biography

Softcover. NY, Ballantine Books, reprint, 1988, Softcover, 544 pages, b&w illustrations. The Chicago Tribune claimed that this 'the liveliest most astringent and eminently readable biography of Frank Lloyd Wright yet written'. It traces the full span of Wright's career. Clean copy.

Softcover. Chicago, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 327 pages, b&w photographs and illustrations. Light edge wear to wrappers, else a very clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Hastings House, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 316 pages, b&w illustrations. Written by his ex-lover, business associate, and close friend, an explicit memoir offers a new perspective on the renowned celebrity photographer with a taste for kinky sex and drugs who died of AIDS in 1989. Fritscher's brutally frank memoir of his ex-lover, confidant, and colleague, drawn from the author's personal documents, seeks to strip away the notoriety surrounding the defiant photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. As editor and writer for the gay magazine Drummer, Fritscher was the first to publish Mapplethorpe's highly charged camera shots depicting a seamy world of "leathersex," sadomasochism, taboos, and fetishes. Here, Fritscher graphically portrays the masculine subculture of the homosexual community that Mapplethorpe inhabited until his death from AIDS in 1989, at age 42. He also discusses the censorship of Mapplethorpe's work within the mainstream gay community. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Stanford CA, Stanford University Press, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 1056 pages, b&w illustrations. This work presents a biography of the artist Marc Chagall in dialogue with events and ideologies of his time. It encompasses different aspects of his life (1889-1985) including his roots in folk culture, his personal relationships and his interests.

Hardcover. Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 1st, 1966, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Five large folio volumes, blue cloth covers with gilt lettering on spine. 2475 pages, b/w and colored illus. (including foldouts. Vol.1 is a biography of Malpighi; the remaining 4 volumes provide an extensive account of the development of embryology. In publisher's slipcase. All clean, excellent condition. NOTE: These are five large and heavy volumes. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. NY, Da Capo Press, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 684 pages. Marcus Aurelius is one of the great figures of antiquity who still speaks to us today, more than two thousand years after his death. His Meditations has been compared by John Stuart Mill to the Sermon on the Mount. A guide to how we should live, it remains one of the most widely read books from the classical world. But Marcus Aurelius was much more than a philosopher. As emperor he stabilized the empire, issued numerous reform edicts, and defended the borders with success. His life itself represented the fulfillment of Plato's famous dictum that mankind will prosper only when philosophers are rulers and rulers philosophers. Frank McLynn's Marcus Aurelius, based on all available original sources, is the definitive and most vivid biography to date of this monumental historical figure. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 423 pages. INSCRIBED BY CAPPER on front fly leaf with presentation bookplate opposite on inside front cover. With this first volume of a two-part biography of the Transcendentalist critic and feminist leader, Margaret Fuller, Capper has launched the premier modern biography of early America's best-known intellectual woman. Based on a thorough examination of all the firsthand sources, many of them never before used, this volume is filled with original portraits of Fuller's numerous friends and colleagues and the influential movements that enveloped them. Writing with a strong narrative sweep, Capper focuses on the central problem of Fuller's life--her identity as a female intellectual--and presents the first biography of Fuller to do full justice to its engrossing subject. This first volume chronicles Fuller's "private years": her gradual, tangled, but fascinating emergence out of the "private" life of family, study, Boston-Cambridge socializing, and anonymous magazine-writing, to the beginnings of her rebirth as antebellum America's female prophet-critic. Capper's biography is at once an evocative portrayal of an extraordinary woman and a comprehensive study of an avant-garde American intellectual type at the beginning of its first creation.

Hardcover. New York, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 423 pages, with photographs. Minor dust jacket edge wear, otherwise, spotless and tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, reprint, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 423 pages. No price on dj so assumed Book Club edition. With this first volume of a two-part biography of the Transcendentalist critic and feminist leader, Margaret Fuller, Capper has launched the premier modern biography of early America's best-known intellectual woman. Based on a thorough examination of all the firsthand sources, many of them never before used, this volume is filled with original portraits of Fuller's numerous friends and colleagues and the influential movements that enveloped them. Writing with a strong narrative sweep, Capper focuses on the central problem of Fuller's life - her identity as a female intellectual - and presents the first biography of Fuller to do full justice to its engrossing subject. This first volume chronicles Fuller's "private years": her gradual, tangled, but fascinating emergence out of the "private" life of family, study, Boston-Cambridge socializing, and anonymous magazine-writing, to the beginnings of her rebirth as antebellum America's female prophet-critic. Capper's biography is at once an evocative portrayal of an extraordinary woman and a comprehensive study of an avant-garde American intellectual type at the beginning of its first creation. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton/ Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 153 pages, b&w illustrations. "Mather and Weston first met in Los Angeles in 1913. They soon developed a close relationship, eventually working together as full-fledged artistic partners and even co-signing the photographs they produced. Weston was also madly in love with Mather, and the two engaged in an affair during his first marriage, even though Mather was more interested in women. This book which features art by both artists, chronicles their twelve-year association and sheds light on Mather, whose artistry, sexual identity, and mysterious past have been overshadowed by the massive reputation of Edward Weston and his subsequent association with Tina Modotti."

