electronic list 77: photography: recent additions / reductions* · 2012-09-14 · ars libri...

ARS LIBRI ELECTRONIC LIST # 77 PHOTOGRAPHY: RECENT ADDITIONS & REDUCTIONS

Ars Libri, Ltd. / 500 Harrison Ave. / Boston, MA 02118 [email protected] / www.arslibri.com / tel 617.357.5212 / fax 617.338.5763

Electronic List 77: Photography: Recent Additions / Reductions* *some items recently adjusted in price

1 Aubenas, Sylvie & Le Gall, Guillaume. EUGÈNE ATGET’s Trees. Newly discovered photographs from the Bibliothèque

Nationale de France. 13, (1)pp., 39 tipped-in plates. Lrg. folio. Stiff wraps., 1/4 cloth, bound into clamshell portfolio (boards). Edition limited to 1000 numbered copies.

New York (D.A.P.), 2003. $550.00


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2 BALTZ, LEWIS. The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California. Das neue Industriegelände in der Nähe von Irvine,

Kalifornien. (108)pp. 51 full-page plates. Oblong lrg. 4to. Cloth. D.j. Edition of 960 copies in all. “In 1975, the year he published his first book , ‘The new Industrial Parks near Irvine, California,’ Lewis Baltz was also included in a landmark exhibition at the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House called ‘New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape.’ Although some of the participants in that show managed to elude the label, Baltz--along with Robert Adams, Stephen Shore, Henry Wessel, Jr., and Bernd and Hilla Becher--was effectively branded, and ‘The New Industrial Parks’ was paired with Adams’ 1974 ‘The New West’ as the most cogent, concise, and rigorous New Topographics documents produced in America. The label stuck primarily because it was invented to describe exactly what California-born Baltz had been doing since the late ‘60s: photograph the American landscape as a dead zone. Tamed, flattened and sectioned off into building sites and real-estate opportunities, Baltz’s New West--most of it located in California’s vast suburban sprawl--had long since lost any memory of magnificence and promise. In their place was the alluring vacuum of anonymity (though that seems beside the point in pictures devoid of any human presence) and desolation so complete it was almost elegant. Baltz had honed in on that austere, unlikely beauty in his earlier series on tract homes, but he refined his vision for the Irvine series, which focuses on the façades of windowless office blocks and electronics factories, some still in construction on barren lots, others landscaped as perfunctorily as a toll plaza.... [Unlike] Ed Ruscha’s genuinely artless images of apartment buildings and parking lots, Baltz’s pictures are pointedly artful. The Irvine series, though (presumably) despairing of the industrial parks’ cold emptiness, can’t help but establish its link to minimalist painting and sculpture, particularly Donald Judd’s boxes and Carl Andre’s concrete blocks” (Vince Aletti, in Roth). D.j. with tiny short tear at back cover, slight creased on interior flap.; a fine copy.

New York (Leo Castelli/ Castelli Graphics), 1974. $2,750.00 Roth p. 228f.; The Open Book p. 298f.


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3 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. $3,500.00 Roth p. 194f.; Parr, Martin & Badger, Gerry: The Photobook: A History. Vol. II, pp. 261, 266; The Open Book, p. 258


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4 BIFUR. Rédacteur en chef: G. Ribemont Dessaignes. Directeur: Pierre G. Lévy. Nos. 1-8, 1929-1931 (all published). 168-

192pp. per issue, advts. Numerous collotype plates hors texte. 4to. Modern dec. boards, 1/2 red morocco. Orig. wraps. bound in. One of 1700-2000 numbered copies on Alfa de Lafuma-Navarre (edition size varies in some issues), from the limited editions of 1730-3200 in all.

