ARS LIBRI NEW YORK ANTIQUARIAN BOOK FAIR 2011 MODERN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS To Ars Libri website Ars Libri, Ltd. / 500 Harrison Ave. / Boston, MA 02118 [email protected] / www.arslibri.com / tel 617.357.5212 / fax 617.338.5763 Modern Illustrated Books 1 (ARMORY SHOW) BOSTON. COPLEY SOCIETY OF BOSTON. International Exhibition of Modern Art. Under the auspices of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, Incorporated. April 28th - May 19th, 1913. Preface by Frederick James Gregg. (56)pp. 15 plates in text. Orig. dec. wraps., printed in green, blue and brown with the pine-tree emblem of the exhibition. The original catalogue of the Armory Show in its third and final installation, following its exposure in New York (Feb. 15--March 15) and Chicago (March 24--April 16) earlier that spring. For this last stop, the show was radically edited and reduced to a final selection of 250 works, all of them European--a decision prompted by space considerations, but one which pleased a number of the organizers, including Walt Kuhn, who felt this to be the purest and more successful version of the exhibition. The Boston and Chicago catalogues are illustrated (including work by Picabia, Villon, Archipenko and Brancusi, as well as the Post-Impressionists and others), unlike the New York version, which is strictly textual. From the library of Robert C. Vose (of the Vose Galleries, Boston), with his signature on the front cover and at head of the first leaf, dated 1959, and titled by him at spine. First two leaves within a bit dog-eared at lower corner; otherwise a very clean and fresh copy. Boston, 1913. $6,000.00 Cf. (among many accounts) Altschuler, Bruce: The Avant-Garde in Exhibition (New York, 1994), chapter 4; Gordon II, pp. 712-716 2 ARP, HANS. Die Wolkenpumpe. (Sammlung “Die Silbergäule.” Band 50-51 [vere 52/53].) (28)pp. Sm. 4to. Orig. wraps., printed in black with a cover design by Arp. “Cloud-Pump,” Arp‘s first book of verse. Some of the poems were written as early as 1911; read at the Dada soirée at the Salle Kaufleuten, 9 April 1919, they were first published in “Dada 4-5: Anthologie Dada.” A little light wear; a very nice copy. Hannover (Paul Steegemann), 1920. $2,500.00 Rolandseck 86, illus. p. 61; Bleikasten Aa15; Dada Zürich 66; Motherwell/Karpel 196; Verkauf p. 176; Pompidou: Dada 1213, illus. p. 908; Wilpert-Gühring 3; Meyer: Paul Steegemann Verlag 26 3 ARP, HANS. Der Pyramidenrock. 70pp. Frontis. portrait of Arp by Modigliani. 4to. Printed wraps. Arp’s fourth book, a collection of Dada poems. The 41-line 3-column mechanical repetition of the title on each cover, a more emphatic recasting of Duchamp’s design for “New York Dada,” is one of the most influential typographic inventions of the period. Even browning, as usual; a very fine copy. Erlenbach-Zürich/ München (Eugen Rentsch), [1924]. $3,750.00 Rolandseck 89; Bleikasten Aa29; Dada Zürich 67; Motherwell/Karpel 194; Verkauf p. 176; Düsseldorf 23; Pompidou Dada 1211, illus. p. 698; Tendenzen 3/80; The Book Stripped Bare 5; Franklin Furnace 70; Andel, Jaroslav: Avant-Garde Page Design 1900-1950, no. 138 4 Queneau, Raymond & BAJ, ENRICO. Meccano, ou l’analyse matricielle du langage. 21ff. 27 mechanical color relief etchings by Baj, printed in red, green, yellow and black, integrated with text. 2 colored cellophane guards. Oblong sm. folio. Publisher’s boards, 3/4 red leather. Slipcase (black card stock, printed in white; ties). One of 100 numbered copies, signed in the justification by Queneau and Baj, from the limited edition of 174 in all. Printed in letterpress on heavy wove stock. Baj’s compositions, in which mechanical elements and discs in primary colors are mischievously anthropomorphized in a manner recalling Schwitters’ “Die Scheuche,” are here the complement to a dense linguistic treatise by Queneau, “L’analyse matricielle du langage.” “After graduating in philosophy from the Sorbonne, [Queneau] first became involved with the surrealists in 1924. In 1936, he became director of the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade and cofounded the magazine ‘Volonté’ with Henry Miller” (Jentsch). A fine copy. Milano (Sergio Tosi e Paolo Bellasich), 1966. $3,750.00 Jentsch, Ralph: The Artist and the Book in Twentieth-Century Italy (Turin/New York: Allemandi/ Museum of Modern Art, 1992), no. 19 5 (BAYER, HERBERT) Two Reichsmark notes, dated Weimar, 9 August 1923 (Serie B). One for 2,000,000 Mark, another for 1,000,000,000 Mark. 1. Zwei Million Mark. 70 x 140 mm. (ca. 2 3/4 x 5 1/2 inches), printed in blue and black. 