Category Archives: Books

books

Intriguing cover art

Blaise Cendrars, Panorama de la Pégre (Grenoble: B. Arthaud, [1935]). Cover design by Cassandre. First edition. A compilation of reviews and reports for various French newspapers by Cendrars, illustrated with photogravure plates. Graphic Arts Collection 2019- in process

Cassandre (pseudonym of Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron, 1901-1968) was a French commercial poster artist and typeface designer. In addition to his commercial work, he taught graphic design at the École des Arts Décoratifs and then, at the École d’Art Graphique. Understanding the importance of typography, Cassandre developed Bifur in 1929, the sans serif Acier Noir in 1935, and in 1937 an all-purpose font called Peignot.

 

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a group of paperbacks with superb cover art. Here are a few samples.

Ferri-Pisani, Les Pervertis. Roman d’un potache. Cover designed by Gaston Secretan (Paris: Librairie universelle, [1905]). First edition. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

A notable homoerotic novel set in a boy’s boarding school. “Les Pervertis, by a precocious young French author, Ferri-Pisani, is so special and doubtless true, a picture of homosexualism in a great Paris lycée that it may well become a classic in its type.” (Edward Prime-Stevenson, The Intersexes: A History of Similisexualism as a Problem in Social Life, 1908). Ferri-Pisani was a great-nephew of George Sand.

Georges Le Rouge. La Rue hantée (Paris: Éditions Nilsson, [1914]). First edition. Graphic Arts Collection 2019- in process

Le Rouge was a prolific author of crime, mystery and other pulp fiction, best known for Le Mysterieux Docteur Cornelius, who came to be revered by the Surrealists. Cendrars wrote of him in 1968:

How to define his multicolored versatility, his lively and spontaneous erudition never at a loss for arguments? He was no drudge, no hack; even in the obscure anonymous brochures that were sold only at news-stands and in neighborhood or provincial notion shops, he was never unworthy of his craft as a writer which he took very seriously and of which he was very proud. On the contrary, it was in these unsigned popular publications—fat volumes such as a key to dreams, a cookbook (which I have recommended to all the gourmets I know)—and in the unbound pamphlets, often a simple printed sheet folded in four, eight, or sixteen pages that was sold for two, four, ten sous at Metro entrances on Saturday nights (Paris Review).

Liane de Pougy (pseudonym of Anne Marie Chassaigne), Ecce Homo. D’ici, de la. Cover design by Gaston Noury (Paris: Société Parisienne d’Édition, [1903]). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

A novel by De Pougy, who escaped to Paris after an abusive early marriage, where she dabbled in acting and prostitution, and became a regular user of cocaine and opium, a writer, and a star of the Folies bergères. She had numerous relationships with women, notably Natalie Clifford Barney, recorded in her novel Idylle Saphique, published in 1901.

See also:
Gramont, Elisabeth de, 1875-1954. Correspondance. Elisabeth de Gramont, Liane de Pougy; introduction & notes de Francesco Rapazzini (Venise: L’Amazone retrouvée, 2006). Rare Books 2012-0524N

Jacob, Max, 1876-1944. Lettres à Liane de Pougy. Max Jacob, Salomon Reinach; préf. de Jean Chalon pour les lettres de Max Jacob; introd. de Paul Bernard pour les lettres de Salomon Reinach ([Paris]: Plon, c1980). Firestone Library » PQ2619.A17 Z567

Pougy, Liane de, 1869-1950. Idylle saphique: roman ([Paris]: Alteredit, 2003). Firestone Library PQ2631.O68 I39 2003

Pougy, Liane de, 1869-1950. Idylle saphique: roman. Liane de Pougy; préface de Jean Chalon (Paris: J.-C. Lattès, 1979). ReCAP » PQ2631.O685 I3 1979g

Pougy, Liane de, 1869-1950. My blue notebooks. Liane de Pougy [i.e. M. C. Ghika]; pref. by R. P. Rzewuski; translated from the French by Diana Athill (New York: Harper & Row, 1979). ReCAP CT1018.G48A3513 1979

Photo Book Show

Only one more day left to attend The Photography Show at Pier 94. The longest-running and foremost exhibition dedicated to the photographic medium, the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) has mounted the 39th edition of the show featuring nearly 100 of the world’s leading fine art photography galleries.

