Welcome

Since 1996 we have been buying and selling fine used books, from vintage collectibles to signed first editions. Search and browse our inventory online and follow "The Mouse" for updates.

Our Books

Click to Search
our inventory by Author, Title, Publisher, and Keyword at AbeBooks.com.

Click to Browse
our inventory at AbeBooks.com.

Contact

Phone: 631.725.8654

Mailing: PO Box 943,
Sag Harbor, NY 11963

blackcatbooks@yahoo.com

Jose de Rivera was an abstract-expressionist sculptor, who worked in metal. He grew up on a sugar plantation and refinery in Louisiana, where his father was an engineer. The experience he gained there as a blacksmith proved useful when he later began constructing sculpture in metal. In 1930 De Rivera produced his first sculptures. These figurative pieces carved from a single brass rod, are related to the streamlined, elegant designs of Art Deco.

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. INSCRIBED, SIGNED AND DATED BY JOSE DE RIVERA on the half title page. 254 pages with 220 color and b&w illustrations. Introduction by Dore Ashton.  Edited by Manuel Padorno and William McWillie Chambers. Documentation by Grace Borgenicht Gallery Inc. Designed by Rodrigo Aleman. Very minor wear to corners and edges of dust jacket. Minor sunning to spine edge, otherwise fine.  A rare and sought after monograph on the life and sculptures of Jose De Rivera.

Bookseller Inventory # 24190

SOLD

Jose De Rivera Constructions
Ashton, Dore; Marter, Joan

Publisher: Taller Ediciones, Madrid
Publication Date: 1979
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Signed: Inscribed by Artist
Edition: First Edition

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!

moon022

Bookseller Inventory # 13777

SOLD

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

H. L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen and George Plimpton founded The Paris Review in 1953. He studied writing with Archibald MacLeish at Harvard, graduating in 1954. A Scientist, novelist, activist, inventor, filmmaker, architect, prophet, healer, madman, Harold “Doc” Humes was, by all accounts, an exhilarating, infuriating and terrifyingly brilliant man. He participated in Leary’s LSD experiments and later continued his own experiments, guiding the first LSD experiences of several famous literary friends. He reinvented himself as a “guru on campus”, a self-appointed visiting professor, and spent the next 20-odd years living on or near-campus at Columbia, Princeton, Bennington, and Harvard.

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. Meets points of issue – First Edition with “4/58” date code and $4.95 price on flap, no mention of any later books and no reviews. This is one of Random House’s known anomalies, with no statement of printing evident on the copyright page. Blue cloth boards with title in gilt to spine edge. Front board blind stamped with the image of the Eiffel tower. Red top stain. Some wear to spine edge of boards. Dust jacket with several large chips and a few small closed tears, now protected in removable clear dust jacket cover. 755 pages. Ownership book plate of the New York literary agency “McIntosh, McKee & Dodds” affixed to front free end page. The author’s elusive first novel, a tale of the French underground during the last years of WWII. Humes, along with Peter Matthiessen & George Plimpton, founded the Paris Review. For many years he slipped into obscurity; this novel has only recently been reissued to glowing acclaim. The true first edition, and a  scarce copy from a legendary forgotten novelist!

Bookseller Inventory # 29821

SOLD

The Underground City
Humes, H.L.

Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: 1958
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Good
Edition: First Edition

Antoni Tàpies gained worldwide fame in the 1950s for his “matter” paintings: relief-like works composed of dry pigments, sand and marble dust, and paint, which he scrapes, incises, and pierces. Tàpies helped co-found the first Post-War Movement in Spain known as Dau-al-Set which was connected to the Surrealist and Dadaist Movements. Tàpies early works were influenced by Paul Klee and Joan Miró; but statrted working in a style known as “Arte Povera”, in which non artistic materials are incorporated into the paintings such as clay, dust, paper, and string. Fundació Antoni Tàpies, a museum dedicated to the artist’s work, that he founded in Barcelona in 1984, has gone on to become one of that city’s most vital cultural institutions. In 2010, he was given the title of Marquess de Tàpies in the Spanish nobility. That same year, Fundació Antoni Tàpies reopened after a huge remodeling. In New York, Mr. Tàpies had one-person shows at Dia:Beacon in 2009 and at the Museum of Modern Art in 1992. Antoni Tàpies, the painter from Catalan who straddled both modernist and postmodernist aesthetics, has died this week according to Pace, the artist’s gallery in New York. He was 88.

