1926Best.-Nr. 7284New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 1926. Hemingway's first novel synonymous with the Lost Generation in which "the post-war disillusion and the post-war liberation are united in the physical enjoyment of living and the pains of love" Connolly p.53. The novel portrays a group of English and American expatriates frequenting the cafés of Paris who travel along the Camino de Santiago to the Fiesta de San Fermín in Pamplona where they watch the running of the bulls. Basis for Henry King's 1957 film adaptation starring Tyrone Power and Ava Gardner. Uncommon in dustjacket. Grissom A.6.1b. Hanneman 6A; Connolly 100. Second printing one of 1970 copies with the typographical error on p.181 line 26 "stoppped" for "stopped" in the corrected state. Octavo 19.75cm; black cloth with printed gold paper title labels mounted to spine and front cover; dustjacket; viii23-2591pp. Early ownership markings to front endpaper mild softening to spine ends gentle sunning to spine with some trivial dust-soil to upper edge of textblock and some darkening and pinpoint wear to title labels; contents clean; Very Good. In the correct second state dustjacket unclipped priced $2.00 with the typographical error in "In Our Times" in the corrected state along the lower front panel; spine and panels gently sunned and lighty dust-soiled some moderate external wear with a few small nicks and closed tears particularly at base of spine and a few faint scattered stains; still a presentable example unrestored Very Good or better. Housed in a custom clamshell case. Charles Scribner's Sons unknown
2013Best.-Nr. 51839Halifax NS Canada: NSCAD Press et al 2013. A comprehensive collection of publications and other documents from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design NSCAD an unexpected yet tremendously important center of conceptual art and postminimalism throughout the 1970s. Beginning as a nondescript art school in 1887 nothing about this small Halifax institution presaged the enormous international influence that the school would exert when Garry Neill Kennedy took over as NSCAD's president in 1967 at age 32. The school's subsequent and unprecedented creative direction must be credited to Kennedy who with a budget of $62000 turned the school away from its previous provincialism toward the influential international posture it would maintain for the next decades. This stature was due in no small part to the faculty and visiting artists that Kennedy brought to the school including Vito Acconci Sol LeWitt Dan Graham Martha Rosler Jenny Holzer Daniel Buren Hans Haacke Yvonne Rainer Robert Frank Robert Morris Dara Birnbaum Seth Seibelaub Lucy Lippard Robert Smithson Gerhard Richter Eric Fischl Lawrence Weiner Joseph Beuys and Claes Oldenburg among many others. The geographical location of NSCAD on the transatlantic route between New York and Europe aided in its access to the international scene. This brought many visiting artists who instead of appearing only for a talk or lecture used the opportunity for longer residencies exhibitions and collaborations with the school. Notably Joseph Beuys's first trip to North America was not to New York but to Halifax as a visiting artist at NSCAD. During its heyday between the late '60s and '70s NSCAD's teaching philosophy radically changed. Starting with the removal of a lettered grading system NSCAD became the first degree-granting art school in Canada advocating an intense engagement on all ends of the art-making spectrum between professional and student artists. NSCAD also documented its own significance through the publications of its press as well as the numerous invitations and catalogues produced by its galleries in conjunction with the shows and exhibitions it mounted during this period. This combination of publications exhibitions and collaborations generated by the school in many ways made it a contemporary Black Mountain College - and its subsequent influence has proved no less significant. Indeed in 1973 ART IN AMERICA proclaimed NSCAD "the best art school in North America" and thirty-five years later a major exhibition at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and publication by MIT Press wryly celebrated NSCAD as "The Last Art College." The NSCAD Press began operations in 1972. Initially led by Kaspar Koenig and then by Benjamin Buchloh the Press published 26 titles between 1982 and 1987 including now rare and important works by Jenny Holzer Steve Reich Michael Snow Donald Judd Dan Graham Martha Rosler Gerhard Richter Carl Andre Lawrence Weiner and others. All are present in this collection - many in their rare hardcover editions. The collection also documents two other canonical aspects of NSCAD. The first the "Projects Class" was developed by David Askevold one of Kennedy's new young hires. In the spirit of the school's new direction of dismantling traditional teaching methods the class invited artists to submit proposals for students to undertake under the artists' guidance. A rare complete set of cards documenting the first instantiation of this class from 1969 is present in its original envelope and includes submissions from artists Robert Barry Mel Bochner James Lee Byars Jan Dibbets Dan Graham Douglas Huebler Joseph Kosuth Sol LeWitt Lucy R. Lippard and Robert Smithson among others. The collection also includes materials from the Lithography Workshop under the direction of Gerald Ferguson who had insisted on hiring Askevold. The workshop's goal was not only to train students in printmaking but to produce prints for renowned artists both local and international. It allowed a space for NSCAD students to develop alongside professional artists taking their printmaking from initial concept to final execution. The workshop encouraged exploration of mediums and invited not only visual artists but performers writers dancers musicians and other famous and emerging creatives to make one-off projects. More than half a dozen pieces explicitly attributed to the workshop are present including work from Emmett Williams Huebler and Lawrence Weiner. But perhaps the most significant components of this collection are the ephemeral