art history

NY, Walker, 1st , 1967, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover. Black & white photos by Hine. 156 pages. Related material laid-in: exhibition card and newspaper article by author on Hine. Previous owner's stamp front fly leaf, old ink price on flap. Light edgewear, soil to dust jacket otherwise VG/VG

Softcover. Kitchen Sink Press, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 176 pages, b&w reprints of the early strips. This book contains a complete set of the 1940 daily strips. The first Hollywood adaptation of Li'l Abner was made in 1940. Newspaper columnist Michael Price and the late film historian George Turner provide a fascinating history of this largely forgotten movie, complete with 9 rare stills and lobby cards. The back cover features the very rare Li'l Abner movie poster and another lobby card in full color. Buster Keaton plays Lonesome Polecat in the film but the once hugely popular silent star was in such professional disgrace by 1940 that he was not even listed among the seven acting credits on the film poster! A sidebar provides backgrounds on the producer, director and actors. A second introduction by editor Dave Schreiner provides a political and historical context for the strip itself in 1940. The year begins with Capp's parody of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (also made into a movie this year). Dogpatch is wiped out by turnip termites, so our favorite hillbillies are lured to Boston to pick oranges in winter! Li'l Abner also learns how to woo "Dogpatch style" from Adam Lazonga, whom Schreiner speculates is based on controversial philosopher and free thinker Bertrand Russell or possibly playwright George Bernard Shaw. In another episode Mammy and Pappy Yokum get a 100 year-old letter and rush off to the California gold rush. Earthquake McGoon is introduced in the daily strip this year, as is the popular phrase, "As any fool kin plainly see!" Plus the annual Sadie Hawkins Day Race. The cover is drawn by Peter Poplaski.

Hardcover. New York, Liberty Street, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 176 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket edges. B&W and color photographs throughout. Fifty years ago, the dashing Scottish actor Sean Connery kicked off the Bond franchise, a cinematic series unlike any other. In November 2012, Skyfall, the 23rd movie in what is seen as the authorized line of Bond films, will be released, with Daniel Craig (the sixth Bond) again in the lead role. The world will once more stream to the theaters for another dose of Bond. LIFE was on the scene in the swinging '60s when James Bond became a cultural icon (in fact, when we put the gold-painted actress Shirley Eaton on the cover in 1964, we helped him along), and now LIFE tells the whole story in this commemorative book.

Hardcover. New York, Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1st, 1899, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 2 Hardcover Volumes. Covers are 3/4 leather with marbled sections. Spine with raised bands, title and decoration in gilt. Marbled endpapers. This set Previously owned by Charles B. Woodcock Savage who achieved notoriety as the lover of King Karl of Wurttemberg and features his signature at the top of preliminary page in each volume. Gift inscription to Savage from Nellie on front endpapers of both volumes. Top edges gilt. Features 316 black & white illustrations. Volume 1 - Light wear. Clean, tight. Volume 2 - front cover hinge cracked, with loosening to spine strip up to 1" from top - hinge tender. Light wear otherwise. Overall, very good.

Softcover. Fleischmanns NY, Purple Mountain Press Ltd, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 320 pages illustrated in b&w. INSCRIBED on half-title page by Bellico and by Barbara Bartley on the title page. During the latter 19th century, inland waterways were a primary means of commercial and public transportation in the northeast. Captain Theodore D Bartley owned 3 Lake Champlain (NY-VT) canal boats and kept a daily descriptive journal of his life over 30 years. His routes included the Canadian Waterways north of the St Lawrence River along the Rideau Canal; the Northern Waterway from Quebec Province to New York Harbor; the Western Route via the Erie Canal from Troy NY to Lake Erie. He and his canal boat family witnessed many landmark historical events, as well as ordinary life alongside the canals. His original diaries of 1500 pages were transcribed by Bartley, Barbara B., great-grand-daughter-in-law of Theodore.

Hardcover. Jackson [Miss.], University Press of Mississippi, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 284 pages, b&w illustrations. Minor edgewear to dust jacket else a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Athens, Ga., Hill Street Press, LLC, 1st, January 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 155 pages. B&w illustrations throughout. Light spotting to top edge. Rubbing and light soiling to dust jacket. Else a nice, clean copy.

Hardcover. Evergreen/Taschen, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 432 pages. A reproduction of some of the "Little Nemo" comic strip from the early 20th century. This volume reflects the distinctive art-nouveau style of the original drawings and follows Little Nemo as he journeys nightly into the world of dreams. The strip was introduced to America over a century ago, and these pages still have the power to astonish and touch anyone that reads them. The utter timelessness of this strip, both in artwork and vision, is the kind of testament to genius that very few graphic artists ever receive. Winsor McCay was such a genius and his major work, Little Nemo in Slumberland, is a vastly rich exploration of human dreams.

