art pop

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 430 pages. SIGNED BY MONOD on the tile page, also INSCRIBED on the half-title page. The late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are known as the Age of Enlightenment, a time of science and reason. But in this illuminating book, Paul Monod reveals the surprising extent to which Newton, Boyle, Locke, and other giants of rational thought and empiricism also embraced the spiritual, the magical, and the occult. Although public acceptance of occult and magical practices waxed and waned during this period they survived underground, experiencing a considerable revival in the mid-eighteenth century with the rise of new antiestablishment religious denominations. The occult spilled over into politics with the radicalism of the French Revolution and into literature in early Romanticism. Even when official disapproval was at its strongest, the evidence points to a growing audience for occult publications as well as to subversive popular enthusiasm. Ultimately, finds Monod, the occult was not discarded in favor of "reason" but was incorporated into new forms of learning. In that sense, the occult is part of the modern world, not simply a relic of an unenlightened past, and is still with us today. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Henry Holt , 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 386 pages,b&w illustrations. They stand at the apex of the great age of songwriting, the creators of the classic Broadway musicals Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music, whose songs have never lost their popularity or emotional power. Even before they joined forces, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II had written dozens of Broadway shows, but together they pioneered a new art form: the serious musical play. Their songs and dance numbers served to advance the drama and reveal character, a sharp break from the past and the template on which all future musicals would be built. Todd S. Purdum's portrait of these two men, their creative process, and their groundbreaking innovations will captivate lovers of musical theater, lovers of the classic American songbook, and young lovers wherever they are. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Sports Illustrated , 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 304 pages. A fiftieth anniversary compilation of the best from the Sports Illustrated archives features memorable photographs and articles from the pages of the popular sports magazine since its launch in 1954, offering an entertaining and informative look at great moments in American sports history.

Softcover. NY, Bard Graduate Center, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 208 pages illustrated in color and b&w. Although Jane Hading (1859-1940), Lily Elsie (1886-1962), and Billie Burke (1884-1970) gained fame as stage actresses, their popular appeal also rested on their ability to cultivate a glamorous appearance. Their careers illustrate the early transformation of actresses into marketable commodities whose celebrity status depended on the consumption of their images. This celebrity, in turn, was used to market an array of beauty and fashion goods to women striving to emulate them. The three women featured in Staging Fashion exemplify the factors that ensured success for 20th-century actresses. Each of these women was dressed by a leading couturier (or several couturiers), both onstage and offstage. In major cities such as New York, Paris, and London, actresses depended on exquisite, custom-made gowns both to secure principal roles and to maintain popularity. Their physical beauty, which was consistent with elite notions of class and race, was depicted on postcards and in popular fashion and theatre magazines and newspapers. Finally, these actresses developed distinct "personalities," which were conveyed by their stage roles and in numerous photos and articles.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 179 pages. From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a meditation on the deeply Jewish and surprisingly spiritual roots of Stan Lee and Marvel Comics Few artists have had as much of an impact on American popular culture as Stan Lee. The characters he created--Spider-Man and Iron Man, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four--occupy Hollywood's imagination and production schedules, generate billions at the box office, and come as close as anything we have to a shared American mythology. This illuminating biography focuses as much on Lee's ideas as it does on his unlikely rise to stardom. It surveys his cultural and religious upbringing and draws surprising connections between celebrated comic book heroes and the ancient tales of the Bible, the Talmud, and Jewish mysticism. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, ZE Books, 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black cloth with white lettering. No dust jacket issued. With Stay, acclaimed poet, artist, and bestselling memoirist Nick Flynn presents a self-portrait via a constellation of topics that have circled his work. Ranging from the impact of suicide and homelessness to addiction, political engagement, and the vital power of artistic friendships, Stay is a mixed-media retrospective that shows nothing is created in isolation. Mirroring Flynn's life, this work of visual and literary memoir is populated by examples of his collaborations since the 1980s with such luminaries as the photographers Amy Arbus and Catherine Opie, composer Guy Barash, actor Robert De Niro, cartoonist Josh Neufeld, author Sarah Sentilles, filmmaker Paul Weitz, and artists John Baldessari, Marilyn Minter, and Bill Shuck. In Flynn's refusal to conform to narrative or the safety of his own perspective, Stay grasps for an essential truth, an answer to what art, in the end, can and cannot reflect. Illustrated in color, b&w.