One of the most elegant reviews of the period, with sophisticated photographic contents. Texts by Benn, Cendrars, Michaux, Babel, Soupault, Tzara, Lurçat, Salmon, Limbour, Ehrenbourg, Ribemont Dessaignes, De Chirico, Picabia, Gómez de la Serna, Giono, Williams, Leiris, Mac Orlan, Desnos, Joyce, Hemingway, Milhaud, Malraux, Döblin, Keaton, Huidobro, Kafka, Arp, Varèse, Langston Hughes, Jolas, Eisenstein, Prévert, Sartre, Hikmet, and others. Photographs and film stills by Krull, Kertész, Lotar, Moholy-Nagy, Tabard, Man Ray, Buñuel, Modotti, Ivens, Cahun, Eisenstein, et al. A fine set.

Paris, 1929-1931. $2,500.00 Gershman p. 47; Admussen 25; Reynolds p. 107; Biro/Passeron p. 362


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5 Miller, Arthur & BOURGEOIS, LOUISE. Homely Girl, A Life. 2 vols. I: (2), 30, (4)pp. 10 plates hors texte, after drawings by

Louise Bourgeois. 1 photographic plate by Inge Morath, of the collaborators. II: (2), 30, (2)pp. 8 double-page color collages by Louise Bourgeois hors texte. 4to. Cloth. Slipcase (boards). Regular edition, limited to 1100 copies. The text of Miller’s story is repeated verbatim in the second volume, but with passages selected by Bourgeois printed here in red. The whole finely printed in letterpress and offset lithography at the Stinehour Press.

New York (Peter Blum Edition), 1992. $100.00 Phillips, Elizabeth & Zwicker, Tony: The American Livre de Peintre (New York, 1993), no. 8; cf. Castleman p. 219

6 BRETON, ANDRÉ. L’amour fou. (Collection Métamorphoses. III.) 176, (2)pp., 20 plates. Lrg. 8vo. Wraps. Glassine d.j. First

edition: one of 1935 copies. Photographs by Man Ray (7), Brassaï (4), Cartier-Bresson, Dora Maar and others. “2 février. Parution de ‘L’amour fou,’ aux éditions Gallimard, avec dix-huit planches photographiques...illustrant fidèlement des passages du texte dont trois parties avaient déjà paru dans ‘Minotaure’ depuis 1934. ‘Le surréalisme de mes images ne fut autre que le réel rendu fantastique par la vision,’ précisera Brassaï à propos de ces photos” (Pompidou). Errata sheet loosely inserted. A very fine copy.

Paris (Gallimard), 1937. $950.00 Sheringham Aa276; Pompidou: Breton p. 235; Gershman p. 8; Ades 12.142; Biro/Passeron p. 21; Krauss, Rosalind &

Livingston, Jane: L’Amour fou: Photography and Surrealism; Milano p. 653


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7 BROUTIN, GÉRARD-PHILIPPE. Rue du Parc Cheviron 1971. Suite photographique. 4ff., 10 original photographs, each

signed and numbered in ink on the verso of the print, and all tipped loosely onto heavy boards. Image size: 175 x 125 mm. (ca. 7 x 5 inches); mount size 250 x 210 mm. (ca. 9 3/4 x 8 1/4 inches). 4to. Portfolio. Contents loose as issued, within dec. grey wove wrapper. Glassine d.j. Edition limited to 10 copies in all, signed and numbered by Broutin in the justification. A Lettrist suite of photographs scratched and overpainted in the negatives. “Les négatifs grattés avec une épingle à nourrice et peints à l’encre de chine, racontent le plaisir de ces moments de complicité avec l’ami Gillard. Ils laissent apparaître mélés aux alphabets fruits, des bribes et discours ne restent lisible que quelques lettres apparement dépourvues de signification: des ‘dut’, ‘édui’, ‘oto ef’, ‘que’, ‘es u’, ‘tés’, ou encore des ‘oduc’, ‘m Isi’, ‘impl’, ‘pers’, ‘tian’. Lecteurs plus attentifs, peut-être pourrions-nous y déchiffer les mots ‘photographies’, ‘Isidore’ ou ‘utilités’” (introduction).