documents invitations flyers postcards posters catalogues produced by NSCAD's legendary Mezzanine Gallery which operated between 1970 and 1973 under the directorship of Charlotte Towsend-Gault. This remarkable program produced ground-breaking contemporary art projects exhibitions events and residencies by such artists as Bas Jan Ader Dan Graham John Baldessari "I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art" Tony Shafrazi Eleanor Antin Charlotte Moorman Sol LeWitt Martha Rosler Donald Judd On Kawara Martha Wilson and many others. These are almost to an item uncommon with most scarce and many quite rare. As a group the roughly 90 Mezzanine Gallery items included here would be virtually impossible to reassemble now. In 2006 Printed Matter NYC presented an exhibition of this material under the curatorship of AA Bronson. The present collection includes not only all of the material shown in that exhibition but other documents acquired subsequent to it. The collection also includes later ancillary and reference materials. Taken as a whole it documents all aspects of the most critical years at a key institution that served as both incubator and promoter for some of the most important and influential art in the second half of the 20th century. Some 155 items in all. Generally very good or better overall with most of the ephemera near fine or better. All carefully and neatly housed in a series of archival enclosures. A complete inventory is available. (NSCAD Press, et al) unknown
1939Best.-Nr. 5219Sauk City WI: Arkham House 1939. First Editions. The first major collection of Lovecraft's weird fiction and the first production by the legendary Arkham House - a landmark in 20th century genre publishing. The 32 stories written for various pulp magazines were gathered and preserved by Lovecraft's friends August Derleth and Donald Wandrei who founded Arkham House in 1939 to preserve and publish the best of Lovecraft's fiction. The stories "range from early exercises in Dunsanian pastiche to the mature and highly distinctive tales of the Cthulhu Mythos which construct a horrific cosmological and historical context for human history. Luckless protagonists who stumble upon various dire intrusions of Cthulhu and his kin or who unwisely pursue dangerous inquiries in the appropriate revelatory tomes are inevitably brought to repulsively stick ends. Lovecraft became the consummate master of the confirmatory ending in which what has been suspected all along finally becomes manifest" Barron Horror Literature: A Reader's Guide 3-132. It took Derleth and Wandrei nearly five years to sell through the modest print run and The Outsider has not been reprinted since. Enclosed with the present copies are a five letters written between May 10 1937 - November 26 1939 between the Arkham House principals detailing both the publication history of The Outsider as well revelatory background information concerning the dustjacket design by Virgil Finlay 1914-1971. In his time Finlay was among the most in-demand illustrators of fantasy science fiction and horror literature in the United States and his panoramic composition for The Outsider's dustjacket remains among the best executed and most desirable examples in the genre. According to a letter to Derleth from Adolph J. Hyson of the George Banta Publishing Company proofs for the dustjacket were struck in three colors - black bronze blue and a dark olive green. Both the black and green versions of the dustjacket were vetoed by all involved - the black on account of having "a strangely flat and monotonous effect without depth or life. Second and more important certain of the figures such as the monkey-like and ass-like creatures to the right of the topmost star containing the woman's figure behind the lettering "By" faded away to almost absolute imperceptibility in black but stood out with fairly well defined clarity in the blue" DW to VF Nov.14 1939. The green jacket was dismissed right out and described by Wandrei as being "a peculiarly detestable and odious color." It is not clear how many examples of either the black or green trial state dustjackets survived after being scrapped though all of the predictably few extant examples originated with the personal collection of Donald Wandrei sold close to four decades ago. Joshi 15. First Printings one of 1268 copies. Two octavo volumes 24cm; black cloth with titles stamped in gilt on spines; dustjackets; xiv5535pp. The present offering consists of two unique copies: - Copy 1: Trivial wrinkling to cloth at crown else Fine. Dustjacket is unclipped priced $5.00 gently spine-sunned and lightly edgeworn with shallow loss to base of spine and some light dust-soil and waviness to rear panel; Very Good. Inscribed vertically along the left margin of the rear flap by dustjacket designer Virgil Finlay: "This jacket is a photographic composite of early Weird Tales drawings probably only one or two were for HPL stories - I wish I might have found time for more of his work which I did admire / Virgil Finlay." Housed in a custom half-morocco clamshell case. - Copy 2: Trivial wear to lower board edges faint dust-soil to upper edge of textblock with mild offsetting and some faint scattered foxing to endpapers; Near Fine. Inscribed by Arkham House co-founder Donald Wandrei on front endpaper: "For Priscilla - and the goon - Donald Wandrei / Christmas 1939." In the apparently unique trial dustjacket printed in green instead of blue with the flaps and rear panel without text; light wear and a few tiny tears to extremities hint of sunning to spine with a faint vertical fold along rear joint and some mild dust-soil to rear panel; holograph printer's measurements in ink across base of spine panel; Very Good. For the sake of completion offered together with a Fine copy of the replica dustjacket produced in the 1970's by specialty publisher and collector Gerry de le Ree from Finlay's original plates. Folded and laid into this copy are examples of the publisher's original prospectus measuring 7.25" x 7.75" as well as an earlier mimeographed announcement letter measuring 8.5" x 11". Housed in a custom half-morocco clamshell case. Arkham House unknown