Description: Hard bound art exhibition catalog published on the occasion of the landmark Jan. 27, 1999 exhibition organized by the Guggenheim Museum. Presents the essence of Tàpies’ monumental achievement “an original and extraordinary use of texture and materials coupled with an expression of strongly felt intellectual, political, and artistic beliefs.” This volume also includes an overview of the artist’s life by the famed art historian Dore Ashton, as well as translations of four of the artist’s principal writings on art.

Bookseller Inventory # 16509

SOLD

Tapies
Gimenez, Carmen

Publisher: Abrams, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Publication Date: 1995
Binding: Hard Cover
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Edition: First Edition

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 # 32494

SOLD

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

Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592) the father of Modern Skepticism, was the most influential writer of the French Renaissance. He is primarily known for the creation of the essay as a literary genre, and his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual speculation with casual anecdotes. His massive volume Essais contains to this day some of the most widely influential essays ever written.

Description: THE 1910 EMERSON EDITION of the The Works of Michel De Montaigne, COMPLETE IN TEN VOLUMES. An out of sequence copy in a LIMITED EDITION of 1050 printed copies. Translated by Charles Cotton. Revised with a preface by William Carew Hazlett. Introductory essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson. All ten volumes are bound in 1/4 blue leather and French paper. Each spine edge has five raised bands, decorated with 4 gilt fleurs-de-lis, and gilt title. Top edges gilt. Red & black lettering on title pages. Each volume has both a b&w tissue-guarded frontispiece and then a hand colored tissue-guarded color frontispiece of the same engraving following it. There are many additional b&w tissue-guarded illustrative plates throughout each volume. Some minor chipping to heads of volume 1 and 10. Some minor rubbing to edges and corners. The front board of volume 1 disbound, but present. Hinges weak but holding well. Text blocks clean and square.

Bookseller Inventory # 25080

SOLD

The Works of Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne, Michel de; Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Publisher: Edwin C. Hill
Publication Date: 1910
Binding: 10 volumes bound in 1/4 Leather
Book Condition: Very Good
Edition: Limited Edition

Barnett Newman was one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters. Newman was a member of the Uptown Group, along with Motherwell, Pollock, Ad Reinhardt & others. His rejection of the expressive brushwork employed by other abstract expressionists, and his use of hard-edged areas of flat color, can be seen as a precursor to post painterly abstraction and  minimalist work. Newman’s mature style is characterized by the zip, a thin, vertical line that zips through large areas of color. Despite changes in his color palette, zips remained a fundamental aspect of Newman’s work, simultaneously creating spatial divides and uniting the canvas. A well-respected writer and critic, he also organized exhibitions and wrote catalogs. Newman was unappreciated as an artist for much of his life, being overlooked in favor of more colorful characters such as Jackson Pollock. The influential critic Clement Greenberg wrote enthusiastically about him, but it was not until the end of his life that he began to be taken very seriously.

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. Cream color cloth boards with white titles. 260  pages with 270 illustrations, including 131 in color and 5 gate-fold plates. Contains color reproductions of many privately owned paintings. An exhaustive monograph on Newman. Rosenberg begins with a detailed account of Newman’s watercolors, lithographs, etchings, sculpture, and architecture, fully illustrating each section with clear, sharp photographs. Includes chronology , list of illustrations, appendix, and fully researched bibliography. Newman was one of the most influential American painters of the modern era. Now, within this text, his career has been carefully researched and thoroughly documented. This edition brings together for the first time reproductions in color of almost every one of Newman’s paintings, as well as most of the drawings, watercolors, works in mixed media, sculpture, etchings, lithographs, and architecture. Some minor foxing to cream colored cloth boards. The dust jacket shows some shelf wear and one small chip to edge. Now in protective Brodart cover. SCARCE!

