Ars Libri, Ltd. 500 Harrison Ave. · ARS LIBRI ELECTRONIC LIST 88: NEW ACQUISITIONS Ars Libri, Ltd....

ARS LIBRI ELECTRONIC LIST 88: NEW ACQUISITIONS

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

Electronic List 88: New Acquisitions

1 BEUYS, JOSEPH & Brodmann, Jürg. Fettbriefe [Fat Letters]. Edition of 125 copies. 5 sheets of letterhead stationery for

the Stiftung zur Förderung der Kuenste (and Fundaziun per Promover igl Art), each stained with fat, and each signed in full by Beuys in blue ink at lower right; each numbered IV/2.2-097/125 in pencil on the verso. Together with: “Zertificat bezüglich Opus Nr. IV/2.2. - 097/125,” an elaborate formal certificate with mounted embossed paper seal, fully signed by Beuys in black ink, and signed twice by Brodmann and dated 24. September 1973 1.37 in his hand. Sheet size: 295 x 208 mm. (ca. 11 5/8 x 8 1/4 inches). Loose guards (blank second sheets of stationery).

Heidelberg (Edition Staeck), 1973. $4,500.00 Schellmann 77


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2 BRECHT, GEORGE & WATTS, ROBERT. Maytime. [Yam Festival Calendar. Maytime/Yam Time.] Double-sided broadside

graphic calendar, printed in blue and green on white stock. 558 x 215 mm. (circa 22 x 8 1/2 inches). Prof. illus., with photocollages and freehand illustrations, appropriated nineteenth-century and modern commercial advertisements, typographic caprices, and other elements. Calendar of events and recommended activities for the May 1963 Yam Festival, edited and designed by Brecht and Watts. Featured--on Clock Day, Box Day, Yam Hat Sale, Balloon Day, Necktie Day, Water Day, Food Day, Key Day and others--was a hectic agenda spread across New York and New Jersey throughout the month. “Yam Day,” at the Hardware Poet’s Playhouse over the weekend of 11-12 May, included performances and projects by George Brecht, Robert Breer, John Cage, Robert Filliou, Red Grooms, Rudy Burckhardt, Al Hansen, Dick Higgins, Ray Johnson, Joe Jones, Alison Knowles, George Maciunas, Jackson Mac Low, Ben Patterson, Yvonne Rainer, Stan Vanderbeek, Robert Watts, James Waring, Diane Wakoski, Emmett Williams, LaMonte Young and others; another major event, “Segal’s Farm,” was held on the 19th, “with a Happening by Allen Kaprow, dance by Yvonne Rainer, Decoll/age by Vostell, Music by LaMonte Young, + All Kinds of Trouble by Dick Higgins” at the New Jersey farm of the sculptor George Segal. An incunable of Fluxus, predating George Maciunas’ return from West Germany. Folded, presumably as mailed. Recto a little browned in one portion, otherwise very fine.

[New York, 1963]. $2,000.00 Happening & Fluxus 01.05.63--31.05.63; Milman, Estera (ed.): Fluxus: A Conceptual Country (Visible Language, Vol. 26,

No. 1/2, 1992), p. 239


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3 (BRETON) PARIS. RENOU & COLLE. Méxique. Préface d’André Breton. (16)pp. 5 tipped-in halftone illus. (including 1 by

Alvarez Bravo on front cover). Sm. 4to. Dec. self-wraps. All contents loose, as issued. One of 550 copies on vélin du Marais, from the limited edition of 570 in all. Organized by Breton, originally as a solo exhibition of paintings by Frida Kahlo, the show was expanded to include a wide range of discoveries made during his trip to Mexico in 1938: Precolumbian ceramics, colonial retables, woodcuts by Posada, and photographs by Manuel Alvarez Bravo, whom he was anxious to conscript in the Surrealist movement, and to whom he consecrates here a special text (as well as featuring a superb photo by him on the cover). Two of the four reproductive photographs (showing indigenous art) are by Raoul Ubac. Sheringham notes that Breton is the author of the entire pamphlet, not just the preface, as stated. A exceptionally fine copy, bright and fresh.

Paris, [1939]. $1,200.00 Sheringham Ac310; Pompidou Breton p. 248; Biro/Passeron p. 281; Reynolds p. 17; Milano p. 653


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4 ENTARTETE KUNST. Führer durch die Ausstellung. Verantwortlich für den Inhalt: Fritz Kaiser, München. 30, (2)pp. 56 illus.