Hardcover. Library of American Comics, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Oblong hardcover, 336 pages. In Alley Oop, Hamlin created a unique concept, marrying his fascination with dinosaurs and prehistoric times to a rollicking style of storytelling and drawing that was simultaneously serious, fantastic, and loaded with slapstick. The series was set in the kingdom of Moo and starred Alley Oop, the club-wielding caveman, his girlfriend Ooola, friends Dinny the dinosaur and Foozy (who speaks in rhyme), plus Oop's rival, King Guz, and Guz's Queen Umpateedle. Yet Hamlin knew that the strip's horizons in Moo were limited. So it was, in early 1939, that Alley Oop and Ooola see a mysterious box and, to the utter amazement of Guz and his minions, promptly fade from view, followed by the caption: "Dear Reader: you must now say goodbye to Moo...if you are to follow Alley Oop in this strangest of many strange adventures. --V. T. Hamlin". Oop and Ooola had entered a time machine and were now living in the modern-day 20th Century! Their host was the inventor of the time machine, Dr. Elbert Wonmug! No change of such magnitude had ever occurred in a continuing newspaper strip, and readers responded enthusiastically. With every time period in history available as a backdrop, Alley Oop became even more popular. This volume features Oop's final Moo adventure, followed by his trips to the 20th Century and ancient Greece, where he and Ooola share adventures with brave Ulysses, the lovely Helen of Troy, and the mighty Hercules. V.T. Hamlin would send his characters everywhere and everywhen--but the classic Alley Oop begins with the stories contained in this volume. The book is introduced by Michael T. Price, who first met V. T. Hamlin in the 1960s and remained friendly with him for the rest of the cartoonist's life. Price also composed the musical score for Hip Pocket Theatre's production, Alley Oop.

Hardcover. New York, Hill and Wang , 1st, 1966, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 144 pages. Hardcover. Extensive b&w drawings by Paul Hogarth throughout. Gilt titles on spine. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, MIT Press , 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 311 pages, b&w illustrations. In the 1930s and 1940s, English fashion houses, spurred by economic and wartime crises, put London on the map as a major fashion city. In this book, Michelle Jones examines the creation of a London-based couture industry during these years, exploring how designer collaboration and the construction of specific networks and narratives supported and shaped the English fashion economy. Haute couture-the practice of creative made-to-measure womenswear-was widely regarded as inherently French. Jones shows how an English version emerged during a period of economic turbulence, when a group of designers banded together in a collective effort to shift power within the international fashion system. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. London, Omnibus Press, 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, 176 pages. While many books, films and documentaries claim to have captured the phenomenon that was Swinging London, just one magazine was present in the capital during the 1960s to illustrate this extraordinary moment as it unraveled. London Life emerged in October 1965 and, over the next fifteen months, would document the capital's action at its absolute zenith. With imagery from the likes of David Bailey, Duffy and Terence Donovan, designs from Peter Blake, David Hockney, Gerald Scarfe and fledgling artist Ian Dury plus words and opinions from those riding high on the city`s cutting-edge, London Life remains the coolest document from the capital's most exciting period. Still in publisher's shrinkwrap.

NY, Norton, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 480 pages, 410 b&w duotone plates seected from the 145,000 photographs made between 1935 and 1943 by a team of now-famous photographers employed by the Farm Security Administration, whose ranks included Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Dorothea Lange, and Walker Evans. The agency's mission went well beyond photographing dispossessed rural people, and this book is proof. It includes 410 remarkable images made in large citiesas well as dozens of small towns and villages throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Large format in a bright, unclipped dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, Norton, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 480 pages, 410 b&w duotone plates seected from the 145,000 photographs made between 1935 and 1943 by a team of now-famous photographers employed by the Farm Security Administration, whose ranks included Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Dorothea Lange, and Walker Evans. The agency's mission went well beyond photographing dispossessed rural people, and this book is proof. It includes 410 remarkable images made in large citiesas well as dozens of small towns and villages throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Large format in a bright, unclipped dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, MOMA, 2nd Pr., 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 216 pages, 100 duotone plates. Szarkowski's classic work with critical essays on each picture. Bright, unclipped dust jacket. Mild shelf wear.