Softcover. Oakland CA, PM Press, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 336 pages. Sticking It to the Man tracks the ways in which the changing politics and culture of the 1950s, '60s, and '70s were reflected in pulp and popular fiction in the United States, the UK, and Australia. Featuring more than three hundred full-color covers, the book includes in-depth author interviews, illustrated biographies, articles, and reviews from more than two dozen popular culture critics and scholars. Among the works explored, celebrated, and analyzed are books by street-level hustlers turned best-selling black writers Iceberg Slim, Nathan Heard, and Donald Goines; crime heavyweights Chester Himes, Ernest Tidyman, and Brian Garfield; Yippies Anita Hoffman and Ed Sanders; best-selling authors such as Alice Walker, Patricia Nell Warren, and Rita Mae Brown; and a myriad of lesser-known novelists ripe for rediscovery.

Hardcover. NY, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 337 pages, b&w illustrations. Still Here is the first full telling of Elaine Stritch's life. Rollicking but intimate, it tracks one of Broadway's great personalities from her upbringing in Detroit during the Great Depression to her fateful move to New York City, where she studied alongside Marlon Brando, Bea Arthur, and Harry Belafonte. We accompany Elaine through her jagged rise to fame, to Hollywood and London, and across her later years, when she enjoyed a stunning renaissance, punctuated by a turn on the popular television show 30 Rock. We explore the influential-and often fraught-collaborations she developed with Noel Coward, Tennessee Williams, and above all Stephen Sondheim, as well as her courageous yet flawed attempts to control a serious drinking problem. And we see the entertainer triumphing over personal turmoil with the development of her Tony Award-winning one-woman show, Elaine Stritch at Liberty, which established her as an emblem of spiky independence and Manhattan life for an entirely new generation of admirers. Remainder dot on top edge, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Milan, Mondadori, 1st, 1945, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 6 unnumbered pages including the inside of both covers. Publisher's thick pictorial boards backed in white cloth-patterned paper & saddle stapled. Lightly soiled, edges slightly rubbed, otherwise very good. A nice example with all flaps and concealed color illustrations in perfect working order. Three stories of birds each with it's own open-the-flap text and graphic art. Laid in is a typed English translation of the text. Bruno Munari was "one of the most celebrated names in twentieth century Italy in graphic designing who fundamentally altered the landscape of many fields of visual arts, futurism and modernism He is credited for his contribution to industrial design, sculpture, painting, literature, film and concrete art." A collector's copy of this scarce title.

Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 220 pages. Strange & Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko is a coffee table art book tracing Ditko's life and career, his unparalleled stylistic innovations, his strict adherence to his own (and Randian) principles, with lush displays of obscure and popular art from the thousands of pages of comics he's drawn over the last 55 years.

Hardcover. New York , Abrams, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 304 pages. Illustrated in color throughout. A survey of the many murals in the (now rapidly gentrifying) Mission District, the barrio Latino of San Francisco, combining elements of Mexican mural painting, surrealism, pop art, urban punk, and graffiti.

Hardcover. Croydon UK, Fonthill Media, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 160 pages. You might be surprised to learn that many of the consumer brands and products we enjoy today exist because of streetcar advertising. The Industrial Revolution of the early 1900's and a massive consumer audience riding over 50,000 streetcars in nearly 3,000 cities and towns in every state of the union provided a great opportunity for Barron Collier, a native of Memphis, Tennessee. He simply used streetcar advertising to bring these two forces together and created the largest streetcar advertising empire in the world. By age twenty-six, he was a millionaire and at one time had business offices in 70 cities with business interests in more than a thousand cities. Most of these advertising cards have remarkable color graphics; over 250 of them are included in this book for your viewing pleasure. While streetcar advertising is definitely not a major advertising medium today, the advertising community might be surprised to learn that the basic principles of consumer advertising have not changed that much in the last one hundred years. Investors might do well to review this book to see which companies are still producing these popular products and brands as they represent some of the most successful businesses in America today.

