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Archive for June, 2009
06-09-09
FEATURED: IRVING PENN
Irving Penn’s images have defined several generations of fashion and portrait photography. Penn is perhaps best known for his fashion photography beginning with his notable 1950s series of the Paris fashion collections. He came to define the new look for magazines. By placing models against plain backdrops, Penn removed the familiar indicators of space or scale and allowed fashion to stand alone as the subject of his images. Many fashion photographs point to changes in aesthetic sensibilities as well as to changes in fashion itself, and Penn’s routine use of minimal, flat backgrounds can be viewed as the introduction of the modern age of fashion photography. Penn, who was born in 1917 in New Jersey, worked in New York as a graphic artist in the 1930s, and spent a year painting in Mexico before starting work at Vogue magazine in the early 1940s. His photographs have been widely exhibited, included in major retrospective exhibitions, and are in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Irving Penn’s work cn be defined by his unique sophistication shot with a soft natural light. He has also become known for his unusual arrangements, photographed with great detail and clarity. While his prints are always clean and clear, Penn’s subjects vary widely. Many of his photographs have now bwcome important works within the modernist photography canon. His still life compositions are skillfully arranged assemblages of food or objects; at once spare and highly organized, the objects are raised to a graphic perfection, articulating the abstract interplay of line and volume.
Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. Published on the occasion of the June 19, 2205 exhibition held by the National Gallery of Art. Beautifully produced tritone plates! A very nice copy, bright and clean.
Bookseller Inventory # 18342
SOLD
Irving Penn
ISBN: 0300109067
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publication Date: 2005
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Description: Hard bound with dust jacket, missing original slipcase.183 pages. Introduction by Alexander Liberman. Romemary Blackmon collaborated in the writing of captions and text. First Edition of Penn’s first book. Eight essays in photographs and words by Irving Penn. A nice copy of a scarce photography monograph.
Bookseller Inventory # 17803
SOLD
Moments Preserved
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Publication Date: 1960
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Edition: First Edition
· Category: Sold ·
06-06-09
FEATURED: EGON SCHIELE
Egon Schiele (1890–1918) (pronounced SHE-luh) was an Austrian painter, protégé of Gustav Klimt, and a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. Schiele’s work is noted for its intensity, twisted body shapes and expressive line. His paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism. His work is often erotic or pornographic, sometimes with a disturbing focus on sex & death. His life was marked with controversy. In 1911, Schiele met the seventeen-year-old Valerie “Wally” Neuzil, who lived with him in Vienna and served as model for some of his most striking paintings. Schiele and Wally left Vienna and went to a small town in southern Bohemia. Soon however they were driven out of the town by the residents, who strongly disapproved of their lifestyle. In 1912, the artist was imprisoned for a short period of time because of his way of painting very young nude models that was thought to be immoral. The magistrate made a point of personally burning one of Schiele’s drawings before the assembled crowd. 1915 marked a turning-point in Schiele’s life. Some time in the previous year he had met his future wife Edith, and by April 1915 he was engaged to her. In the fall of 1918 Edith fell ill with Spanish influenza and died. Almost immediately Egon came down with the same sicknes and died three days later, he was only 28.
Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. An exhaustive work – 718 pages, with over 3275 illustrations! Previous owners name in ink, otherwise fine.
Bookseller Inventory # 18731
SOLD
Egon Schiele the Complete Works Including a Biography and Catalogue Raisonne
ISBN: 0810938022
Publisher: Abrams
Publication Date: 1990
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition:Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition:Very Good
Edition: First Edition
· Category: Sold ·
