Art & Photobooks

FIRST EDITION, SIGNED BY ANNIE LEIBOVITZ. “I hate the word ‘celebrity.’ I’ve always been more interested in what people do than who they are, and I hope that my photographs reflect that. I have the opportunity to work with people who are the best actors, and writers, and athletes, and dancers–a broad spectrum. I feel like I’m photographing people who matter, in one way or another. I’m photographing my time.”–Annie Leibovitz, in an interview with Literal Magazine Folio, original photo-pictorial boards, original glassine. Minor tears at extremities of rear glassine wrapper. A lovely copy.

“The photography by itself doesn’t mean anything to me: it’s the gas station, that’s the important thing” An exceptional private collection of the artist books of Ed Ruscha. First editions, many signed.

FIRST EDITION, INITIALED BY WARHOL ON HALF-TITLE. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. Octavo, original cloth, original dust jacket. A fine copy in a very good dust jacket (slight blistering to jacket).

“Avedon gravitates to those moments in which the oscillation between pretense and revelation is most intense. The subject of any of his photographs is likely to show in part isolation or grotesquerie, courage to the point of madness, isolation-and-defiance or sly amusement, desolation and wit, pride and sterility, pride and triumph. Victories, defeats mingle in the same moment sometimes or on adjoining pages…” –Harold Brodkey (from the Introductory Essay). FIRST EDITION. A spectacular production illustrated with Avedon’s photographs of Lauren Bacall, Joan Baez, Bridget Bardot, Audrey Hepburn, Anjelica Houston, Janis Joplin, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe, Yves Saint Laurent, Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Vreeland and many more. A near fine copy with the original acetate jacket in very good condition with wear and chip at the top of the spine. An excellent copy signed and inscribed by Avedon.

FIRST EDITION in English, beautifully illustrated with 104 plates (64 in full color), and TWO ORIGINAL COLOR LITHOGRAPHS done expressly for this edition. “All the time I was working, I felt my father and my mother were looking over my shoulder, and behind them were Jews, millions of other vanished Jews of yesterday and a thousand years ago.” –Chagall, on the creation of The Jerusalem Windows Chagall’s Jerusalem Windows illustrates and chronicles the creation of the famous twelve stained glass windows, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel, designed by Chagall for the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center Synagogue in Jerusalem. Text and Notes by Jean Leymarie. Original red cloth, original pictorial dust jacket. Without the rarely seen publisher’s slipcase. Book fine, dust jacket near-fine with only a little edgewear.

Pre-publication edition, SIGNED by Soth. Number 26 or 30 numbered copies. With original Inkjet prints bound into cloth covers. Gilt stamped brown cloth with an original photograph mounted on front cover. Fine copy.

FIRST EDTION, THE EXTREMELY RARE HARDCOVER ISSUE; one of an estimated fifty copies bound for presentation. “[T]his is an almost perfect monograph. It begins and ends with Sommer’s exquisite abstractions, and includes some of the best examples of Sommer’s work in portraiture, collage, landscape, and still life to date. Every two-page spread reveals something more about the images through their juxtaposition. And then there is the text. It is very unusual to have writing at this level, uninfected with either sentimentality or pomposity, from an American photographer, but what’s more unusual is to have an artist who makes images and text and can combine them in a way that deepens and extends the effects of each. This early enactment of Sommer’s ideas about the workings of linguistic and pictorial logic is a gem” (David Levi Strauss. The Book of 101 Books). Roth 101. Complete with 30 black and white photographs. New York: Aperture, 1962. Small folio (235x205mm), original white cloth with black lettering. Only a few spots of soiling to cloth. A magnificent copy.

“Although Man Ray participated in and produced hundreds of fruitful collaborative works in his life, Facile must be ranked among the most successful.” –Roth, 101 Books Number 623 of 1200 copies on vein, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED by Paul Eluard on the half-title. Quarto, original wappers; custom half-morocco box. First gathering loose, a hint of wear to wrapper edges. A fine copy.

LIMITED EDITION, WITH TWO SIGNED COLOR ETCHINGS BY MAX ERNST, and 25 additional color lithographs; one of only 250 copies (out of a total edition of 320). An evocative collaboration between the surrealist poet Prevert and the surrealist artist Ernst. The Livre d’Artiste in the Twentieth Century 46. Large folio, loose as issued in original lithographed paper wrappers; original buckram clamshell box. Fraying to box edges, some foxing to wrappers; interior and plates fine.