Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk, poet, social activist and is widely recognized as the most important 20th century Catholic mystic. In 1949, he was ordained to the priesthood and given the name Father Louis. He wrote more than 70 books, mostly on spirituality, social justice and a quiet pacifism. The Seven Storey Mountain (1948) was also featured in National Review’s list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the century.  Merton pioneered an interfaith dialogue with prominent Asian spiritual figures, including the Dalai Lama, D.T. Suzuki, and Thich Nhat Hanh. On December 10, 1968, while attending an interfaith conference in Bangkok, he steped out of his bath to adjust an electric fan and apparently touched an exposed wire and was electrocuted.  He died 27 years to the day after his entrance into the Abbey of Gethsemani in 1941.

Description: Hard bound first printing with dust jacket. INSCRIBED BY THOMAS MERTON ON THE FRONT FREE ENDPAGE “For Brother Eliot, with congratulations & blessings Father Lewis Merton”. (Lewis being his ordained name) INSCRIBED BY DAN WALSH on page 96. (Merton’s teacher at Columbia University and life long friend, Walsh was instrumental in the realization of Merton’s Vocation) “To Brother Eliot with hearty congratulations on your Silver anniversary, and prayerful wishes in anticipation of the Golden coming up! in Christ Jesus, Dan Walsh”. Edited by Thomas P. McDonnell. 553 pages. Gray cloth boards with red spine edge. Some wear to corners and edges, with interior clean and binding tight. News print portrait of Merton affixed to front fixed end page. The dust jacket shows some wear and chipping to edges, otherwise very good.  A RARE COPY, INSCRIBED TWO TIMES!

Bookseller Inventory # 23452
$3000

A Thomas Merton Reader
Merton, Thomas & McDonnell, Thomas P.

Publisher: Harcourt Brace and World
Publication Date: 1962
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Good
Signed: Inscribed by Author
Edition: First Edition

· Category: Featured Items, Literary First Editions, Recent Acquisitions, Signed & Inscribed ·

Count Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy (born February 20, 1927) is a French aristocrat and fashion designer who founded The House of Givenchy in 1952. He is famous for having designed much of the personal and professional wardrobe of Audrey Hepburn, as well as clothing for clients such as Jacqueline Kennedy.

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. SIGNED BY HUBERT DE GIVENCHY on the half title page! 208 pages. Profusely illustrated in full color. The house of Givenchy was founded in 1952 by designer Hubert de Givenchy. His style was marked by innovativeness, contrary to the more conservative designs by Dior. Audrey Hepburn, later the most prominent proponent of Givenchy’s fashion. Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich, The Duchess of Windsor, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis were other famous customers of Givenchy’s. A very nice copy, bright and clean.

Bookseller Inventory # 23040

$600

The Givenchy Style
Mohrt, Francoise

Publisher: Vendome Press
Publication Date: 1998
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Edition: First U. S. Edition

· Category: Fashion, Featured Items, Recent Acquisitions, Signed & Inscribed ·

Lothar Baumgarten is a combination anthropologist, photographer, poet, storyteller, and installation maker. He has traveled in many a remote and outwardly inhospitable part of the world, aiming to live among its inhabitants as a concerned but invisible presence. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles commissioned Baumgarten to create a work that incorporated photo documentation. The focus was the artist’s research of the American railroad system. The work takes material form by integrating given structures into a complex whole and by creating a canon of references among individual, site-specific elements. — its tracks, bridges, signals, locomotives, rolling stock, stations, marshaling yards, logos, names and crossings on remote country roads. The photographs were later published along with eleven short stories in an artists’ book titled “Carbon.”

Deascription: Hard bound in dust jacket. 118 b&w and white color photographs. Published on the occasion of the Apr. 8 – Jun. 17, 1990 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles exhibition. INSCRIBED BY LOTHAR BAUMGARTEN in pencil on the limitation page ” For  H_ S_  21.7.93  N.Y.C  Lothar Baumgarten”.  Limited printing, 1 of 1750 copies. SIGNED Text pamphlet laid in at the rear.  Very minor wear to corners and edges of boards. Dust jacket shows wear , a few small chips and closed tears, otherwise very good.