Softcover. Middlebury VT, Middlebury College Museum of Art, 1st, 2002, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 112 pages. Softcover. Extensive b&w photography throughout. Some creasing to front cover. Some foxing to back page, otherwise clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 354 pages. Color and b&w illustrations. From one of Britain's most respected and acclaimed art historians, art critic of The Guardian--the galvanizing story of a sixteenth-century clash of titans, the two greatest minds of the Renaissance, working side by side in the same room in a fierce competition: the master Leonardo da Vinci, commissioned by the Florentine Republic to paint a narrative fresco depicting a famous military victory on a wall of the newly built Great Council Hall in the Palazzo Vecchio, and his implacable young rival, the thirty-year-old Michelangelo. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Knopf, 1st us, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 368 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Small red dot remainder mark on bottom edge, otherwise, clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Color and Black and white pictures throughout.

Hardcover. New York/Milano, Skira, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 224 pages, duotone photographs taken between 1904 and 1914 by a missionary working in China. In publisher's shrinkwrap. Leone Nani (1880-1935) lived in central China from 1904 to 1914. His missionary work took him to remote villages where he captured a world beyond the reach of other Westerners. Working in large format (mostly on glass plates he developed and printed himself in his mobile studio), Nani portrayed young couples, dignitaries, peasants and artisans. Equally gifted as an observer and reporter, he recorded everyday life scenes, religious ceremonies, architecture, and landscapes. 

Hardcover. NY, Assouline, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Lost Fish is a stunning collection of antique illustrations featuring endangered marine life, published by luxury book publisher Assouline. With over 200 detailed illustrations, this book offers a unique opportunity to appreciate the beauty of life underwater while reflecting on the changing aquatic environment. The illustrations are taken from the nineteenth-century scientific anthology of The Count de Lapecede, a leading authority on aquatic species at the time. Through these intricate prints, readers are reminded of the fragility of our environment and provided with a visual history. The ornate details and lavish colors pay homage to the fleeting species of the ocean and serve as a poignant reminder of the importance of conservation. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, E.P. Dutton , 1st, 1967, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a nice, unclipped dust jacket, 214 pages. "A journey into the heart of primitive Africa, yesterday and today" based on the author's research and his first-hand observations. Wellard describes living among the Dawadans, a small isolated tribe,who still live in a state of pre-history and to whom the wheel is unknown. He also examines the art of prehistoric Africa and in particular the rock art of the Acacus Mountains. The third section deals with the Garamantes, an empire that flourished for more than a thousand years,until they were conquered by Arab invaders in the 17th century. Illustrated with 24 photographs and five maps. Bibliographical notes, index. Clean.

Hardcover. Watkins Glen, NY, Century House, 1st, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 192 pages illustrated in color and b&w. Purple leatherette, pictorial dust jacket. Like new. In shrinkwrap. Definitive biography of Louis Prang, Victorian color lithographer, artist, and art educator. Includes a checklist of Prang's chromolithographs, annotated bibliography, appendices, index. 16 full-page color plates, and countless illustrations.

Hardcover. New York, Rizzoli International Publications, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 352 pages. Hardcover. Extensive color photographs throughout. Silver gilt titles on spine. Reminder mark to bottom edge, otherwise clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. This exceptional album features over two hundred images by the most important modern and contemporary photographers, including David Bailey, Henry Clarke, Patrick Demarchelier, Karl Lagerfeld, Annie Leibovitz, Helmut Newton, David Sims, Bert Stern, Juergen Teller, Mario Testino, and Bruce Weber. This book features images from iconic Vuitton advertising campaigns from the 20s through to the present, with magazine editorials from publications including Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Interview, and others.

Hardcover. Prestel, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Hardcover, 167 pages. Louise Bourgeois: The Secret of the Cells is both a catalog of works by and a biography of the famous Parisian artist. Born in 1911, the now-octogenarian Bourgeois has shown widely throughout the world and to great critical acclaim, especially within the last decade. Bourgeois's personal history is vastly important in the content of her work, and this book takes readers on a journey from her affluent childhood in France, including family photographs, to her schooling under painter Fernand Leger to her eventual marriage and move to the United States, where she continued her long and varied career working primarily as a sculptor and installation artist. Bourgeois's abstract figurative sculptures range in materials from plaster, marble, and bronze to the more nontraditional latex, glass, thread, etc. Regardless of the medium, the work is imbued with a strong physicality that echoes the forms of the human body. Included in the book are discussions of Bourgeois's work in relation to other artists and movements such as Rodin, Brancusi, and primitivism. Bourgeois has been an inspiration to an entire generation of artists, not just because of her long and illustrious career but because her work has pushed so many boundaries. Louise Bourgeois: The Secret of the Cells is an informative and beautiful book with 77 color and 176 black-and-white images.