Art Biography

Hardcover. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Life and art of John Marin; editor Cleve Gray includes writings by Marin himself to accompany the biographical text and reproduced works. 176 pp. Features 20 color and 99 black/white illustrations. Cloth bound book is in near fine condition, previous owner's name, date, and location written inside the cover in pencil. Dust jacket is in good condition, with tear and creasing on the back and light stain on the front.

Softcover. New York, Coe Kerr Gallery & Wittenborn Art Books,, 1st, 1980, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Exhibition catalog. Unpaginated, illustrated throughout with 65 plates in color and b&w. White pictorial stiff wrappers. Light wear and foxing to covers and spine, else a very nice, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's Press, 1st, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 309 pages. b&w illustrations. In this meticulous and witty work, Stanley Olson uncovers the complex nature of Sargent's life and stunning career. Probable ex-lib with label on spine but no other markings.

Hardcover. New York, Abbeville Press, 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 256 pages. 338 illustrations, including 113 plates in full color. Gives beautiful insight into the extravagant glamour of Sargent's society portraits, watercolors and Boston Murals. Folio. Purple cloth, gilt lettering to spine. previous owner's inscription on front edge paper. Very nice, clean and tight copy. Minor wrinkle to lower edge of dust jacket's spine, otherwise in near fine condition.

Hardcover. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press , 1st, 1966, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 2 volume hardcover set. Volume 1: In America, 1738-1774, Volume 2: In England, 1774-1815. 491 pages + illustrations in b&w. Brown/blue cloth with gilt titles, slipcase. Light shelf-wear to covers and faint foxing to top edge. Light wear to slipcase, else a clean, tight set.

Hardcover. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 1st, 1938, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth boards with gilt spine lettering. 284 pages, 210 BW illustrations. A catalogue raisonne of Copley's work in America prior to his departure for England in 1774. Begins with a 12-page biography. Clean copy, no dust jacket.

Hardcover. New York, E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc, 1st, 1955, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in very good condition. Dust jacket with chipping to top of spine, still very good. 246 pp., 26 b&w illustrations. Biography written by close friend of the artist. Name on inside front cover otherwise clean.

Hardcover. New York, E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc, 1st, 1955, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in very good condition. Dust jacket with tear to lower edge of back cover and slight edgewear to spine, still very good. 246 pp., 26 b&w illustrations. Biography written by close friend of the artist.

Hardcover. Seatle, WA, Fantagraphics Books, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 160 pages. Hardcover with no issued dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to cover boards. Color pictures throughout. This is a deluxe, full-color, coffee table book biography; the first of one of America's greatest storytellers. It's filled with beautifully reproduced artwork from the comic books Little Lulu, and his creations Melvin Monster and Thirteen(Going on Eighteen); rare drawings and cartoons; and never-before-seen photographs. Bill Schelly tells Stanley's life story through interviews with his family, friends, and colleagues: his childhood in Harlem and the Bronx, life with his strict Irish Catholic mother, his education at Parsons, his first job as an animator at Max Fleischer Studios, and his years working as a commercial artist, before finding his true metier in comic books during World War II (while battling clinical depression and alcoholism).

Hardcover. Seattle, WA, Fantagraphics Books, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 182 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy with only minor edgewear. A tight copy. Filled with reproduced artwork from the comic books Little Lulu, and his creations Melvin Monster and Thirteen (Going on Eighteen); rare drawings and cartoons; and never-before-seen photographs. Bill Schelly tells Stanley's life story through interviews with his family, friends, and colleagues.

Hardcover. NY, Thames & Hudson, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. While Josef Albers' Bauhaus colleagues Klee and Kandinsky are household names, Albers himself has remained inscrutable. He is best known as the painter of the Homages to the Square, a series of over 2,000 seemingly tightly controlled experiments in the interaction of colour. Yet he did not begin these pictures until he was in his sixties, already several decades into his career as an artist, maker and theorist, much of it pursued in the United States following the Nazi dissolution of the Bauhaus in 1933. Misunderstanding of the Homages reflects a wider misreading of Albers' life and work. Married to the textile artist Anni Albers, his papers include letters from fellow artists John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra and Eva Hesse; colleagues such as Buckminster Fuller and Philip Johnson; and fans and collectors ranging from the composer Virgil Thomson to the cartoonist Saul Steinberg. 335 pages with 185 illustrations including the 23 color plates bookending the beginning and end of the text. Still in publisher's shrinkwrap.