Paris (Atelier Lettrista), 2008. $1,500.00


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8 DEVAUX, FRÉDÉRIQUE (préface). 1990. 11 photographies originales de Michel Amarger, Jean-Paul d’Arville, Gérard-

Philippe Broutin, Françoise Canal, Frédérique Devaux, Albert Dupont, Isidore Isou, François Poyet, Woodie Roehmer, Roland Sabatier, Alain Satié. (6)pp., 11 original photographs, most with hand-painted interventions by the artists (many in color, 1 with collage), each signed and numbered in ink or paint on the print, and mounted on board. Image size: 240 x 177 mm. (ca. 9 3/8 x 7 inches); mount size: 323 x 248 mm. (12 3/4 x 9 3/4 inches). Sm. folio. Portfolio. Printed wrapper. One of 24 hand-numbered copies from the limited edition of 35 in all. An impressive Lettrist photography portfolio. A fine copy.

Paris (Éditions de Cluny), 1990. $3,000.00

9 EVANS, WALKER. Message from the Interior. (6)pp., 12 sheet-fed photogravure plates. Tissue guards. Sm. sq. folio.

Orig. cloth with title label. Among the finest and most influential photographic books of the 1960s. Presentation copy, inscribed by Walker Evans “To Jimmy and Tania [Stern]/ a message indeed (what a)/ Walker.”

Subsequently inscribed “and with much love/ from Tania + Jimmy.” The Sterns were close friends of Evans and his wife Isabelle Storey, from whose library this copy derives.

New York (The Eakins Press), 1966. $3,500.00 The Open Book p. 220f.


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10 (EVANS) Agee, James & Evans, Walker. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families. xvi, 471pp., 31

halftone plates. 4to. Cloth. D.j. “It was only after it was reissued in 1960--after Agee had won the Pulitzer Prize, and the American audience had caught up to the book’s vision--that it became a perennial classic. Among early reviewers, Lionel Trilling was almost alone in his recognition of the book’s place in history. In the ‘Kenyon Review,’ he called it ‘the most important moral effort of our American generation’ (David Levi Strauss, in Roth). D.j. somewhat chipped at head and back cover, with clean split across spine, though in all reasonably good; the book itself in quite fresh condition.

Boston (Houghton Mifflin Company), 1941. $2,750.00 Roth: The Book of 101 Books, p. 108f.; Parr, Martin & Badger, Gerry: The Photobook: A History. Vol. I, p. 144

11 FREUND, GISELE. Au pays des visages. Ten original color portraits. (4)pp., 10 original dye transfer photographs, each

signed by the artist in ink, and each loosely inserted (within hinged corners) in large passepartout rag mounts. Image size


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ranges from 288 x 191 mm (11 3/8 x 7 1/2 inches) to 305 x 235 mm. (12 x 9 1/4 inches); the mats measure 510 x 407 mm. (20 x 16 inches). Folio. Publisher’s stamped silk clamshell box (back cover dampstained). One of 30 numbered copies, from the limited edition of 36 in all. The prints were made in 1977 by the dye transfer process at the K & S Laboratories in Chicago. The subjects, photographed in the years 1938 and 1939, are Colette, Virginia Woolf, André Gide, James Joyce, Adrienne Monnier, Jean Cocteau, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, André Malraux and Vita Sackville-West. Internally immaculate.

Washington, D.C. (Harry H. Lunn Jr.), 1977. $7,500.00

12 FRIEDLANDER, LEE. The American Monument. (16)pp., 78 plates with 213 illus. Oblong folio, in album format. Cloth,

bolted as issued. Text in letterpress. Postscript by Leslie George Katz. One of the great American photography books. “‘The American Monument’’s brief epigraph from Walt Whitman, on living and breathing history, is brilliantly to the point, but the pictures are too slippery and too numerous simply to illustrate that or any other idea.... The result is overwhelming, as it was clearly intended to be. History stalks the landscape at every turn” (Vince Aletti, in Roth).