2. Eine Milliarde Mark. 90 x 140 mm. (ca. 3 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches), printed in grey and black. “Late in 1923, after the Bauhaus exhibition had closed, Bayer was commissioned by the Thuringian state government in Weimar to design new paper money for use during the wild inflation sweeping over Germany. The design had to be prepared in tremendous haste and make use of an available printer’s typecase. The notes, in varying denominations...signified by different colors, are probably the first--and one suspects the only--paper money ever designed that eschews the vanity of flourish and curlicue by which the state banks of the world impose their seriousness. Rejecting such trivializing conventions, Bayer organizes the material so that it remains indisputably significant, while putting to one side, so to speak, in a perpendicular block of type all information that describes ARS LIBRI 2 NEW YORK ANTIQUARIAN BOOK FAIR 2011 MODERN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS the legal and banking provisions of the note. Bayer’s banknotes are of such elegance and simplicity, one would like to imagine that, unassisted, they stemmed Germany’s inflation and restored confidence in its benighted currency” (Cohen). Light wear. Weimar, 1923. $850.00 Cohen, Arthur A.: Herbert Bayer: The Complete Work (Cambridge, 1984), p. 200f. (illus.); Fleischmann p. 270f.; Spencer, Herbert: Pioneers of Modern Typography, p. 138f. (illus.); c.f. Das A und O des Bauhauses 269, illus. 201/202 6 (BAYER) H. Berthold AG, Berlin. Bayer-Type. (12)pp. Prof. illus., printed in blue, purple, orange and black. Oblong sm. 4to. Self-wraps. “In 1933, after Bayer had established himself in Berlin, he designed for the H. Berthold type foundry company a successful face known simply as Bayer-type, which more modestly than universal type was based on a simplified version of a classical serif Antiqua. Although universal type was and remained the ideal typeface, Bayer always lived in the real world, and if the real world preferred a serif face, better that it should employ one that had been repreceived and drawn anew. The result was Bayer-type, a constructed alphabet in light, bold, and extra-bold weights that was well received and widely used throughout the 1930s in Germany and Scandinavia” (Cohen). This copy is signed in pencil by Bayer at the foot of the first plate. A fine copy. Berlin, 1933. $1,200.00 Cohen, Arthur A.: Herbert Bayer: The Complete Work (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 215, 217f. (illus.); Fleischmann p. 278f. (“1931?”); cf. Das A und O des Bauhauses 319, illus. 239 (“1936”) 7 (BAYER, HERBERT) A set of seven photocollage postcards from Aspen, circa 1947, designed by Herbert Bayer. Each printed with halftone, with one other color (brown, blue, green). 143 x 178 mm. (5 5/8 x 7 inches), on heavy cream card stock. Each is titled “Aspen Postcard” on the verso, with designation for 1 1/2¢ stamp. Gwen Chanzit, in her catalogue of the Bayer collection and archive at the Denver Art Museum, dates the set to circa 1947. “Bayer arrived in Aspen in a snowstorm in April 1946 and immediately began to define a plan for the town in transition. He restored decaying Victorian houses and the old Wheeler Opera House, which had been extensively damaged by a series of fires, and designed posters and leaflets to promote the town and its new skiing opportunities.... [Aspen’s] development required innumerable designs for letterheads, brochures and posters to promote the new cultural center and its recreational advantages.” The series includes fanciful collages of old and new Aspen--shingle-style houses and the 1890 courthouse, with superimposed Victorian wood-engravings with surreal cutouts--and dynamic photomontages and -collages of skiers. One view of the slopes is surrealistically embellished with giant snowflake-emblazoned green leaves, casting shadows like tall trees: their design is repeated as an emblem on the back of the entire series of cards, and figured in a Bayer travel poster for Aspen in 1946. Aspen, [1947?]. $350.00 Chanzit, Gwen F.: Herbert Bayer: Collection and Archive at the Denver Art Museum (Denver, 1988), pp. 143f., 169 (gr.3f.88- 94) 8 BECHER, BERNHARD & BECHER, HILLA. Anonyme Skulpturen. Eine Typologie technischer Bauten. 194 full-page plates in text. 4to. Cloth. D.j. Parallel text in German, English, and French. First edition of the Becher’s first book. “The pictures are perfect models of good industrial and architectural photography. They are, however, more.... The similarity of the structures ...and the sameness of the style all contribute to a monotonic effect. But it is this monotony that is so surprisingly refreshing.... The similarity of the plates somehow draws the reader into a closer observation of the particulars; a more refined awareness of the details subsumed within an apparent oneness then takes place” (Robert Sobieszek). Small creased tear at the foot of the front cover of the dust jacket, otherwise pristine. Düsseldorf (Art-Press Verlag), 1970. $4,500.00 Roth p. 194f.; Parr, Martin & Badger, Gerry: The Photobook: A History. Vol. II, pp.