Bookseller Inventory # 28561

SOLD

Barnett Newman
Rosenberg, Harold

Publisher: Abrams
Publication Date: 1994
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Edition: First Edition

Fleur Cowles’s legendary magazine Flair is remembered for its blend of cosmopolitan sophistication, innovative design, and its intuitive discovery of many artists and writers well before they achieved fame and fortune. The magazine was celebrated not only for its content but also for its lavish production. Unfortunately the magazine was short lived, 2 monthly issues were published from February 1950 to January 1951. It was the resulting cost of production that killed the magazine, since the expensive special costs (for cover cut-outs for some issues, for example) could not be supported in the long run. Among the many contributors were John O’Hara, Saul Steinberg, Gypsy Rose Lee, Margaret Mead, Tallulah Bankhead, Salvador Dalí, Colette,  Flannery O’Connor and countless other writers and artists. The first issue issue featured Auden, Cocteau, Lucian Freud, Tennessee Williams, Angus Wilson.

Description: Hard bound with die-cut dust jacket, in original red cloth clamshell case. A beautifully produced edition with tipped-in booklets, tissue guarded reproductions of famous die-cut covers, fashion, décor, and everything that Flair was famous for. Stated first edition. Wear and minor soiling to publishers clam shell case. Some minor wear to dust jacket, otherwise flawless. This lavishly produced collector’s item combines the best material from Flair, the landmark magazine of the ’50s, with the singular design that made it so illustrious. Forty-five years after it ceased publication, Flair is still one of the most talked-about and influential magazines. It is remembered for its innovative design and production quality, its superb coverage of the arts and its intuitive discovery of artists and writers well before they achieved fame and fortune. When Flair was conceived in 1950 by Fleur Cowles and her then-husband Gardner Cowles, founder of Look magazine, it was truly on the cutting edge, with postcard inserts, die-cut covers and specially tipped-in booklets and fold-outs. However Flair published only 12 issues from February 1950 to January 1951, issues that remain treasured by those who saved them and sought by many others. The Best of Flair is beautifully illustrated in full color and produced with all the unique features of the magazine, including the best pieces from the original 12 issues and a selection of the famous die-cut covers, fold-outs and self-contained booklets.

Bookseller Inventory # 26912

SOLD

The Best Of Flair
Cowles, Fleur

Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: 1996
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
Edition: 1st Edition

Joan Miró was among the first artists to develop automatic drawing as a way to undo previous established techniques, and with Andre Masson represented the beginning of Surrealism as an art movement. However, Miró chose not to become an official member of the Surrealists in order to be free to experiment with other artistic styles.  He pursued his own interests in the art world, ranging from surrealism, to expressionism and color field painting.  His works drawn from the realm of memory and imaginative fantasy, are some of the most original of the 20th century. Miró was born April 20, 1893, in Barcelona.  He studied at the Barcelona School of Fine Arts and the Academia Galí. He moved to Paris in 1920, where, under the influence of surrealist poets and writers, he evolved his mature style. The forms of his lithographs are organized against flat neutral backgrounds and are painted in a limited range of bright colors, especially blue, red, yellow, green, and black. Amorphous amoebic shapes alternate with sharply drawn lines, spots, and curlicues, all positioned with seeming nonchalance. Miró later produced highly generalized, ethereal works in which his organic forms and figures are reduced to abstract spots, lines, and bursts of colors.

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. First printing of the French edition with 11 ORIGINAL FULL COLOR LITHOGRAPHS, including 5 double page printed by Mourlot, Paris. 233 pages. Text in French. Cream cloth boards with title in black on spine edge. FOLD OUT LITHOGRAPH DUST JACKET in protective Brodart cover. RARE!.

Bookseller Inventory # 20795

SOLD

Joan Miro Lithographies
Leiris, Michel  &  Mourlot, Fernand

Publisher: A. C. Mazo
Publication Date: 1972
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition:
Near Fine
Edition: First Edition

Marc Chagall took inspiration from Belarusian folk-life, and portrayed many Biblical themes that reflected his Jewish heritage. In the 1960s and 1970s, Chagall engaged in a series of large-scale projects involving public spaces and important civic and religious buildings. Chagall’s artworks are difficult to categorize. Working in the pre-World War I Paris art world, he was involved with avant-garde currents, however, his work was consistently on the fringes of popular art movements and emerging trends, including Cubism and Fauvism, among others. He was closely associated with the Paris School and its exponents, including Amedeo Modigliani.