Presentation copy, inscribed by Lee Friedlander “For Isabelle with pleasure/ and friendship/ Lee Friedlander.” Loosely inserted: Inscribed presentation card from the publisher. Isabelle Storey, to whom the copy is inscribed, was the organizer of the exhibition of the American Monument photographs at The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, March-May 1977, and the wife of Walker Evans from 1960 to 1970.

New York (The Eakins Press Foundation), 1976. $3,500.00 Roth p. 236f.; Freitag 3826; Parr, Martin & Badger, Gerry: The Photobook: A History. Vol. II, p. 28; The Open Book p. 310f.


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13 KEPES, GYORGY. Gyorgy Kepes: 12 Photographs. Introduction by Philip Hofer. 4ff. title (printed in red and black),

introduction, table and colophon. 12 original gelatin silver print photographs, each signed in full and dated in pencil by Kepes, and each numbered, on the verso, and each archivally mounted in passepartout mats. Image sizes vary, but all are printed on silver paper measuring ca. 8 x 10 inches (ca. 250 x 200 mm.). Portfolio. Publisher’s pale brown linen clamshell box, gilt. All content loose, as issued. One of 20 hand-numbered portfolios from the edition of 25 in all, including 5 artist’s proofs. Completed in March 1977, the portfolio was published by Mary Pratt of Vision Gallery, in collaboration with Nancy and Tom House; the project editor was Brent Sikkema. The photographs were printed and processed to archival standards by Chris Enos under the supervision of Gyorgy Kepes. The letterpress was designed and printed by Katy Homans.

The photographs date from Kepes’s Chicago years, 1938 to 1943, with one more from Cambridge, 1948 (and Kepes has dated them using the year of their conception). They include some of his most iconic images, including “Juliet Shadow Caged” (1938), “Eyes” (circa 1941), “Hieroglyphic Body” (1942) and “Fluid Patterns” (1942).

“These photographs encompass overtones and undertones that even the remarkably composite American population cannot decipher at once. The prints have an immediate impact indeed. Still they must be studied for further meaning. A predominating strain that strikes this one out of a his multitude of admirers is his comprehension of the fundamental calligraphy behind all art as well as language. Yet there are mirages and powerful surface tensions directed at other facets of our comprehension. This multi-leveled richness is evident as much in his paintings as in his photographic work” (Philip Hofer). A very fine copy. Complete copies are quite rare.

Boston (Vision Gallery of Photography), 1977. $18,000.00


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14 (KESSELS) Guislain, Albert. Bruxelles. Atmosphère 10-32. Photos de Willy Kessels. 316pp., 31 heliogravure photographic

plates (some with photocollages or multiple illustrations). Stout 8vo. Photo-illus. wraps. Partly unopened; slightly shaken; a few light pencilled annotations.

Paris/Bruxelles (L’Églantine), 1932. $175.00


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15 LEMAITRE, MAURICE. [“Corps écrit/offert.”] Suite of 10 original color photographs, overpainted in the negative in white

and/or black, all signed on the print (8 in brown ink, 2 in white). 301 x 202 mm. (ca. 11 7/8 x 8 inches). Loose in folder. No. 2 of an edition of 3 in all. Each is inscribed by Lemaître in brown ink on the verso: “Prise de vues: 1981. Enrichissement: 1989. Tirage: 2007. 2/3.” Hazily solarized studies of a nude model, with brush-painted Lettrist interventions in white or black, the images printed in pale green or pale sepia tones. One of the compositions is printed in two versions, in different tonalities, and with a second stage of Lettrist inscription in the image. The suite was exhibited at the Atelier Lettrista, Verona, in February-March 2008, as “Maurice Lemaítre Corps écrit/offert.”

[Paris], 2007. $4,000.00

16 (MADAUS) 50 Jahre Madaus: Eine aufgeschlossene Firma. 72pp. Most prof. illus., including pop-up inserts, 1 folding

color poster, and tipped-in ephemera. Printed on heavy glossy card stock. Lrg. 4to. Photo-illus. wraps. Slipcase (photo-illus.