Each year the photobook portion of the show has grown larger and more international, including the U.S., Europe, Asia, Canada, Mexico, the Middle East, and South America. Book dealers, publishers, and photography-related organizations include:

10×10 Photobooks, New York
21st Editions, South Dennis, MA
AKIO NAGASAWA Gallery | Publishing, Tokyo
American Photography Archives Group, APAG, New York
Aperture Foundation, New York
Artbook | D.A.P., New York
Benrido, Kyoto
Brilliant Graphics, Exton, PA
Candor Arts, Chicago, IL
Citizen Editions, Brooklyn, NY
Conveyor Editions, Jersey City, NJ

DAMIANI, Bologna, Italy
Daylight Books, Durham, NC
Dust Collective, Stow, MA
GOST Books, London
Harper’s Books, East Hampton, NY
KOMIYAMA TOKYO, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
KGP – Kris Graves Projects, Long Island City, NY
L’Artiere, Bologna, Italy
Light Work, Syracuse, NY
MACK, London
Minor Matters Books, Seattle, WA
Nazraeli Press, Paso Robles, CA
photo-eye, Santa Fe, NM
Photograph Magazine, New York
Saint Lucy Books, Baltimore, MD
STANLEY/BARKER, Shropshire, UK
SUPER LABO, Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan
Steidl Publishers, Göttingen, Germany
TBW Books, Oakland, CA
The Classic, Arnaville, France
TIS Books, Brooklyn, NY
Yoffy Press, Atlanta, GA
Zatara Press, Richmond, VA

The Wonderful Magazine and Marvellous Chronicle

The Wonderful Magazine Or Marvellous Chronicle; Or New Weekly Entertainer. A Work Recording Authentic Accounts of The Most Extraordinary Productions, Events, And Occurrences, In Providence, Nature, And Art… (London: Printed for the Proprietors, Published By C. Johnson, 1793).    Volumes 1-5. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- In process.

 

Portrait of an innkeeper known as Mother Louse of Louse Hall, a famous establishment outside the city of Oxford; fanciful coat of arms bottom center: three lice surmounted by a tankard, motto on banner underneath, ‘Three liese pas-sant’ (a re-issue).

Henry Jenkins, 169-years-old.

The following Forty Numbers of this Work (making only Sixty in the whole) will be enriched with a great Variety of engravings, equally extraordinary, Wonderful, Marvellous, Astonishing, and Interesting, too numerous to mention here. every future Number will therefore be Embellished with One or two most Elegant engravings, consisting of the most Extraordinary, Wonderful, and Rare Productions in Nature and Art, drawn and engraved by eminent Artists, among which will be included many Large Quarto Copper-plates, containing extraordinary Representations, which cannot be included in a less Size.

The frontispiece of the first volume is labeled, “The Art of Lying Burlesqued in an Account of A Wonderful Flight or Journey from France to Gibraltar, America, &c. Related by an Eminent Author,” which may refer to Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) included in serial form throughout the first three volumes.

 

The story of John Bigg, the Dinton Hermit, who only wore leather.

Margaret Finch, Queen of the Norwood Gypsies, Died 1740, Aged 108 years.

 

“Old Boots of Rippon in Yorkshire” shown with his ability to hold a coin between the tips of his nose and chin.

Subtitled: “Consisting entirely of Such Curious Matters as come under the Denominations of Miraculous!, Queer!, Odd!, Strange!, Supernatural!, Whimsical!, Absurd!, Out Of The Way! and Unaccountable! including Genuine Accounts of the most surprising Escapes from Death – Deliverances from Dangers – Strange Discoveries of long concealed Murders – Strange and Unaccountable Accidents – The Surprising Phenomena of Nature – Absurd and Ridiculous Customs peculiar to different Ages and Nations – Dreadful Shipwrecks – Heroic Adventures – Uncommon Instances of Courage, Strength, Longevity, or Long Life, Accounts of Persons Famous for Eating, Drinking, Fasting, Walking, or Sleeping – Interesting and extraordinary Anecdotes – Memorable Exploits – Perilous Adventures – Strange Effects of Imagination in Pregnant Women – And whatever else is calculated to promote Mirth or Entertainment, or what is Wonderful, Marvellous, or Astonishing. – The Whole carefully Collected from the Writings of the most approved Historians, Travellers, Astrologers, Physicians, Physiognomists, Philosophers, &c. of all Ages and Countries. – Embellished with a great Variety of Elegant Copper Plates accurately Engraved.”