Softcover. Woodbury, NY, Barron's, reprint, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 308 pages. Softcover with light wear to paper wrappers. B&w frontispiece and b&w images throughout. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 224 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. 200 illustrations in color. Foreword by Jennifer B. Lee, Performing Arts Curator, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Index. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Joseph Urban is a lavish celebration of this prolific artist, architect, and designer, whose accomplishments include magnificent Art Deco buildings, spectacular Ziegfeld Follies productions, and dramatic sets for the Metropolitan Opera. Joseph Urban (1872-1933) began his career as an architect and artist in Vienna before moving to America in 1911. In 1914 he moved to New York, where he ultimately signed on as set designer of the Metropolitan Opera. He also became immersed in an astonishing array of outside projects, designing nightclubs, hotel lounges, skyscrapers, theaters, stage and film sets, and even children's books. Though his creative output was immense, little remains of his work except the Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, and the New School and the base of the Hearst Tower in New York.

Softcover. Baltimore MD, Maryland Historical Society, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Pictorial wraps with color illustration and white lettering; 173 pages. 45 color, 88 b&w plates. Exhibition catalogue lists 83 extensively annotated works, and a Supplemental Catalogue lists an additional 13 works. Selected bibliography and short-list of titles. Each essay includes extensive notes. The definitive work on the early Afro-American portrait painter. Published to accompany the exhibition held in Baltimore, MD: Maryland Historical Society, Sept. 26, 1987 to Jan. 3, 1988, three other locations. Scarce. Previous owner's stamp and bookplate, short inscription on inside front cover. Related clipping, brochure laid in.

Hardcover. New York, E.P. Dutton & Company, 1st, 1922, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 141 pages. 33 B&W illustrations. No dust jacket. Pages uncut. Blue cloth. In good condition. Articles included in this tribute include: Julian Alden Weir, by Duncan Phillips; Weir The Painter, by Emil Carlsen; Weir, by Royal Cortissoz; Reminiscences of Weir, by Childe Hassam; The Tile Club, by J.B. Millet; Weir The Fisherman, by H. de Raasloff; A Letter, from Augustus Vincent Tack; A Letter from C.E.S. Wood; Lists of Paintings, which is 17 pages long, and lists paintings chronologically, and lists dimensions and owner. One of 712 copies with eight extra illustrations which were published by Phillips Publications as Publication No. 1.

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, The MIT Press, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 144 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy in publisher's shrinkwrap. Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) achieved overnight fame in the late 1920s with the first publication of his photographs of plants. Those photographs, which revealed the inner structures of the organic forms, immediately made him a pioneer of New Objectivity-an innovative movement in art and photography of the 1920s and 1930s. Blossfeldt, however, was neither a trained photographer nor a botanist. He was a sculptor and art professor who did his photographic work to generate teaching material for his students.The publication of this book is the result of an extraordinary event-the 1997 discovery in Blossfeldt's estate of sixty-one previously unknown collages, in virtually mint condition, of photographic contact prints arranged on large cardboard sheets. Blossfeldt apparently used these to study the relation and similarity of the photographs and to compare them graphically and aesthetically. On some, Blossfeldt had made marks or handwritten notations. Others show lines for cropping. The collages, published here for the first time, unveil a hidden treasure of modern photography and cast fresh light on the systematic approach Blossfeldt used in his photographic studies. All collages are reproduced in four colors. Introducing the book is an essay by Swiss art historian Ulrike Meyer-Stump, a Lecturer at the Zurich University of the Arts. Not for sale in France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and Austria

NY, Cernunnos/Abrams, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. In Karl Lagerfeld: A Life in Fashion, journalist Alfons Kaiser, who knew Lagerfeld personally for many years, introduces readers to the public and private life of the charismatic fashion designer. Kaiser explores the many eras of Lagerfeld's life: the youthful outsider in the north German flatlands; the urbane genius in Paris; the tireless draftsman; the enthusiastic photographer; the passionate book collector; and the disciplined Prussian workaholic. What is behind this larger-than-life figure who, despite a massively public persona, kept his own life story a secret? Drawing from many previously untapped sources, this biography investigates the man behind the persona: the precocious boy who preferred to draw in the attic than play with his peers; the son who quarreled with his parents but never got away from them; Yves Saint Laurent's competitor, whom he outshone in the end; the brother, uncle, friend--and finally the partner of Jacques de Bascher, the great love of his life. Remainder dot top edge otherwise like new.