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boards). Photographs by Barbara Schulten; graphic design by Werbeagentur Peter Selinka; edited by Siegfried Leuselhardt. “The habitués of Andy Warhol’s Factory were known for their alleged use of recreational pharmaceuticals, so it is perhaps appropriate that when the Cologne drug company, Dr. Madaus, published a fiftieth anniversary photobook, it was designed as a ‘Pop art’ extravaganza similar to Warhol’s ‘Index’.... Not only a cornucopia of design and layout ideas, it features several pop-up plates in the style of a children’s book. The result combines a high purpose with a sense of fun, as if the customers of Madaus--institutions used to dealing with the question of man’s mortality--could benefit from an injection of laughter into the serious business of medical research” (Parr & Badger). Surfaces of backstrip, and of top and bottom of slipcase, slightly lifting at edges; otherwise very fresh.

Köln (Dr. Madaus & Co.), 1969. $1,500.00 Parr, Martin & Badger, Gerry: The Photobook: A History, Vol. II, p. 196f.

17 MAN RAY. La photographie n’est pas l’art. 12 photographies. Avant-propos de André Breton. (10)pp., 12 fine halftone

plates on yellow coated stock. Sm. 4to. Publisher’s printed blue folder, within die-cut black outer folder. “This remarkable little book, a return to Man Ray’s dada roots, presages the postmodern artist’s photobook in terms of its self-reflexive attitude and complex referential twists and turns. It can be taken as a summation of his experiments in photography, and might be said to be his photographic swansong. The year the book was published (1937), he decided to give up photography altogether, and rented a studio in Antibes in order to devote himself to painting” (Parr). Blue folder slightly lightstruck; a little light wear.

Paris (G.L.M.), 1937. $3,750.00 GLM 148; Parr/Badger Photobook I, p. 108f.; Ades 12.156; Gershman p. 37; Reynolds p. 70


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18 MASCLET, DANIEL. [Nus.] La beauté de la femme. Album du Premier Salon International du Nu Photographique, Paris

1933. (8)pp., 96 heliogravure plates. Sm. folio. Wraps., secured with silk cord, as issued. Albin-Guillot, Boucher, Drtikol (5), Feininger, Fiedler, Hoppé (3), Landau, Lynes (3), Man Ray (2), Mortensen, Perckhammer, Verneuil (3) and others, beautifully printed by Braun. A superb copy, very fresh and crisp.

Paris (Daniel Masclet), 1933. $1,200.00

19 RENGER-PATZSCH, ALBERT. Gestein. Photographien typischer Beispiele von Gesteinen aus europäischen Ländern. Mit

einer Einführung und Bildtexten von Max Richter und mit einem Essay von Ernst Jünger. 33, (3)pp., 62 full-page plates with facing commentary. Folio. Cloth. Printed at the Stamperia Valdonega, with text on wove paper from the Fratelli Magnani in Pescia; bound at the Legatoria Toriana in Milano.

Ingelheim am Rhein (C.H. Boehringer Sohn), 1966. $400.00


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20 RENGER-PATZSCH, ALBERT. Die Welt ist schön. Einhundert photographische Aufnahmen. Herausgegeben und

eingeleitet von Carl Georg Heise. 21, (5)pp., 100 halftone plates. Lrg. 4to. Cloth, stamped in silver. Backstrip lightly faded, otherwise a very fine copy.

München (Kurt Wolff), 1928. $600.00 Roth p. 50f.; The Open Book p. 68f.; Parr, Martin & Badger, Gerry: The Photobook: A History. Vol. I, p. 97

21 (RENGER-PATZSCH, ALBERT) Laer, Ernst von (introduction). Kupferhammer Grünthal. Vierhundert Jahre deutscher