Hardcover. NY, Calla Editions, 1st thus, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 119 pages. Hardcover. Black and white illustrations. Clean, unmarked copy in excellent condition. Picture this: A master photographer shoots the most breathtaking movie star of her time high in the Canadian Rockies in the summer of 1953. And the negatives are filed away for nearly 60 years -- most never seen until now.It was yet another assignment for LOOK magazine staff photographer John Vachon. But when he arrived in Banff, Alberta, in mid-August of 1953 to shoot Marilyn Monroe on location making River of No Return, Vachon encountered an opportunity never afforded the many great photographers who took pictures of Marilyn during her short life. Due to an injured ankle that prevented her from filming, Vachon got access to Marilyn over a period of several days.Vachon's lens captured her in a variety of contexts and countenances. Here is Marilyn the way we want to remember her: luminous, sexually charismatic, smiling radiantly -- even on crutches. This extraordinary portfolio of revealing images ranges from her mugging poolside to riding high on a ski lift to nuzzling with her then-husband-to-be, the legendary Joe DiMaggio -- the only time that the two posed formally together for a photographer.In his ability to present her humanity without either idealization or guile, Vachon has given the legions of Marilyn fans worldwide a very rarely seen portrait of their idol. 102 duotone photos. Text by Brian Wallis

Hardcover. US, Dey Street Books, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 256 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. A stunning collection of hundreds of rare and unseen photographs, behind-the-scenes notes, and interviews chronicling the media's lifelong love affair with Marilyn, created by the acclaimed curator and author of Marilyn Monroe: Metamorphosis. Drawing on unseen troves from dozens of photographers, archives, and collectors, acclaimed photography expert David Wills brings together an unprecedented array of press photos from throughout Marilyn's career--including hundreds of unpublished and rare photographs that have been beautifully restored; uncropped and unretouched outtakes; handwritten notations; period captions; clippings; and more. With a foreword by Robert J. Wagner and interviews from key press agents and others, this portfolio of images offers a fresh, indelible portrait of one of the most enduring icons in history and illuminates the special alliance she shared with the press as never before.

Hardcover. NY, Peder Press, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. The biography of an immigrant girl from Fubine, a small village in Northern Italy, who makes a life for herself in the Bronx. A rambling account but very interesting with many b&w personal photos. Privately printed. Much on NY city life in the 20s and 30s in the Italian immigrant community. Clean copy.

Softcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press , reprint, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 281 pages. A fascinating exploration of the life and work of one of America's most famous and enigmatic postwar visual artists Mark Rothko, one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Citadel Press, 1st, 1960, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 296 pages, b&w photographs. Edgewear, rubbing to price-clipped dust jacket; in brodart. Else a very clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 304 pages, 289 photographs from her own collection. Legendary actress Marlene Dietrich is honored in this beautiful coffee-table book, which is introduced by brief recollections from director Josef von Sternberg, Orson Welles (who worked with her in Touch of Evil), Ernest Hemingway, and others. The Film Museum of Berlin contains 25,000 objects and 18,000 images related to Dietrich, and this book is like a museum exhibition held expressly for Dietrich lovers. It is divided into sections such as "Portraits," "Beads, Furs, and Feathers," and "Possessions" and displays her dresses and accessories in pristine condition, alongside excerpts from letters and diaries. Daughter Maria Riva (author of a 1994 biography, Marlene Dietrich) provides extended captions to the many photographs of the actress and her belongings. Also included are a filmography, theatography, concertography, discography, and collection inventory with exhibitions.

Hardcover. NY, Phaidon Press, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 192 pages, illustrated in color and b&w. Marlon Brando (1924-2004) is an icon in the history of American cinema. When he passed away in 2004, The New York Times remember 'the rebellious prodigy who electrified a generation and forever transformed the art of screen acting... a truly revoluntionary presence.' From his beginnings in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) to his mythic performances The Godfather (1972) and Apocalypse Now (1979), Brando, who worked with such famous film stars as Elizabeth Taylor and Al Pacino, and such leading directors as Elia Kazan, John Huston and Francis Ford Coppola, has become a benchmark for other actors. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown, 1st, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 537 pages. Slight edgewear, rubbing to dust jacket, else a clean, tight copy.

Softcover. New York, Whitney Museum & University of New York Press, 1st, 1980, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 224 pages illustrated throughout with plates in color and b&w. White pictorial stiff wrappers with light wear and some yellowing to back cover, else a very nice, tight, clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Abbeville Press, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 10 x 12". 187 pages. 77 b&w, 77 color plates. The major monograph on American modernist Marsden Hartley (1877-1943). In addition to insightful and sensitive text, there is included a chronology, index, list of exhibitions, collections and selected bibliography. Wonderful color plates. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st, 1966, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 179 pages, with photographs throughout by Martha Swope. Minor dust jacket edge wear and rub, otherwise, very clean and tight copy.

Hardcover. New York, Harry N Abrams Inc, 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Facsimile replica of David Hockney's sketchbook. Unpaginated Hardcover. Comes with 31 page explanatory softcover that accompanies hardcover, both in slipcase. Very clean, tight hardcover with marble leather boards. Yellowing to softcover wrapper edges, otherwise clean and unmarked. Minor soiling and wear to slipcover. Slight yellowing around edges. Color illustrations throughout.

Hardcover. NY, Doubleday, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Master of Shadows weaves a gripping drama of 17th-century cloak-and-dagger diplomacy with an insightful, authoritative exploration of Peter Paul Rubens' art and the private passions that influenced it.

Hardcover. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 416 pages. Hardcover. Dust jacket unclipped. B/w illustrations throughout. Gilt title on spine. Binding tight, in excellent shape. Clean inside and out.