“The only one comparable in our time with Picasso as a graphic artist is Chagall, and nothing even the former has done as a graphic artist quite matches in intensity or integrity these illustrations of Chagall’s for the Bible.”
– Clement Greenberg (1957)

Description: A Rare and sought after book which first appeared as a double issue of Verve (Verve Vol. VII, No’s 33 and 34)  16 lithographs in color + the cover, 12 lithographs in black, and 105 heliogravures in black. All color lithographs and black and white lithographs by Marc Chagall are present and in excellent condition. First printing of the first American edition, published by Harcourt, Brace and Comapny in 1956. Lithography printed by Mourlot in France. Text by Jean Wahl, with an appreciation by Meyer Schapiro. Hard bound, no dust jacket. Missing backstrip, with front board detached, but present. The bards show wear with some chipping to corners and edges. Interior clean with all lithography fine. Several of the pages with heliogravures show light foxing, as do the end pages. This landmark book of lithography is rare and sought after by both art and print collectors, and routinely sells for thousands of dollars

Bookseller Inventory # 30941

SOLD

Illustrations for the Bible By Marc Chagall
VERVE 1956 #33/34

Chagall, Marc

Publisher: Harcourt Brace and Company, New York
Publication Date: 1956
Binding: Hard Cover
Book Condition: Good+ / with Lithographs Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Missing original jacket.

Egon Schiele was an Austrian painter who’s life was marked with controversy. A protégé of Gustav Klimt, 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. 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: CATALOGUE RAISONNE with text in German & English. Hard bound, no dust jacket. In publishers card board slipcase, as issued. Some age toning to spine edge of boards, otherwise very good. Interior clean and binding sound. Numerous color plates, photographic illustrations. Bilingual text contributions by Otto Benesch & Thomas Messer. 559 pages. A scarce and sought after monograph on the artist!

Bookseller Inventory# 28562

SOLD

Egon Schiele: Oeuvre-Katalog der Gemalde
Kallir, Otto

Title: Egon Schiele: Oeuvre-Katalog der Gemalde
Publisher: Paul Zsolnay
Publication Date: 1966
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
Edition: 1st Edition

Bill Brandt was Britain’s most admired photographer of the 20th century. He was known for his high-contrast images of British society and his distorted nudes and landscapes. Bill Brandt is widely considered to be one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, and in 2004 he received a major retrospective exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. 105 pages, 100 black and white illustrations. The most comprehensive collection of his nude work. Many of the photographs first appeared in Brandt’s Perspective of Nudes, 1961, although over a third were until this time unpublished. Wear and some very minor chipping to dust jacket edges, otherwise very good.

Bookseller Inventory # 20204

SOLD

Bill Brandt: Nudes 1945-1980
Brandt, Bill

Publisher: New York Graphic Society
Publication Date: 1980
Binding: Hardbound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Edition: First Edition

Robert Frost was a four-time Pulitzer Prize winning American poet, who wrote many popular and often quoted poems including The Road Not Taken, Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening, and Wild Grapes. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work employed settings from rural New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. His poetry has been called traditional, experimental, regional, universal, and even pastoral. Robert Frost was, quite simply, America’s most popular 20th century poet.

Description: INSCRIBED BY ROBERT FROST “To Barbara My inspiration for wild grapes 11-17-62”. (Wild Grapes is the poem printed on page 240) Hard bound in dust jacket. 17th printing, December 1964. Wear and some chipping to edges of dust jacket. Green cloth boards show some wear. Front hinge weak, but holding well. A scarce signed copy, with a warm inscription to the woman who inspired these lines in his poem wild grapes… ” Wearing a thin head-dress of pointed leaves, And heavy on her heavy hair behind. Against her neck, an ornament of grapes.”