 

Mademoiselle de Beaumont, or the Chevalier d’Eon. Female Minister Plenipo. Capt. of Dragoons Etc. Etc.
See also: https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2015/07/23/fencing-update/

 

 

Cut Dada


Werner Pfeiffer, Hocus Pocus (Red Hook, N.Y.: Pear Whistle Press, 2012). Altered book. One of 50 copies. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

In 2005, curator Leah Dickerman and an extended group of authors published Dada: Zurich, Berlin, Hanover, Cologne, New York, Paris; the catalogue for an exhibition held at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. A survey of perhaps the most influential modern art movement as it developed in six crucial cities during the period 1916 to 1926, the book quickly became a canonical text in the study of modern art.

 

As an homage to the movement and the publication, Werner Pfeiffer created what he calls a book object titled Hocus Pocus that cuts and rebinds the catalogue into 12 individual books, each one telling a modified narrative.

 

Appropriation of existing art or text has a long tradition within modern art and within the contemporary artists’ book genre is a sub-division known as ‘altered books’. Another good example of an altered book artist is John Latham, whose copy of Art and Culture by Clement Greenberg is now accessioned into the Museum of Modern Art in liquid form: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/81529. Pfeiffer’s Hocus Pocus has been accessioned into several art museum collections including the Museum of Fine Art, Boston.

 

 

See also our copy of John Latham (1921-2006), The Mechanical Bride by Marshall McLuhan, ca. 1969. Altered book. Gift of William Howard Adams. Graphic Arts GAX Oversize 2006-0384Q: https://www.princeton.edu/~graphicarts/2009/03/the_man_who_ate_art_and_cultur.html

De heerlyke beloning en glorieryke zegepraal der deugd

 

 

 

De Heerlyke Beloning en Glorieryke Zegepraal der Deugd : Vertoond in de Verwonderlyke Lot- en Levensgevallen, van een Door het Huwelyk Ongelukkig Geworden Huisvrouw; Die, Na Dat ze Door Haar eige Man Tot Slavinnen Was Verkogt … Eindelyk Door Hem Weder Wierd Opgezogt ... = [The Wonderful Reward and Glorious Triumph of Virtue: Shown in the Astonishing Fate and Life of a Housewife Who Became Unhappy With Her Marriage; [and] After She Had Been Turned Into a Slave By Her Own Husband … Was Finally Returned Again To Him …] (Amsterdam: Steven van Esveldt, boekverkoper in de Kalverstraat, 1758). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

 

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired this rare first edition an anonymously published novel on the virtues of women, illustrated with eight engraved plates by an equally anonymous artist.

The book tells the story of the beautiful young Antonetta, Marquise Alb***, a married noble-woman living in Genoa who gets into trouble when she finds out her husband is sleeping with another woman. Her husband sells her as a slave to the Turks in Algiers and she ends up living in a harem.

When Antonetta finally manages to escape and travel back to Italy, her ship is destroyed during a storm near Tuscany. Thankfully, she is found by a hermit, who takes care of her until she is able to finish her journey back to Genoa. Spoiler:  Antonetta forgives her husband and they live happily ever after.

According to the preface the story is based on true events. The author also promises that it will be both entertaining and educational, a real example for women.

#me too 1758

 

Internationale situationniste

Guy Debord and Asger Jorn, Mémoires (Paris: Internationale situationniste; [Copenhaguen, Permild & Rosengreen Press], 1959). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

 


Printed in 1959, Mémoires (Memories) is the result of the second collaboration between the Danish artist Asger Jorn (1914-1973) and the French artist and theorist Guy Debord (1931-1994). Published by Éditions Situationist International (founded by Debord and Jorn), the book has been reprinted several times given its importance to the movement, first by Jean-Jacques Pauvert aux Belles Lettres in 1993 and then by Éditions Allia in 2004.

Mémoires is perhaps most famous for its cover made of heavy-grade sandpaper. Usually credited to Debord, the sleeve was actually conceived in a conversation between Jorn and the printer, V.O. Permild:

[Jorn] asked me, if I couldn’t find an unconventional material for the book cover. Preferably some sticky asphalt or perhaps glass wool. Kiddingly, he wanted, that by looking at people, you should be able to tell whether or not they had had the book in their hands. He acquiesced by my final suggestion: sandpaper (flint) nr. 2: ‘Fine. Can you imagine the result when the book lies on a blank polished mahogany table, or when it’s inserted or taken out of the bookshelf. It planes shavings off the neighbour’s desert goat. – “Memories on Asger Jorn” by Troels Andersen, quoted online in Christian Nolle, Books of Warfare, The Collaboration between Guy Debord & Asger Jorn from 1957-1959, http://virose.pt/vector/b_13/nolle.html


Although few people own copies of these rare publications, both the first collaboration Fin de Copenhague and Mémoires are embedded in art historical literature of the period, such as a review in Architectural Review, October 1957, calling Fin de Copenhague a “remarkable piece of improvisation among the techniques of graphic reproduction.” The startling layouts in both volumes “anticipate, by 30 or more years, the typographic and textual fragmentation of Cranbrook, CalArts and Ray Gun magazine, which became a global design phenomenon.”

