Description: Hard bound, missing original plastic dust jacket . Burlap-covered book with text and design by Kaprow. Pages 145-208 are entirely text, printed on brown paper, while the rest of the 341 pages consist entirely of photographs printed on white. This scarce and important book, out of print for about 30 years, seriously examine and records the emergence of assemblage, environment and happening arts practiced in New York in the 1950’s through the mid 1960s. Allan Kaprow, one of this loose art movement’s seminal artists , edited the contents and designed the book as a reflection of the wild creativity of the Happenings. Lavishly illustrated with black and white photographs of the live events, the pictures appear both candid and documentary in nature and the pages are handsomely designed with an unorthodox graphic sensibility. Features Kaprow’s theory of the evolution of abstract expressionist painting into Proto-Pop, Neo-Dada, assemblage, environments and Happenings of the early 1960s. Documents works by Kaprow, Jean Follett, Robert Rauschenberg, Gloria Graves, Red Grooms, Robert Whitman, Jackson Pollock, Renee Miller, Martha Edelheit, Jim Dine, Clarence Schmidt, Yayoi Kusama, Claes Oldenburg, George Segal, Ay-o, George Brecht, Robert Watts, Jean Tinguely, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Wolf Vostell, Ken Dewey, Milan Knízák & othrers.  Extensive photographs of works and performances by photographers Robert R. McElroy and Peter Moore. A critical volume documenting the precursors of contemporary performance art. This copy shows wear to boards and some minor chipping to spine edges. A scarce and sought after volume!

Bookseller Inventory # 29406

SOLD

Assemblage, Environments & Happenings
Kaprow, Allan

Publisher: Abrams
Publication Date: 1966
Binding: Hard Cover
Book Condition: Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Missing original dust jacket
Edition: First Edition

· Category: Sold ·

Joe Brainard (1941–1994) was an American artist and writer of the 1960s New York School (an informal group of American artists active in the late 1950s & 1960s in New York City). Postmodern by nature, his work has a certain affinity with early Pop Art. Brainard’s work transformed the everyday into something revelatory. His prodigious and innovative body of work included assemblages, collages, drawing and painting, as well as designs for book and album covers, theatrical sets and costumes. Brainard moved to New York City in the early 1960s, he quickly met a galaxy of literary and artistic stars who became his friends, such as Frank O’Hara, Kenneth Koch, Alex Katz, James Schuyler, Larry Rivers, Fairfield Porter, Andy Warhol, John Ashbery, Jasper Johns, as well as younger poets later associated with the St. Mark’s Poetry Project, such as Anne Waldman & Tom Clark. The breakthrough moment for Joe came when Larry Rivers picked him as a companion artist for a group show. His work is now held in the Permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum, the Whitney Museum, the Yale University Art Museum and many other major institutions. Brainard’s writings fall into several categories: memoir, diaries, Pop Art, short essays, and verbal-visual collaborations with himself. His I Remember has been described by Paul Auster as “a masterpiece . . . one of the few totally original books I have ever read,” a judgement shared by the many admirers.

Description: Paperback copy. Peach colored paper wrappers with title in navy blue. Designed by Ron Padgett. This is a collection of nearly fifty of the late Joe Brainard’s poems, essays, musings, and diary entries dating from between 1969 and 1971. Some minor damp staining, and sunning to spine edge. Wear to wrappers, otherwise very good. Interior clean and binding tight. A scarce early book of Brainard’s writings!

Bookseller Inventory #008730

SOLD

Selected Writings 1962 – 1971
Brainard, Joe

Publisher: The Kulchur Foundation
Publication Date: 1971
Binding: Paperback
Book Condition: Very Good
Edition: 1st Edition

· Category: Sold ·

Paul Rand is acknowledged as one of the greatest graphic designers of all time. He began his career in an era when working by hand was a given. He developed a fresh and individual design language drawn from European art movements including Russian constructivism, de Stijl, and the Bauhaus. He is probably best known for his corporate logo designs, including the logos for IBM, UPS, and ABC. He taught design at Yale University, and was inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1972.

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. Stated First edition. Illustrated with 94 half tone illustrations and 8 color plates. Intro by E. McKnight Kauffer. Some wear and age toning to dust jacket, now protected in removable Brodart mylar cover. Black cloth boards show some minor wear, otherwise very good. Interior clean and binding sound.  A scarce and sought after design monograph!

Bookseller Inventory# 29409

SOLD

Thoughts On Design
Rand, Paul

Publisher: Wittenborn and Company
Publication Date: 1947
Binding: Hard bound with dust jacket
Book Condition: Very Good
Jacket Condition: Good

· Category: Sold ·