A RARE MONOGRAPH!

$1500

Carbon
Baumgarten, Lothar

Publisher: Pentti Kouri / The Museum of Contemporary Art, L. A.
Publication Date: 1991
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Good
Signed: inscribed by Photographer
Edition: First Edition

· Category: Featured Items, Photography, Signed & Inscribed ·

Internationally recognized photographer Peter Beard first visited Africa in 1955. After graduating from Yale, he returned to Africa and worked at Kenya’s Tsavo Park, during which time he photographed and documented the demise of over 35,000 elephants and 5000 Black Rhinos. The work done there led to the publication of The End of the Game books.

“When I first went to Kenya in August 1955, I could never have guessed what was going to happen. Kenya’s population was roughly five million, with about 100 tribes scattered throughout the endless ‘wild—deer—ness’ – it was authentic, unspoiled, teeming with big game – so enormous it appeared inexhaustible. Everyone agreed it was too big to be destroyed. Now Kenya’s population of over 30 million drains the country’s limited and diminishing resources at an amazing rate: surrounding, isolating, and relentlessly pressuring the last pockets of wildlife in denatured Africa.” —Peter Beard

Description: INSCRIBED BY PETER BEARD WITH DRAWING. No Jacket, as issued. First printing of the 1977 revised edition published on the occasion of the I.C.P. exhibition in New York. Very good hardback as issued without dust jacket. The gray boards have some sunning and wear. This is a lovely edition of this rare Beard classic & the most difficult Beard title to find SIGNED & INSCRIBED!

Bookseller Inventory #19114

$1600

The End of the Game: The Last Word from Paradise A Pictorial Documentation of the Origins, History and Prospects of the Big Game in Africa
Beard, Peter H.

Publisher: Viking
Publication Date: 1977
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Signed: Signed by Author
Edition: 1st Edition Thus

· Category: Featured Items, Photography, Signed & Inscribed ·

Description: Commissioned by the Crown Prince of Morocco, the Scottish born photographer Albert Watson worked in Morocco from September 1997 through May of 1998. The result was a series of classic and  timeless portraits, landscapes and still lifes.  From Casablanca to remote villages, Watson captures the soul of Moroccans from all walks of life in his portraits and extraordinary photographs. 140 stunning duotone illustrations. Hard bound with white pictorial boards in matching dust jacket. BOLDLY SIGNED BY ALBERT WATSON ” For Wendy, Albert Watson – New York 1999″. A beautiful book produced by Fabio Fasolini in Milan, and designed by Giovanni C. Russo, New York. Some minor wear to corners and edges of dust jacket, otherwise fine. A RARE signed copy!

Bookseller Inventory # 20123

$650

Maroc
Watson, Albert

Publisher: Rizzoli, New York
Publication Date: 1998
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Signed: Inscribed by Photographer
Edition: First Edition

· Category: Photography, Signed & Inscribed ·

Kenro Izu used special large format cameras of his own design, and carried over 200 pounds of gear into the still-treacherous Cambodian jungle. He created rich platinum prints, printing directly from his own large scale negatives. The reproductions in this book are themselves rich, the blacks saturated and gradation of grays without limit. Profusely illustrated with beautiful printed photographs of the architecture of Angkor.

Description: SIGNED AND DATED on the title page by Kenro Izu. Paperback copy with some tanning to the edges white wrappers. Previous owners name to front fee end page, otherwise fine. Interior clean and binding tight. A very scarce signed edition.

Bookseller Inventory # 17073

$500

Light Over Ancient Angkor
Izu, Kenro

Of the many sacred sites that Kenro Izu has photographed, Angkor Wat has undoubtedly become his most significant spiritual and psychological subject. During a series of photography trips to Cambodia’s Angkor monuments, Izu became deeply moved by his encounters with children disfigured by landmines and desperate need of medical care. As a way of returning something to Cambodia he founded a not-for profit organization, Friends Without A Border and built Angkor Hospital for Children in 1999. He has been responsible for its operation since.