Bookseller Inventory # 28712

Complete Poems Of Robert Frost
Frost, Robert

SOLD

Publisher: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York
Publication Date: 1964
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Good
Signed: Inscribed by Robert Frost to the woman who inspired his poem wild grapes
Edition: First Edition, 17th Printing

Connie Imboden’s photographs are in the permanent collections of many museums including The Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1993, Connie Imboden won the Silver Medal in Switzerland’s “Schonste Bucher Aus Aller Welt  (The Most Beautiful Book in the World)” Award for this book of images entitled “Out of Darkness”. She teaches photography at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where her experience as a photographer began, as well as many workshops around the world.

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

SOLD

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

Kaui Hart Hemmings first novel The Descendants was a New York Times Bestseller and the basis of the 2012 Oscar-winning film. The Descendants has been published in twenty other countries. A descendant of one of Hawaii’s largest landowners, Matthew King finds his luck has changed. His two daughters – Scottie, a feisty ten-year-old, and Alex, a teenage recovering drug addict – are out of control; his thrill-seeking, high-maintenance wife, Joanie, lies in a coma after a boat-racing accident and will soon be taken off life support. Suddenly the King family must come to terms with this tragedy – and with the shameful sense of freedom that comes with it. As Matt gathers Joanie’s friends and family to say their final goodbyes, a difficult situation is made worse by the discovery that one person hasn’t been told – the man with whom Joanie has been having an affair. Forced to examine what he owes not only to the living but also to the dead, Matt takes to the road with his daughters to find his wife’s lover on a memorable journey of painful revelations and unforeseen humor.

Bookseller Inventory# 30324

SOLD

The Descendants
Hemmings, Kaui Hart

Title: The Descendants
Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: 2007
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Edition: 1st Edition

Humes was a co-founder of The Paris Review in 1953, along with Peter Matthiessen and George Plimpton. He studied writing with Archibald MacLeish at Harvard, graduating in 1954. A Scientist, novelist, activist, inventor, filmmaker, architect, prophet, healer, madman, Harold “Doc” Humes was, by all accounts, an exhilarating, infuriating and terrifyingly brilliant man. He participated in Leary’s LSD experiments and later continued his own experiments, guiding the first LSD experiences of several famous literary friends. He reinvented himself as a “guru on campus”, a self-appointed visiting professor, and spent the next 20-odd years living on or near-campus at Columbia, Princeton, Bennington, and Harvard.

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. First printing of this now cult-classic title set during a build-up to an inevitable war, in which the US Navy assigns an all black crew to work under three white officers on an insanely dangerous munitions base located on a tiny Caribbean island. Wear and tanning to dust jacket edges. Previous owners stamp to front free end page, otherwise very good. A scarce copy from a legendary forgotten novelist!

Bookseller Inventory # 23011

hlhumes

SOLD

Men Die
Humes, H.L.

Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: 1959
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Good
Edition: First Edition

Remment Lucas “Rem” Koolhaas is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Koolhaas is the founding partner of OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture) based in Rotterdam, Netherlands. In 2000 Rem Koolhaas won the Pritzker Prize. In 2008 Time put him in their top 100 of The World’s Most Influential People.

Description: Hard bound with 1344 pages, profusely illustrated! Created with Toronto-based designer Bruce Mau. A huge collage splicing freewheeling essays, diary excerpts, photographs, architectural plans, sketches, cartoons and surreal montages of images. There’s also a running glossary of Zen-like definitions, plus fables and parables intended to shake modern architects out of conventional thinking and to dispel urban despair. In one essay, Koolhaas admires Japan’s metabolist movement, which fuses organic, scientific, mechanistic and romantic vocabularies. That approach seems compatible with his own innovative, eclectic vision as head of the Dutch firm Office of Metropolitan Architecture (O.M.A.), whose houses, villas, office towers, libraries, colleges, cultural complexes and other projects are showcased here. While some readers may be mystified by a nonlinear hodgepodge, architects, planners and designers will find this frequently outrageous assemblage a provocative repository of ideas. Minor shelf wear, otherwise fine.