Softcover. NY, Guggenheim Museum, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 267 pages, illustrated throughout in color and b&w. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to wrappers. In 1915, Kazimir Malevich changed the future of modern art when his experiments in painting led the Russian avant-garde into pure abstraction. He called his innovation Suprematism--an art of pure geometric form meant to be universally comprehensible regardless of cultural or ethnic origin. His Suprematist masterpiece, White Square on White (1920-27), continues to inspire artists throughout the world. Focused exclusively on this defining moment in Malevich's career, Kazimir Malevich: Suprematism features nearly 120 paintings, drawings and objects, among them several recently discovered masterworks. In addition, the book includes previously unpublished letters, essays and diaries, along with essays by international scholars, who shed new light on this popular figure and his devotion to the spiritual in art.

Softcover. Jackson MS, University Press of Mississippi , 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 227 pages, b&w illustrations. A self-made woman with no formal art training, Rose O'Neill (1875-1944) was not only hugely financially successful through her illustration work and the production of Kewpie dolls, but also through her exhibited drawings and sculpture in solo shows in Paris and New York. Kewpie made her a famous figure commercially, but few recognize her today as a serious artist and a political subversive who expressed sympathy for minorities, suffragettes, and victims of intolerance and who struggled with her own expression in a male-dominated field. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 290 pages, color and b&w illustrations. Kiki was once the symbol of bohemian Paris. But if she is remembered today, it is only for posing for several now-celebrated male artists, including Amedeo Modigliani and Alexander Calder, and especially photographer Man Ray. Why has Man Ray's legacy endured while Kiki has become a footnote? Kiki and Man Ray met in 1921 during a chance encounter at a cafe. What followed was an explosive decade-long connection, both professional and romantic, during which the couple grew and experimented as artists, competed for fame, and created many of the shocking images that cemented Man Rays reputation as one of the great artists of the modern era. Remainder dot to top edge, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. New York , Abrams, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 254 pages, 173 illustrations, 131 in color. Although he is now seen as a progenitor of the "naive" style, during his lifetime Edward Hicks (1780-1849) was known only as a devout, impoverished Quaker minister who liked to paint. With a few exceptions, his extant body of work is made up of 62 "Peaceable Kingdom" pictures, based on Isaiah's biblical prophecy. Although these paintings, known for their charmingly wide-eyed and sensuous beasts, use potent color and effective design, they are technically unsophisticated and repetitive in the extreme. But they contain a powerfully serene devoutness, a mood probably expressed in compensation for Hicks's guilt about an avocation viewed as frivolous by other Quakers. As the popularity of folk art boomed in the early 20th century, Hicks's homely visions were popularized and became the focus of scholarly attention, and this work is probably the best to date. Weekley, the director of museums at Colonial Williamsburg, shrewdly considers Hicks's "secular" life and art through the filter of his intense piety and copiously illustrates her large-format book with brilliant color plates.

Hardcover. NY, New York Graphic Society, 1st US, 1966, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 251 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. 2 color, 69 black & white plates. Light edgewear, chipping to dj. Tight copy.

Hardcover. New York, Harper, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 560 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Color pictures in center. Black and white pictures throughout. Remainder dot on bottom edge.

Hardcover. London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1st, 1903, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover. Original publisher's red/brown cloth; front cover decoratively stamped and lettered in gilt; spine lettered in gilt; rear cover decoratively stamped in gilt; top edge gilt, other edges deckled. With the 10 tissue-guarded plates as called for, of which 8 are in color; and numerous other illustrations in the text. 316 pages. Beauclerk illustrated a number of literary productions, including Horace Walpole's tragedy The Mysterious Mother, the English translation of Gottfried August Burger's Leonora (1796) and The Fables of John Dryden (1797). After 1785 she was one of a circle of women, along with Emma Crewe and Elizabeth Templetown (1746/7-1823), whose designs for Josiah Wedgwood were made into bas-reliefs on jasper ornaments. Hinges cracked, spine cloth chipped at front top, mild foxing throughout. Otherwise clean. PLEASE NOTE: DUE TO SIZE AND WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.