Publisher: Friends Without a Border
Publication Date: 1996
Binding: Paperback
Book Condition: Very Good
Signed: Signed

· Category: Featured Items, Photography, Signed & Inscribed ·

New York based photographer Bruce Davidson began his career as a freelance contributor for Life Magazine in the 1950′s. In Paris met Henri Cartier-Bresson, later Davidson would join him as a member of Magnum Photos. Throughout the 1960′s he helped document the civil rights movement, but it was in 1963 when he was awarded the first grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for photography that his status as a great photographer was crystallized. He spent the next several years documenting the human struggle within one city block in Upper Manhattan; East 100th street in Harlem.

He senses things others have no time or inclination to bother with, and he is driven to set down before others what he senses, by no means do these photographs take advantage… instead they show daily effort that human beings make to get by, to find food and love and yes, find a kind of meaning in the midst of ruinous social and economic circumstances.”

This copy was inscribed by Davidson to the photographer Paul Ickovic for his help and oversight in the publication process. A nice warm inscription from one esteemed photographer to another.

Description: Hard bound first printing with unclipped dust jacket. Inscribed by Bruce Davidson to the photographer Paul Ickovic on the half titlepage ” To Paul Thank you for making this book reproduction possible Bruce Davidson 79′ “. Very minor tanning to spine edge of white dust jacket, otherwise very good. A nice photographic association copy.

Bookseller Inventory # 13746

$900 

Bruce Davidson Photographs
Davidson, Bruce

Publisher: Agrinde
Publication Date: 1978
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Signed: Inscribed by Photographer
Edition: 1st Edition

· Category: Featured Items, Photography, Signed & Inscribed ·

Paul Ickovic was born in Czechoslovakia in 1944. He has traveled the world extensively; recording his story through the photographs he takes. Ickovic returned to his homeland as a boy, only to leave again for Canada and Latin America before finally moving to the United States, where he acquired his education and found his calling as a photographer.  His photographs are included in many prestigious collections including the Museum of Modern Art and International Center of Photography in New York, the Biblioteque Nationale in Paris, and the National Gallery in Prague.

Description: Boldy signed by Ickovic on the titlepage. Lavishly illustrated with full page (14 1/2” x 10”) photographs. Foreword by David Mamet. Photographs in the tradition of Josef Koudelka and Henri Cartier – Bresson.  This copy as new still in publishers box, as issued.

Bookseller Inventory # 007480

$650

Kafka’s Grave and Other Stories
Ickovic, Paul  &  Mamet, David

Bibliographic Details

Publisher:  Okapi Editions, New York
Publication Date:  1987
Binding:  Hard Cover
Book Condition:  As New
Dust Jacket Condition:  No Jacket, As Issued
Signed:  Signed by Author
Edition:  First Edition

· Category: Featured Items, Photography, Signed & Inscribed ·

Sarah Moon, who was born in Britain has worked as a model, film-maker, and lastly a fashion photographer. Her carefully staged images are mysterious, nostalgic, and surreal. Her photographs often utilize sepia tones or muted color, diffused by heavy grain. Her work evokes a fairy tale, encapsulated within a dream like softness.

Description: Hard bound first printing inscribed on the half title page by Sarah Moon to the photographer Paul Ickovic and his wife “To Paul and Sarah These IMPROBABLE MEMORIES as a souvonier. with love Sarah Moon”. Some very minor wear to dust jacket, otherwise very good. A nice association copy!

Bookseller Inventory # 13777

$900

Improbable Memories
Moon, Sarah

Publisher: Matrix
Publication Date: 1981
Binding: Hard Cover
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Edition: First U.S. Edition

· Category: Featured Items, Photography, Signed & Inscribed ·

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. 129 pages with Afterword by the photographer. INSCRIBED BY CONNIE IMBODEN ” For Mark, Your openness and great energy are a terrific combination. Stay on the path! with all my best, Connie Imboden CPW 8/07″ Essays by A. D. Coleman & Arthur Ollman. This exquisitely printed monograph of renowned photographer Connie Imboden is a collection of images from the past fifteen years of her career. Both ethereal and strong, Connie Imboden’s photographs are a study in transformation and mutation of the human form. Imboden’s nudes floating in water are an unprecedented exploration of the human body. A RARE SIGNED COPY.