Bookseller Inventory # 30290

SOLD

S,M,L,Xl
Koolhaas, Rem

Publisher: Monacelli Press, New York
Publication Date: 1995
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Dust Jacket
Edition: First Edition

Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists, who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. Beautiful Inside My Head Forever was a unprecedented two day auction held by Sotheby’s, London. It was unusual in the fact that Hirst bypassed the standard gallery exhibition route, instead selling directly to the public. The sale realized £111 million ($198 million) for 218 lots. The auction exceeded expectations, setting a new record for a single-artist auction. The auction included monumental formaldehyde sculptures; paintings which expand on the artist’s classic themes such as butterflies, cancer cells and pills; exquisite new cabinets and preparatory drawings. A landmark sale, if only for Hirst’s bold move of bypassing his dealers to go straight to the market. It could have been a total failure; it was not, making almost US$200 million, and setting a record for a single-artist sale.

Description: 5 paperback volumes in publishers pictoral slipcase, as issued; including separate cataloges for “the kingdom” & “the golden calf. Published on the occasion of the September 15th and 16th, 2008 exhibition “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever”, an unprecedented two day major auction of works by Damien Hirst held by Sotheby’s, London. Introduction by Gordon Burn and conversation with Damien Hirst by Michael Bracewell. Over 500 lots each with full color illustrations. Sticker sheets laid in, as issued. 9 x 12.5 slipcase is near fine with all catalogs fine to as new. Hundreds of full color illustrations, many of which are gate folding. A nearly fine copy with only the most minor edge wear.

Bookseller Inventory # 30177

SOLD

Beautiful Inside My Head Forever
Hirst, Damien

Publisher: Sotheby’s, London
Publication Date: 2008
Book Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
Edition: First Edition

Ben Shahn, the Lithuanian-born American painter, photographer, graphic artist is best known for his works of social realism, and his interest and involvement in politics. His vision included themes on modern urban life, labor, immigration and injustice, always with compassionate tone. He identified himself as a communicative artist, who challenged the esoteric pretensions of art, which he believed disconnect artists’ and their work from the public. As an alternative, he proposed an intimate and mutually beneficial relationship between artist and audience.

Description: Limited Edition, #7 of 150 printed copies. Hard bound in full parchment covered boards by Russell-Rutter, housed in paper-covered slipcase with printed label. Printed on Arches paper. Lithograph signed by Ben Shahn, laid-in as called for. Illustrated throughout with many drawings by Ben Shahn, many of which are full page, printed by offset lithography in ochre. A beautiful production produced at the Thistle Press. The work deals with the mind and body in myth and experience in vastly differing cultures. The first part is devoted to the heritage of the Western World, particularly Hebraic and Hellenistic traditions; the second ranges pre-Columbian America. Some minor wear to publishers slipcase, otherwise fine.

Bookseller Inventory # 39999

SOLD

The Sorrows Of Priapus
Shahn, Ben & Dahlberg, Edward

Publisher: New Directions
Publication Date: 1957
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition:
Very Good
Signed:
Signed by both Ben Shahn & Edward Dahlberg
Edition:
First Edition, # 7 in a limited edition of 150

Thomas Mann was the 1929 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist. He will be best remembered  for his series of highly symbolic and often ironic epic novels and novellas. Lynd Ward was and American artist known for his wordless novels told entirely through dramatic wood cuts. His Art Deco style was very popular in the 1920s, and his work is still highly sought after.

Description: 1934 limited edition hardcover in decorated boards, housed in published original slipcase as issued. #384 of 1000 copies signed by Thomas Mann on the limitation page! Lithographs by Lynd Ward.Three short stories that had not previously appeared in English. Some minor wear to cloth boards. The slipcase is in fair condition, with wear to edges, and top edge detached. The slipcase of this edition is seldom found in reasonable condition.Interior clean & binding still tight. Scarce!

Bookseller Inventory #30050

SOLD

Nocturnes
Mann,Thomas

Publisher: Equinox Cooperative Press
Publication Date: 1934
Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Edition: First Edition – #384 in a Limited edition of 1000
Signed: Signed by Thomas Mann

Alexander Liberman was the dominant creative force at Conde Nast Publications for more than half a century and one of the most influential editors in America. Liberman joined Vogue in 1941 and quickly set about reinventing it with a bold, modern look and a serious commitment to art. His acquaintances numbered countless members of the cultural and intellectual elite. In addition to being one of the most powerful critics in the art world, he was himself an accomplished painter, photographer, and sculptor. His work in held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Tate Gallery, and the Guggenheim Museum.