One of many descriptions of the making of these books, both publishing and performance, recounts:

Having just arrived in Copenhagen, Jorn and Debord rushed into a newsagents, stole a huge amount of magazines and newspapers, and spent a drunken afternoon collaging elements together. The next day they arrived at the printers with 32 collages, which were transferred to lithographic plates. Jorn then sat at the top of a ladder over the zinc plates, dropping cup after cup of Indian ink onto them. The plates were then etched and printed over the black texts and images.

 

1933=one cent . . . 2019=one cent

On May 1, 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, The Catholic Worker newspaper made its debut with a first issue of twenty-five hundred copies. Dorothy Day and a few others hawked the paper in Union Square for a penny a copy to passersby.–https://www.catholicworker.org/

Still costing one penny, The Catholic Worker remains one of the best sources for black and white graphic art. Here are a few cuts from a recent issue. Browse or search for additional examples of CW art here: https://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/browse/index.html
Rita Corbin

After realizing she had no interest in advertising, she then studied under printmaker Harold Sternberg at the Art Students league, followed by an apprenticeship with German-born abstract expressionist Hans Hoffman, though her studies with him came to end when she married. But her best art education, she said, came from spending afternoons visiting the art museums and galleries, and walking the streets and riding the subways drawing the ordinary people she saw.

Rita arrived at the Catholic Worker on Chrystie Street at the age of twenty. Although she wasn’t aware of it she was following in the footsteps of Ade Bethune. the first Catholic Worker artist. As Dorothy did with Ade fifteen years previously, she immediately set Rita to work illustrating the paper, and Rita became a life-long contributor as one of the three primary Worker artists along with Ade and Fritz Eichenberg. Of the three, Rita was the only one to have lived at the Catholic Worker, and she also raised five children while being an artist. –“In Memory of Rita Corbin 1930-2011” by Kate Hennessy in The Catholic Worker January 2012

Julie Lonneman

Rita Corbin

Julie Lonneman

June Hildebrand

Brian Kavanagh

The Catholic Worker. Firestone Library Forrestal Annex 0921.247f
Subscriptions
36 East 1st Street
New York NY 10003
Phone: 212-777-9617

American War Information Unit, 1945

KZ: Bildbericht aus fünf Konzentrationslagern Amerikanisches Kriegsinformationsamt (S.l.: American War Information Unit, no date [1945]). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

One of the earliest reports and the first published by the United States Army on the horrors of Nazi concentration camps, this fragile pamphlet offers eyewitness accounts of American and British troops after the liberation of Buchenwald, Belsen, Gardelegen, Nordhausen and Ohrdruf.

KZ was distributed in Germany by the Psychological Warfare Division of the American War Information Unit (Amerikanischen Kriegsinformationsamt im Auftrag der Oberbefehlshaber der Aliierten Streitkräfte) at the end of the war in order to convey the enormity of the crimes committed under the Nazi regime. Despite wide circulation, relatively few copies remain and so, it is important that one has now entered the Graphic Arts Collection.

These photographs are reported to have played an important role as evidence in the Nuremberg Trials. Note, only a few pages have been posted here due to the horrific content depicted.

 

Ricketts’s drawings, published and unpublished


[Above] John Byrne Leicester Warren, Baron de Tabley (1835-1895), Poems dramatic and lyrical; with illustrations by C. S. Ricketts (London: E. Mathews and John Lane ; New York : Macmillan and company, 1893). ExC J. Harlin O’Connell Collection 3713.1.1893. “This edition is limited to six hundred copies.”

[Above] Charles Ricketts (1866-1931), Nimrod, 1893. Pen and ink drawing for John Byrne Leicester Warren, Baron de Tabley (1835-1895), Poems dramatic and lyrical; with illustrations by C. S. Ricketts (London: E. Mathews and John Lane ; New York: Macmillan and company, 1893). Graphic Arts Collection GA 2006.02078

[Below] Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), The Sphinx; with decorations by Charles Ricketts (London: E. Mathews and J. Lane, 1894). Rare Books 3989.5.386.11. “Limited for England to 200 copies.”