Bookseller Inventory # 22473
$250

Beauty of Darkness
Imboden, Connie

Publisher: Custom & Limited Editions
Publication Date: 1999
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
Signed: Inscribed by Photographer
Edition: First Edition

· Category: Photography, Signed & Inscribed ·

Ukiyoe Kuzushi (The folating world in disorder) is a series of photographs take by one of Japan’s leading photographers in an attempt to reproduce the atmosphere of the lost culture of the Japenese Courtasen, and the Yoshiwara red light district of Edo era Japan. Saburuko, (ones who serve), were the result of an increasing social displacement towards the end of the seventh century. Many women found themselves having to become wanderers, who, in order to survive, had to resort to trading their sexual favours. There were among them women who were quite educated and talented. These particular Saburuko who were talented dancers and singers often found themselves invited to entertain at aristocratic gatherings. The high cultural atmosphere of these quarters was quite often layered with classical references to the long gone Heian era. Courtesans and artists alike made many references to Murasaki Shikibu’s famous novel, “The Tale of Genji”. It was this atmosphere and culture within the pleasure quarters that spawned the highly popular ukiyo-e, “pictures which showed us the various inhabitants of the “floating world”. It was, indeed, a place where men could live out their dreams and fantasies. The lure of Yoshiwara, Shimabara, and the pleasure quarters to follow in later years was largely the romance, elegance and excitement that allowed men an escape from the highly-regimented society of those times.

Bookseller Inventory # 16074

$500

Ukiyoe Kuzushi
Hoshino, Komaro and Fujimoto, Giichi

ISBN: 4890110143
Publisher: Nippon Geijutsu Shuppansha
Publication Date: 1981
Binding: Hard Cover
Book Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
Edition: First Edition

· Category: Featured Items, Photography, Signed & Inscribed ·

Yasuhiro Wakabayashi, professionally known as Hiro, is a “photographer’s photographer”. He was born in Shanghai in 1930 to Japanese parents. In 1956 he began working for Richard Avedon. Around the same time, Hiro encountered Alexey Brodovitch at Harper’s Bazaar, and worked as his assistant for a time. Hiro has shown a very distinctive vision, and his work in fashion and still life from the mid 1960s onward has spawned many imitators and remains a lasting influence.

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. INSCRIBED and dated by HIRO on the front free endpage. Very minor edge wear, otherwise very good.

Bookseller Inventory # 16599

$150

Publisher: Abrams
Publication Date: 1990
Binding: Hard Cover
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Signed: inscribed by Artist
Edition: First Edition

· Category: Featured Items, Photography, Signed & Inscribed ·

German born photographer Ilse Bing was known as the “Queen of the Leica” for her early and exclusive use of that camera. Bing moved to Paris in 1930 was inspired by Surrealism which was flourishing in Paris at the time. Bing was one of several leading women photographers in the inter-war period, and was know for an inventive use of oblique angles and patterns. She lived to be 99 years old.

Motto:
the invisible has to be pictured
the unspeakable has to be said
the unthinkable has to be dreamed
the intangible has to be held tight
but do not touch it with your finger
-Ilse Bing

Description: Inscribed by Ilse Bing to Jessica (Rose) the wife of the photographer Aaron Rose ” To Jessica – Thank you SO much! fondly Ilse Bing June 1992″. Paperback published on the occasion of the 1988 exhibition. Text in French. Minor wear to wraps, otherwise very good.

Bookseller Inventory # 13051

$150

Publisher: Musee Carnavalet
Publication Date: 1987
Binding: Paperback
Book Condition: Good
Signed: inscribed by Photographer

· Category: Featured Items, Photography, Signed & Inscribed ·

Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell (1866-1948) was an American Zoologist. He was author of more than 2200 articles in scientific publications, and some 1700 additional authored works, including treatises on social reform and education. He was one of the most prolific taxonomists in history, publishing descriptions of over 9,000 species and genera of insects alone, some 6,400 of which were bees, and some 1,000 mollusks, arachnids, fungi, mammals, fish and plants. in 1904 he became lecturer on entomology and in 1906 professor of systematic zoology, at the University of Colorado. Even after retiring from the university, Cockerell pursued his interest in the natural history of all organisms, and continued to publish numerous notes and articles until his death at his home in 1948.