Description: INSCRIBED BY ALEXANDER LIBERMAN on the half title page “To Pat Kyle – best wishes, Alexander Liberman”. First printing of the 1988 revised and expanded edition. When first published in 1960 this book was hailed as one of the most original and absorbing art books ever published. Liberman’s look into the lives and work of 39 modern artists. Wear and sun fading to dust jacket. Interior shows some minor foxing to endpage, otherwise clean with binding tight. Scarce when signed by Liberman. INSCRIBED BY ALEXANDER LIBERMAN on the half title page “To Pat Kyle – best wishes, Alexander Liberman”. First printing of the 1988 revised and expanded edition. This copy has the dust jacket with Liberman @ his desk. When first published in 1960 this book was hailed as one of the most original and absorbing art books ever published. Liberman’s look into the lives and work of 39 modern artists. Wear and sun fading to dust jacket. Interior shows some minor foxing to endpage, otherwise clean with binding tight. Scarce when signed by Liberman.

Bookseller Inventory # 25933

SOLD

The Artist in His Studio
Liberman, Alexander

Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: 1998
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Signed: Inscribed by Author
Edition: First Edition Thus, Revised Edition

Donald Judd was an American artist known for his minimalist sculpture. Early in the 1960s reacting to what he called the ” illusion ” in abstract painting Donald Judd began to create art that used ” real materials existing in real space “. He did not attempt to deliver his own political or social messages, but insisted his goal was to focus on the space occupied and created by his objects – their purity of form. This style of art was called minimalism, and Judd was one of it’s greatest proponents. He became well known for sleek, boxlike constructions made of industrial materials such as plywood, sheet metal, and plexiglass that were painted using commercial techniques. Stacked, aligned, cantilevered, or centered, their strict geometric arrangements eliminated the idea of composition and achieved a singular focus on the object itself. Although his art is resolutely three-dimensional, Judd refused to call them sculpture, a term he associated with the hand-crafted art of an earlier era. Instead, he referred to them as “specific objects“–a phrase meant to suggest their neutral and unique nature.

Description: Hard bound  with dust jacket. Salmon paper-covered boards with black titles. Text in German & English. 159 pages. Profusely illustrated in color. Minor damp staining to lower page edges, otherwise very good. Published on the occasion of the touring exhibition, and  in association with Stankowski Foundation which attempted to cover the full spectrum of Judd’s work, and the relationship of fine and applied art in both art and architecture. Beautifully photographed by Todd Eberle. Biographical Notes, Lists of Solo and Group Exhibitions, Writings and more.

Bookseller Inventory # 30057

SOLD

Donald Judd: Spaces
Judd, Donald

Publisher: Cantz
Publication Date: 1983
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

“I wanted to create reality
not a picture of it”
– Donald Judd

Description: Stiff wraps with brown paper dust jacket. 1/2750 printed copies. 134 pages. About 100 Pieces illustrated in full color. text in English, German & Dutch. A rare exhibition catalogue.

Bookseller Inventory # 19122

judd10001

SOLD

Donald Judd Furniture: Retrospective
Judd, Donald

ISBN: 9069181398
Publisher: Museum Boymans-Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Publication Date: 1994
Binding: Paperback
Book Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

Any combining, mixing, adding, diluting, exploiting, vulgarizing, or popularizing of abstract art deprives art of its essence and depraves the artist’s artistic consciousness.
Art is free, but it is not a free-for-all.”
-Donald Judd

Description: Paperback exhibition catalogue published on the occasion of the Sept. 16, 1994 exhibition. 31 pages. A nice copy, bright and clean.

Bookseller Inventory # 18465

0judd1

SOLD

Donald Judd: Sculpture
Agee, William C.