Hardcover. New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 175 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. illustrated throughout. Very clean and tight copy. Striptease is the history of unapologetic fun aimed not at the head, not at the heart or even the stomach, but south of all three. Beginning with the birth of the striptease in the mid-19th century and culminating with its garish heyday in the 1950s, this book charts the evolution of the infamous bump and grind, which is, at its simplest, a pretty girl in a pretty dress ... and then not. The only fully illustrated book available on the subject, Striptease tells the history of this provocative form of stagecraft from its birth in vaudeville and burlesque through the "take it all off" attitude for which the term "striptease" was coined. Along the way, the book highlights such performers as Isadora Duncan, Loie Fuller, Maud Allen, Gypsy Rose Lee, Tempest Storm, and Blaze Starr. The witty and well-informed text is illustrated with an array of titillating images, including never-before-published ephemera and illicitly photographed performances in progress. Whether revealing ankles or breasts, playing peek-a-boo or going the full monty, Striptease pays tribute to the women who made a vocation of their sex appeal and shimmied their way into American culture.

Hardcover. Washington, Prestel, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 288 pages. Softcover. Very clean, like new in publishers shrink-wrap. This book pays tribute to the mature work of Stuart Davis, a distinctly American artist who adapted European modernism to reflect the sights, sounds, and rhythms of popular culture. Beginning in 1921, a series of creative breakthroughs led Davis away from figurative painting and toward a more abstract expression of the world he inhabited. Drawing upon his admiration for Cezanne, Leger, Picasso, and Seurat, Davis developed a style that would evolve over the next four decades to become a dominant force in postwar art. His visionary responses to modern life and culture both high and low remain relevant more than 50 years after his death. Focusing on the images and motifs that became hallmarks of his career, this book features approximately 100 works-from his paintings of tobacco packages of the early 1920s, the abstract Egg Beater series, and the WPA murals of the 1930s, to the majestic works of his last two decades. The authors take a critical approach to the development of Davis's art and theory, paying special attention to the impact his earlier work had upon his later masterpieces. They also discuss Davis's unique ability to assimilate the lessons of Cubism as well as the imagery of popular culture, the aesthetics of advertising, and the sounds and rhythms of jazz-his great musical passion. Informed by previously unpublished primary documents, the detailed chronology is, in effect, the first Davis biography. Together, these elements create a vital portrait of an artist whose works hum with intelligence and energy.

Softcover. Zach Feuer Gallery, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 70 pages. Priya Bhatnagar in Flash Art has written "Threatening to unravel pop culture's abstractions, Hawkins's images call into question the socially coded nature of its identities, icons, meanings and values while contesting its homogenization of beauty and fashion. Joel Sternfeld's foreword calls this survey of recent work "an achievement of the first magnitude." Inviting friends and strangers in Nepal to pose for the camera, Blue Eyes includes three photographic series and three video projects that reveal the ubiquity of American media culture while underscoring certain behaviors as they pertain to global capitalism and race. Each image investigates the experience of cultural imperialism as seen through the eyes of those living in the developing world. Hawkins highlights the visual dialogue that comprises consumer and popular culture and asks the viewer to consider a world of differences increasingly veiled by surface similarities.

Softcover. Zach Feuer Gallery, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 70 pages. Priya Bhatnagar in Flash Art has written "Threatening to unravel pop culture's abstractions, Hawkins's images call into question the socially coded nature of its identities, icons, meanings and values while contesting its homogenization of beauty and fashion. Joel Sternfeld's foreword calls this survey of recent work "an achievement of the first magnitude." Inviting friends and strangers in Nepal to pose for the camera, Blue Eyes includes three photographic series and three video projects that reveal the ubiquity of American media culture while underscoring certain behaviors as they pertain to global capitalism and race. Each image investigates the experience of cultural imperialism as seen through the eyes of those living in the developing world. Hawkins highlights the visual dialogue that comprises consumer and popular culture and asks the viewer to consider a world of differences increasingly veiled by surface similarities.

Hardcover. NY, WW Norton, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. A collection of articles, poems, essays, speeches, literary criticisms, and interviews about the 1960s musician and lyricist examines his legacy and role in the traditions of folk, rock, and blues, in a volume that includes contributions by such figures as Sam Shepard, Bruce Springsteen, and Johnny Cash.

