artistic practice? In this intriguing study, art historian Philip Sohm considers some of the greatest artists of Renaissance and Baroque Italy and their experiences of aging. Sohm investigates how art critics, collectors, biographers, and fellow artists dealt with old painters, what mental landscapes preconditioned responses to art by the elderly, and how biology and psychology were co-opted to explain the imprint that artists left on their art. He also looks carefully at the impact of prejudices, stereotypes, and other imaginary truths about old age. For some artists, the problems of old age were related to physical decline-Poussin's hands became shaky, Titian's eyesight dimmed. For others, psychological symptoms emerged. The book's cast of characters includes Michelangelo, the hypochondriac young fogy; Titian, the shrewd marketer of old age; the multiphobic Pontormo; and others. With sensitivity and insight, Sohm uncovers what it meant to be an old artist and how successive generations have looked at the art of an old master.

Softcover. NY, Shapolsky Publishers, 2nd Ed., 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 196 pages, b&w photos throughout. Introduction by Thomas Hess. Fred McDarrah (1926-2007) was a photojournalist, author, and staff photographer for the Village Voice known for documenting the Beat Generation and the New York art world. The present work is a vital document of an exuberant moment in cultural history. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Columbian Art Company, 1st, 1892, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, bound in gray cloth with black and gilt titles and black embossed images to front. Illustrated with a fold-out frontispiece and with several full-page black and white illustrations, styled as plates, all illustrations in black and white. First published by R.S. Peale Co. the year before. A lovely overview of tourist spots in Chicago that World's Fair attendees could visit while enjoying the fair.

Hardcover. Westport CT, Greenwood Press, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, glazed pictorial boards, 177 pages. Postma draws on primary sources and current historical scholarship to offer secondary readers and researchers a comprehensive and well-written history. He covers the entire Atlantic slave trade era, from the 1400s to the final abolition of chattel slavery in the New World in 1888. The focus is on Africa and the entire New World. While he describes the many horrors of the Middle Passage, he also examines how the slave trade contributed to the development of the modern international economy. The last chapters discuss the efforts to abolish the slave trade and its legacy. Throughout, Postma documents the sources that support his discussion and conclusions. Chapter notes are supplemented by an extensive annotated bibliography that includes books, articles, films, and electronic resources. The volume concludes with biographical sketches of important people and excerpts from primary documents written by enslaved Africans and white officials. The black-and-white reproductions of period illustrations add little to the text. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial cloth, 212 pages. Atlas holds a special place among aficionados of the genre, producing more horror titles and issues by far, than anyone in the industry. While the quality of EC's six horror/sci-fi titles was unsurpassed with their elite cadre of talent, Atlas was the equivalent of the B-movies studio, churning out anywhere from 8 to 12 different horror titles a month, giving a wider array of artists, including some of the best craftsmen of the era, a chance to show off their talents: in addition to those already mentioned, future volumes will include Bill Everett, John Romita, Bernie Krigstein, Jerry Robinson, Harry Anderson, and Matt Fox. Stories from Marvel's Atlas line have barely been reprinted.The Fantagraphics Atlas Comics Library is the first attempt to publish a carefully curated line of Atlas titles. The first volume, Adventures Into Terror, includes a treasure trove of stories drawn by many of the most stylistically accomplished artists of the Golden Age including George Tuska, Carl Burgos, Mike Sekowsky, Joe Maneely, and Joe Sinnott. Highlights include Russ Heath's two-part story "The Brain" from issue #4 and "Return of the Brain" from issue #6; Basil Wolverton's classic "Where Monsters Dwell" from issue #7; Gene Colan's moody "House of Horror" in issue #3; and Don Rico's wild layouts are on display from #4's "The Torture Room." The stories are written firmly in the tradition of the pulpy, perverse, borderline deranged style that brought Fredric Wertham, the United States Senate Sub-Committee, and public opinion down like a sledgehammer on comics in the early '50s.Edited by Atlas scholar Dr. Michael J. Vassallo, scanned directly from the published comics, and meticulously restored by Allan Harvey, the first volume of the new Fantagraphics Atlas Library series is an event among comics lovers, collectors, and historians.

Hardcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Clean, bright copy, 467 pages. Illustrated with 36 pages of historic Plates, b/w, on coated paper. One of the most famous works of history, Johan Huizinga presents a brilliant portrait of life, thought, and art in 14th and 15th century France and the Netherlands.

Hardcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Clean, bright copy, 467 pages. Illustrated with 36 pages of historic Plates, b/w, on coated paper. One of the most famous works of history, Johan Huizinga presents a brilliant portrait of life, thought, and art in 14th and 15th century France and the Netherlands.