ISBN: 1878283464
Publisher: Pace Wildenstein, New York
Publication Date: 1994
Binding: Paperback
Book Condition: Very Good

American sculptor and art writer Donald Judd (1928-1994) was best known as a major practitioner of and spokesman for Minimalism in the 1960s. His works, or “specific objects,” display an overall sense of wholeness and clarity and reiterate the belief that art and idea are inseparable.

Description: Paperback exhibition catalogue of the exhibition at The Pace Gallery, September – October 1991. Essay by Yve-Alain Bois. 11 Color Photographs and 5 b/w Illustrations. A nice copy, bright and clean. Bookseller

Bookseller Inventory # 18464

0judd2

SOLD

Donald Judd: New Sculpture
Bois, Yve – Alain

Publisher: The Pace Gallery, New York
Publication Date: 1991
Binding: Paperback
Book Condition: Very Good

Marilyn Monroe was the quintessential sex symbol of the 1950s. An American actress, singer, and model she became a major film star after starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures of the 1950s. She is arguably the most celebrated of all actresses, and although she made only 30 films in her lifetime, her legendary status and mysticism will remain with film history forever.

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. Blue cloth boards with titles in orange. A very nice copy with only the most minor wear to dust jacket edges. Over 2500 shots that make up this monumental classic tribute to Marilyn Monroe were taken by renowned fashion photographer Bert Stern over the course of a three-day sitting-the last time Marilyn would pose in front of a camera. Six weeks later, the actress was found dead in her home. Even despite the ominous facts surrounding this sitting, the images it produced project a haunting, almost dreamlike quality unlike any photographs ever taken of the starlet.

Bookseller Inventory# 28763

SOLD

Marilyn Monroe: The Complete Last Sitting
Stern, Bert

Publisher: Germany: Schirmer/Mosel Verlag Gmbh
Publication Date: 1992
Edition: First printing of the 1992 complete edition
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

Description: Hard bound with dust jacket. 415 pages. Profusely illustrated throughout with color plates, drawings, renderings, plans, sketches, and models. Text in Spanish and English. A very nice overview of the Herzog & de Meuron Architekten, a Swiss architecture firm founded in 1978 and headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. Minor shelf wear to dust jacket, otherwise fine.

Bookseller Inventory # 23905

SOLD

1981-2000, Herzog and de Meuron
de Meuron

Publisher: El Croquis, Madrid, Spain
Publication Date: 2000
Binding: Hard Bound
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

Le Corbusier was a modernist visionary. He believed that architecture had lost its way. Art Nouveau, all curves and sinuous decorations, had burned itself out in a brilliant burst of exuberance; the seductive Art Deco style promised to do the same. The Arts and Crafts movement had adherents all over Europe, but as the name implies, it was hardly representative of an industrial age. Le Corbusier maintained that this new age deserved a brand-new architecture. It was to become known as the International Style : raise the building on stilts, mix in a free-flowing floor plan, make the walls independent of the structure, add horizontal strip windows and top it off with a roof garden. In 1907, he traveled to Paris, where he found work in the office of Auguste Perret, the French pioneer of Reinforced concrete. Between October 1910 and March 1911, he worked near Berlin for the renowned architect Peter Behrens where he met Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius. He was a pioneer in studies of modern high design and was dedicated to providing better living conditions for the residents of crowded cities. His career spanned 8 decades, with his buildings constructed throughout central Europe, India, Russia, and one each in North and South America. He was also an “Urban planner, painter, sculptor, writer, modern furniture designer.

Description: Hard bound with price clipped dust jacket. Published in association with the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Color frontispiece. Profusely illustrated in b&w from photographs, plans, and drawings, and art works. Some wear to dust jacket edges, otherwise very good. Interior clean and binding sound. A rare and sought after design monograph!

Bookseller Inventory # 29410

SOLD

New World Of Space: Some Day Through Unanimous Effort Unity Will Reign Once More In The Major Arts: City Planning And Architecture, Sculpture, Painting
Le Corbusier

Publisher: Reynal and Hitchcock
Publication Date: 1948
Binding: Hard Cover
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Good
Edition: First Edition

©2008 Black Cat Books. Site designed by AndreMora.com.