Description: Hard bound in dark green cloth over boards with titles in black. No dust jacket. 558 pages + index. Illustrated edition. Orange and black “yin/yang” to front board and spine edge. INSCRIBED AT LENGTH BY BOTH T. D. A. COCKERELL AND HIS WIFE W. P. COCKERELL on the front free endpage. Previous owners name and Colorado address to front fixed endpage and title page. ORIGINAL POEM BY T. D. A. COCKERELL to front free endpage. HAND SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH laid in.  Some minor wear to boards, otherwise very good. A sound copy with a warm inscription. SCARCE!

Bookseller Inventory # 23004

$150

Zoology
Cockerell, T. D. A.

Publisher: World Book Company
Publication Date: 1922
Binding: Hard Bound
Dust Jacket Condition: No dust jacket
Book Condition: Good

· Category: Recent Acquisitions, Signed & Inscribed ·

Stephen Antonakos is known internationally for his spatial redefinitions of neon and for his equally extensive investigations of formalism in his drawings. Antonakos’ interest has always centered on—in his own words—“real things in real space.” His spare, colored geometric forms—particularly his “incomplete” squares and circles in neon—have been experienced throughout the United States, Europe and Japan in hundreds of exhibitions and in almost fifty permanent public art installations.

Description: Signed by Antonakos on the half titlepage. Protected in Brodart cover. A very nice copy in near fine condition!.

Bookseller Inventory # 11357

$125

Antonakos
Sandler, Irving

ISBN: 1555951643
Publisher: Hudson Hills Press, Manchester, Vermont, U.S.A.
Publication Date: 1999
Binding: Hard Cover
Book Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
Signed: Signed by Artist
Edition: First Edition

· Category: Art, Featured Items, Signed & Inscribed ·

Christo and Jeanne-Claude are a married couple who create environmental installation art. Their works include the wrapping of the Reichstag in Berlin and the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris, the 24-mile-long curtain called Running Fence in Marin and Sonoma counties in California, and most recently The Gates in New York City’s Central Park.

Although their work is visually impressive and often controversial as a result of its scale, the artists have repeatedly denied that their projects contain any deeper meaning than their immediate aesthetic. The purpose of their art, they contend, is simply to make the world a “more beautiful place” or to create new ways of seeing familiar landscapes. Art critic David Bourdon has described Christo’s wrappings as a “revelation through concealment.” To his critics Christo replies, “I am an artist, and I have to have courage … Do you know that I don’t have any artworks that exist? They all go away when they’re finished. Only the sketches are left, giving my works an almost legendary character. I think it takes much greater courage to create things to be gone than to create things that will remain.”

The temporary large-scale environmental works (both urban and rural environments) have elements of painting, sculpture, architecture and urban planning. Once the work of art has been read for what it really is, then the process preceeding the completion is easily understood. Nobody discusses a painting before it has been painted. Our projects are discussed and argued about, pro and con, before they are realized. To understand our work one must realize what is inherent to each project However there is an important diffrence between our works of art and the usual architecture and urban planning, we are our own sponsors and we pay for our works of art with our own money, never accepting any grants nor sponsors.

Description: SIGNED “Christo and Jeanne-Claude” on the half titlepage. Paperback copy with text in German and English. The Umbrellas, Wrapped Reichstag, and the Wall all reproduced in photographs and sketches. 160 pages. Minor wear to wrappers, otherwise very good.

Bookseller Inventory # 15401

$200

Christo and Jeanne-Claude Gasometer, Oberhausen 1999
Christo & Jean-Claude

Publisher: Taschen
Publication Date: 1999
Binding: Paperback
Book Condition: Very Good
Signed: Signed by Artist

· Category: Art, Featured Items, Signed & Inscribed ·

$350

· Category: Literary First Editions, Signed & Inscribed ·