Architektur, 1537-1937. (38)pp., 50 fine halftone plates of photographs by Albert Renger-Patzsch. Folio. Publisher’s cloth, embossed with Gründthal arms on the front cover. “This company photobook, made for the 400th anniversary of the sheet copperworking firm F.A. Lange in 1937, contains some of Albert Renger-Patzsch’s finest work. The photographs in ‘Kupferhammer Grünthal’ are perhaps not as innovative as the images in ‘Die Welt ist schön’ (1928)... or his urban landscapes from Essen in the early 1930s, but they are sharply observed, technically impressive, and well-reproduced. The beginning of Ernst von Laer’s text sets the book’s theme--’Land, Men, Work’ .... Thus Renger-Patzsch begins with the land and a series of calm, meditative landscapes, many of them shot under a blanket of snow. The next section, containing the most interesting pictures, focuses on the workers, with a number of fine close-up portrait heads in the August Sander vein. Finally, we are taken into the workplace itself, for conventional but satisfying and impeccably crafted interiors. ‘Kupferhammer Grünthal’ is a sumptuously produced book, demonstrating the full range of Renger-Patzsch’s talents, and revealing an eye that was none too adventurous but always interesting. The book is as much a documentary study of the community that provides the company with its workers, and in its particular combination of landscapes, portraits and interiors, is almost a forerunner of the studies Paul Strand made of various European communities in the 1950s and 1960s” (Parr/Badger). Without the extremely scarce slipcase; issued without dust jacket. A fine copy.

Grünthal (F.A. Lange Metallwerke Aktiengesellschaft/ Aue=Auerhammer/ Kupferhammer Grünthal), [1937]. $750.00 Parr, Martin & Badger, Gerry: The Photobook: A History. Vol. II, p. 186


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22 SAARBRÜCKEN. LANDESWERKKUNSTSCHULE SAARBRÜCKEN. Subjektive Fotografie. Zweite internationale

Ausstellung moderner Fotografie, veranstaltet von der Landeswerkkunstschule Saarbrücken (Direktor Dr. Steinert)./ Deuxième éxposition internationale..../ Second international exhibition.... (12)pp. 5 full-page photographic plates. Printed on lightweight waxed stock, and japanese-bound. Lrg. 8vo. Photo-illus. self-wraps., with title in red. Text by Otto Steinert, in parallel German, French and English.

The very scarce prospectus for Steinert’s second “Subjective Photography” exhibition, held November 1954 - January 1955. Illustrated are photographs by Kilian Breier, Monica von Boch, Jean Boucher and Steinert. A fine copy. Saarbrücken, 1954. $300.00


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23 Linhart, Lubomír. JOSEF SUDEK fotografie. 54pp., 232 sepia-toned plates (6 folding). 4to. Cloth. D.j. (light wear).

Beautifully printed in gravure; typographic design by Frantisek Tichy. Accompanied by an autograph note, signed, from Sudek to his friend the Czech sculptor J. Jaska (1906-1982) regarding the settling of accounts for photographs, coal and wine. Over the years, Sudek provided Jaska with photographs of his work, for professional purposes. The letter, undated and in Czech, is hastily written in pencil on both sides of a short piece of paper from a pad, and signed “Sudek.” A fine copy.

Praha (Státní Nakladatelství Krásné Literatury, Hudby a Umení), 1956. $1,800.00 Roth p. 144f.; The Open Book p. 166f.; Freitag 12102

24 (UBAC) Bryen, Camille. L’aventure des objets. Avant-propos de J.-H. Levesque. 16pp., 8 photographic plates, by Raoul

Ubac. Wraps., mounted with additional photographic plate, as issued. Edition limited to 300 numbered copies. “[Bryen] crée aussi des assemblages d’objets insolites qui poursuivent leur ‘aventure.’ En 1937, dans sa conférence sur ‘l’aventure des


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objets,’ (texte qu’il publie la même année), il décrit ses expériences plastiques en tenant de les interpréter lucidement. Avec humour, il appelle certains de ses objets ses ‘bryoscopies’” (Biro/Passeron). Bryen had previously collaborated with Ubac on a small book of poems and photographs in 1934, “Actuation poétique.” Here Ubac participates under the pseudonym Ubac Michelet. Text browned, as usual; a fine copy.