[Below] Charles Ricketts (1866-1931), The Sphinx, 1916. Pen and colored inks drawing, not included in Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), The Sphinx (London: E. Mathews and J. Lane, 1894). Graphic Arts Collection GA 2006.02079. The genesis of this drawing is not known. There was no proposed 1916 edition of the Wilde book.

Charles Ricketts has been called the quintessence of the nineties. In his life as much as his work, he embodied not merely an “aesthetic” devotion to art and beauty but also many of the fin de siècle’s finest creative energies. …In London, the writers Oscar Wilde, Michael Field, John Gray, Thomas Hardy, W. B. Yeats and Thomas Sturge-Moore were all eager for Ricketts to decorate their books or design stagings for their plays.

Wilde especially was proud of Ricketts’s involvement in his own work: he once called Ricketts “the subtle and fantastic decorator” of his books. In some respects, Ricketts was Wilde’s collaborator or kindred spirit. His sympathies with Wilde were profound. His designs for Wilde’s The Sphinx mark one of the high points, if not the high point, of late-Victorian book design.”

–selection by Nicholas Frankel, Associate Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University, editor of Ricketts’s The Sphinx and author of Oscar Wilde’s Decorated Books and Masking The Text: Essays on Literature and Mediation in the 1890s. http://www.1890s.ca/PDFs/ricketts_bio.pdf


Première Imprimerie Royale

L’abbé François-Philippe de Laurens de Reyrac (1734-1781), Hymne au soleil (Paris: de l’Imprimerie royale, 1783). Previously owned by Bernard H. Breslauer. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

Étienne-Alexandre-Jacques Anisson-Duperron (1749-1794) joined his father at the Imprimiere Royal (Royal printing office) in 1783 and succeeded him in 1788. He was especially interested in papermaking and printing methods, and claimed to be the inventor of the ‘one-shot press’. This work ended in 1792, when the Office became the Imprimerie nationale (National Printing Office) and not long after this Anisson-Duperron was arrested on charges of provoking disturbances, finally sentenced to death and executed on April 25, 1794. He is the author of a thesis presented to the Royal Academy of Sciences from March 1783 and published in 1785 under the title “First Memoir on the printing in letters, followed by the description of the new press executed for the service of the King …”. — https://data.bnf.fr/fr/12449428/etienne-alexandre-jacques_anisson-duperon/

In 1783, one of Anisson-Duperron’s first projects at the Imprimiere was to produce this little book as a demonstration of his new press (the invention of which was claimed by Didot l’Aîné). For a text, he chose L’abbé de Reyrac’s Hymne au soleil, written in 1776 and reprinted several time in various formats due to its popularity.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a copy this first book printed with the new press “à un coup.” It is a superb presentation copy bound in morocco with the royal coat of arms. According to the catalog of the Breslauer collection, “this version of the Royal arms (45 mm high) is not recorded. […] No other book printed by the Imprimerie Royale in a binding with its arms appears to be known”. –From the library of Bernard Breslauer (Bibliotheca bibliographica breslaueriana I, New York, 2005, no. 66: “The recipient of this handsomely bound work of publicity, presumably presented by the director of the Royal Press, is not identified”).

There are two known issues. In the first issue, printed on laid paper, p. [1] (1st count) is blank and the text “Première épreuve …” is printed on the front cover. In the second issue, printed on wove paper, the text “Première épreuve …” is printed on p. [1] (1st count), and substantial portions of the text have been reset. The copy in the Graphic Arts Collection is the second issue, with text “Première épreuve” printed on p. [1].

“Première épreuve d’une nouvelle presse inventée pour le service de l’Imprimerie royale: et approuvée par l’Académie des sciences le 17 mai 1783. Cette presse qui diffère des autres dans presque toutes ses parties, est plus expéditive d’un quart que les presses ordinaires, & rend la main d’œuvre moins pénible: Elle procure aussi aux ouvrages une perfection indépendante du talent des ouvriers.” = First test of a new press invented for the service of the Royal Printing Office: and approved by the Academy of Sciences on May 17, 1783. This press, which differs from the others in almost all its parts, is more expeditious than a quarter ordinary presses, and makes work less painful. It also gives the book a perfection independent of the talent of the workmen.

 

Thanks in particular to John Logan, Literature Bibliographer, Collection Development, Scholarly Collections and Research Services, for his help in this acquisition.