Softcover. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1st, 1980, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 288 pages. B&w illustrations, facsimiles, portraits. Published to accompany an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Groundbreaking exhibition of Russian and Soviet art, with a special focus on Suprematism and Constructivism. Full of great information, excellent biographical entries. Essential art history.

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Barefoot Books, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 96 pages. SIGNED BY BOTH AUTHORS on a tipped-in bookplate on the front fly leaf. Lovely color illustrations by Rebecca Guay. Let yourself be drawn into the magical world of the dance with this sumptuous anthology. Love, laughter, betrayal, adventure and tragedy intertwine to create stories that will reach deep into the heart and dreams of the reader. The story of "The Sleeping Beauty" will whisk you away to the thorny castle where Princess Aurora awaits her prince; the comedy and confusion of "Coppelia" will delight you, and the magical adventures of Clara in "The Nutcracker" will entrance you. Featuring a brief history of classical ballet, as well as historical details of each dance, composition, choreography and early performances, this book will captivate anyone with a love of this awe-inspiring art.

Hardcover. NY, H. Bittner and Company, 1st, 1945, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue buckram stamped with gilt code of arms and lettering on spine. Limited to 1000 copies. A study of an artistic family who created theatrical designs dating from the 1680s to the 1780s under eight names. Illustrated with 53 plates. Small review slip tipped on front fly leaf. Some darkening to covers and spine, internally clean and bright. No dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, Abrams Press, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Illustrations, 470 pages with index. A groundbreaking, timely history of the largely unknown early days of Black basketball, bringing to life the trailblazers, entertainers, gangsters, and supremely talented athletes who made the game From the introduction of the game of basketball to Black communities in 1904 to the integration of the NBA in 1950, there was a full era in the development of the game. It was a time when Black players were discriminated against and opportunities were limited, but entrepreneurial men and women nurtured the game and breathed life into a sport they loved. This period was known as the Black Fives Era (teams at the time were often called "fives"), and was akin to the golden age of the Negro Leagues. But despite fierce rivalries between big-city clubs, innovative managers, and star players, this period is almost entirely unknown to basketball fans. Claude Johnson has made it his mission to change that. An advocate fiercely committed to our history, for more than two decades Johnson has conducted interviews, mined archives, collected artifacts, and helped to preserve an important, culturally rich era that otherwise would have been lost. The Black Fives is the result of his work, a landmark narrative history that will braid together the stories of these forgotten pioneers and rewrite our understanding of the story of basketball.

Softcover. London, Routledge, reprint, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 325 pages with index, b&w illustrations. An outstanding piece of scholarship and a fascinating read, The Body Emblazoned is a compelling study of the culture of dissection the English Renaissance, which informed intellectual enquiry in Europe for nearly two hundred years. In this outstanding work, Jonathan Sawday explores the dark, morbid eroticism of the Renaissance anatomy theatre, and relates it to not only the great monuments of Renaissance art, but to the very foundation of the modern idea of knowledge.Though the dazzling displays of the exterior of the body in Renaissance literature and art have long been a subject of enquiry, The Body Emblazoned considers the interior of the body, and what it meant to men and women in early modern culture. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. UK, Osprey Military Books, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, brown cloth with gilt lettering on spine, 160 pages. The Boer War devastated the South African economy and left a legacy of bitterness. It saw the invention of the concentration camp and a new style of guerilla warfare. This history of the campaign includes artwork of maps, weapons and uniforms, with contemporary photography from the period. Clean copy. No dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, University Books, reprint, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover in a worn and chipped dust jacket, original $10 price intact. 337 pages, b&w illustrations. An Influential occult study synthesizing medieval and Renaissance magical texts, ceremonial rites, conjurations, and ritual symbolism. One of Waite's most significant works on Western esotericism. A solid first University Books edition of a cornerstone 20th-Century occult text. Foreword by John C. Wilson. 1961 reissue of the Revised and expanded edition. The original version was titled "The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts" (London, 1898).

Hardcover. NY, McGraw Hill, 2nd pr., 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover. A history of illustrated flower books with a description of the various types. Handsome folio volume, 11" by 14.5". Olive green silk cloth binding, bright gilt spine titles, blindstamped flower design to front cover. 208 pages with bibliography and index. 126 illustrations, including 40 full page color plates taken from rare printed books. The period 1485 to 1850 is covered, after which standards of reproduction began to decline. There is a small crease which runs down the center of the dj font panel, but not conspicuous. clean copy.