Paris (Collection Orbes), 1937. $1,500.00 Biro/Passeron p. 70

25 (UBAC) Bryen, Camille. L’aventure des objets. Avant-propos de J.-H. Levesque. 16pp., 8 photographic plates, by Raoul

Ubac. Wraps., mounted with additional photographic plate, as issued. Edition de tête: one of 32 numbered copies signed by Bryen in the justification, from the limited edition of 300 in all,

and here with a fine original drawing by Bryen in black ink, signed with initials, on the front flyleaf. “[Bryen] crée aussi des assemblages d’objets insolites qui poursuivent leur ‘aventure.’ En 1937, dans sa conférence sur

‘l’aventure des objets,’ (texte qu’il publie la même année), il décrit ses expériences plastiques en tenant de les interpréter lucidement. Avec humour, il appelle certains de ses objets ses ‘bryoscopies’” (Biro/Passeron). Bryen had previously collaborated with Ubac on a small book of poems and photographs in 1934, “Actuation poétique.” Here Ubac participates under the pseudonym Ubac Michelet. Small stamp on inside front cover; text browned, as usual; a fine copy.

Paris (Collection Orbes), 1937. $3,500.00 Biro/Passeron p. 70


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26 VERSHBOW, GREGORY. Philip Lusterko and the Memory Machine. 102pp. Prof. illus. 1 hors-texte photographic print,

mounted on board and signed, numbered, titled and captioned by the artist in pencil on the mount, loosely inserted in pocket under back cover, as issued. 4to. Cloth, with mounted title panel on front cover. Edition limited to 27 numbered copies, signed and numbered by the artist in the colophon. The edition is divided in three tirages of nine copies each, with a different hors-texte photographic print for each tirage. The work was printed entirely on an Indigo 5000 press.

A fantastical work from the imagination of Gregory Vershbow, “‘Philip Lusterko and the Memory Machine’ is a collection of the contraptions, fragmented journal entries and original ‘photographs’ of a nineteenth-century scientist who accidentally invented photography while failing to construct a mechanical mind. Lusterko’s attempts to build a mechanical mind never could have proved or disproved his conviction that memory was the result of a mechanical process in the human mind. The mechanical mind (or the ‘memory machine’ as it is also called) is not an empirical model, but rather a physical construction of a metaphor of the functions of the mind” (the artist).

[Lunenberg] (Stinehour Wemyss Editions), 2006. $500.00

27 WESTON, EDWARD. Fifty Photographs. [Texts by] Merle Armitage, Robinson Jeffers, Donald Bear, Edward Weston. 16,

(110)pp. 51 full-page plates in text (including a portrait of the artist by Cole Weston). Sm. folio. Publisher’s printed boards, 1/4 cloth. D.j. Edition limited to 1500 copies, initialled in pen by Weston in the colophon. One of Merle Armitage’s stateliest book designs. “Weston made the selection himself, ‘fifty of my favorite photographs chosen because they have lived well and because they have not been reproduced...in book form before.’ Though it includes all of Weston’s genres--landscapes,


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nudes, still lifes, and portraits--it’s an unusual selection, more edgy than iconic. The Oceano dunes are there, and the salt beds of Death Valley, but there is also an unusual Death Valley sunset from 1939, with a blackened horizon below and a wisp of white cloud above. There are the classic nudes on dunes from 1936, but also a cement worker’s glove from the same time, something like Robert Smithson would photograph, and Aaron Siskind wall scrawls, and a Frederick Sommer arrangement of ‘Lily and Rubbish,’ 1939.... The overall effect of this highly unusual selection is to make visible the real legacy of Weston’s work, the way it influenced so much of what would come after” (“The Book of 101 Books”). D.j. internally reinforced, with some marginal chipping, somewhat rubbed at spine; very slight abrasion of front cover at lower outer corner, otherwise the book itself in quite fresh condition.

New York (Duell, Sloan & Pearce), 1947. $850.00 Roth: The Book of 101 Books, p. 128f.; The Open Book p. 150f.

electronic list 77: photography: recent additions / reductions* · 2012-09-14 · ars libri...

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