Hardcover. Oxford, UK, Phaidon Press, 1st, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 80 pages, 67 illustrations, including 28 plates in full color. Maroon cloth with gilt title to spine. Blue pictorial dust jacket. Light wear to covers, else a very nice, clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Oxford UK, Phaidon Press, 1st, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 80 pages, 67 illustrations, including 28 plates in full color. Maroon cloth with gilt title to spine. Blue pictorial dust jacket. Light wear to covers, else a very nice, clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harper, 1st, 2025, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 324 pages. Surreal, the long-awaited, definitive biography of Gala Dali, unmasks this famous yet little-known queen of the twentieth-century art world, who graced the canvases, inspired the poetry, and influenced the careers of her illustrious lovers and husbands with tenderness, courage, and agency. Using previously undiscovered material, Surreal tells the riveting story of Gala Dali, (1894-1982) who broke away from her cultured but penurious background in pre-Revolutionary Russia to live in Paris with both France's most famous poet Paul Eluard and Max Ernst. By the time she met the budding artist Salvador Dali in 1929, Gala was known as the Mother of Surrealism. She rapidly became his mentor, muse, and protector, marrying him in 1934 and subsequently engineering their vast fortune. At a time when artists were celebrities, Gala acted as the ambassador of the Surrealist movement, spreading its popularity across the globe. Remainder mark to top edge otherwise clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Calla/Dover, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 480 pages. This gorgeous anthology features 29 of Edgar Allan Poe's tales of the fantastic and the macabre. It combines some of his most popular stories -- including "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" -- with lesser-known gems. Illustrated with 8 full-color plates and 24 full-page drawings filled with brooding eroticism by Harry Clarke, a brilliant Edwardian-era artist too long overshadowed by his contemporary Aubrey Beardsley.A Calla Edition, originally published by Tudor Publishing, New York, 1933.

Hardcover. London, Titan Books, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 167 pages, illustrated throughout in color. Clean, tight copy. Burne Hogarth is one of the most famous artists in the history of comic strips - at the peak with Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon) and Hal Foster (Prince Valiant). In 1936 he followed Foster on the massively popular Tarzan comic strip, and set a new standard for dynamics and excitement. This is the first of four exclusive volumes that collects Hogarth's entire run, beginning with Tarzan and the Golden City. Restored and reproduced in an oversized format, these editions will finally do justice to one of the most lauded illustrators of all time, whose work has been out of print for more than a decade. Full-color restorations of the newspaper strips, reproduced in the oversized full-page format.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 260 pages, in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. A riveting and superbly illustrated account of the enigmatic House Beautiful editor's profound influence on mid-century American taste From 1941 to 1964, House Beautiful magazine's crusading editor-in-chief Elizabeth Gordon introduced and promoted her vision of "good design" and "better living" to an extensive middle-class American readership. Her innovative magazine-sponsored initiatives, including House Beautiful's Pace Setter House Program and the Climate Control Project, popularized a "livable" and decidedly American version of postwar modern architecture. Gordon's devotion to what she called the American Style attracted the attention of Frank Lloyd Wright, who became her ally and collaborator. Gordon's editorial programs reshaped ideas about American living and, by extension, what consumers bought, what designers made, and what manufacturers brought to market. This incisive assessment of Gordon's influence as an editor, critic, and arbiter of domestic taste reflects more broadly on the cultures of consumption and identity in postwar America. Nearly 200 images are featured, including work by Ezra Stoller, Maynard Parker, and Julius Shulman. This important book champions an often-neglected source--the consumer magazine--as a key tool for deepening our understanding of mid-century architecture and design.

Softcover. London, Fischer Fine Art Limited , 1st, 1973, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 92 pages. Published on the occasion of the exhibition held at the Fischer Fine Art gallery from November 1973 to January 1974. Profusely illustrated in color and black-and-white. Including works by Annenkov, Archipenko, Baranoff-Rossine, Bogomazov, Burljuk, Ermilov, Exter, Goncharova, Kliun, Larionov, Lentulov, Lissitzky, Malevich, Matsiushin, Popova, Puni, Rodchenko, Rozanova, Bakst, Chagall, Csaky, Kadar, Kandinsky, and Moholy-Nagy. Clean copy.