Orig. photo-illus. wraps. The original guide to the notorious exhibition of the summer of 1937. An exceptionally fine, fresh copy.

Berlin (Verlag für Kultur und Wirtschaftswerbung), 1937. $850.00 Rifkind 421; Spalek 251; cf. Altschuler, Bruce: The Avant-Garde in Exhibition (New York, 1994), p. 136ff.


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5 (GROSZ) Herzfelde, Wieland. Tragigrotesken der Nacht. Träume. Einbandentwurf und Zeichnungen von George Gross [sic]. 88, (2)pp. 20 line-drawn illus. by Grosz in text. Title-page design and double-page endpapers (repeated front and back) also by Grosz. Sm. 4to. Dec. wraps., printed in red and green with a drawing by Grosz. The text, eighteen prose poems written by Herzfelde between the summer of 1913 and the fall of 1919, reflect the horrors of the First World War, as evoked in expressionistic dreams. The book is dedicated to John Heartfield’s son Tom, then two years old, “in the hope that he will prove to be an upstanding Communist.” An exceptionally fine copy, crisp and clean, very rare thus.

Berlin (Der Malik-Verlag), 1920. $1,850.00 Lang 12; Bülow 15; Hermann 192; Berlin 22; Raabe/Hannich-Bode 120.3; Düsseldorf 401; Bergius p. 421, illus. p. 195;

Dachy p. 90; Dachy: Archives Dada p. 562, illus. p. 139 (full-page color); Pompidou: Dada 1244, illus. p. 639

6 KNOLL INTERNATIONAL. Knoll International France. (4), 28, (4)pp. 80 illus. (3 color). Handsomely printed in blue and

white. 4to. Blue self-wraps., titled in white. Catalogue of tables, chairs and other seating furniture by Florence Knoll, Mies van der Rohe, Eero Saarinen and Harry Bertoia, including such classic designs as Mies’ Barcelona chair, Saarinen’s Tulip tables and Bertoia’s Diamond chair. A small component of textiles is also included. Loosely inserted: 6 glossy silver-print photos of comparable desks and cabinets, marketed by “Idea--Section France” (as stamped on verso). Print size: 165 x 226 mm. (ca. 6 1/2 x 8 7/8 inches).

Paris, 1962. $450.00


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7 (KRULL) Cocteau, Jean (preface). Théâtre Pigalle. Ses éclairages, sa machinerie. (24)pp., including pochoir title-page

designed by Jean Carlu, 4-pp. introduction by Cocteau (reproducing the author’s manuscript), and 8 magnificent bleed heliogravure photographs by Germain Krull of the public spaces and behind-scenes facilities of the theatre, designed by Charles Siclis, Henri Just and Pierre Blum, architects, commissioned by Baron Henri de Rothschild. Printing by Draeger. 4to. Orig. die-cut palladium-covered flexible boards, spiral-bound, as issued. A classic Parisian art déco publication, glamorously designed by Carlu, and a major work by Krull. A text by René Lara accompanies the photographs. A little light fading of title-page, where exposed by the die-cut circles of the cover; a little very light wear to covers; a fine copy of this fragile publication.

[Paris (Draeger), 1929]. $3,000.00


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8 (MALEVICH) Guro, Elena, et al. Troe [The Three]. By Elena Guro, Velimir Khlebnikov, Aleksei Kruchenykh. 96pp., printed

on pale green stock. 4 photomechanical reproductions of drawings by Kazimir Malevich. 1 page of musical score from the prelude to the opera “Victory over the Sun.” Sm. 4to. 195 x 180mm. (7 3/4 x 7 1/8 inches). Orig. wraps., with lithographic design and illustration by Malevich on front cover, and lithographic text in his hand on the back cover. Uncut; partly unopened. Edition of 500 copies. Poems and prose, published by Mikhail Vasil’evich Matyushin, the composer of “Victory over the Sun,” in memory of his wife, the poet Elena Guro, who had died earlier in the year. The other contributors to this book were Matyushin’s collaborators in “Victory over the Sun”: Khlebnikov had written the prologue and Kruchenykh the libretto, and Malevich had designed the sets and costumes.

“For his cover for the anthology of writings and drawings, ‘Troe’ (‘The Three’; 1913), Kazimir Malevich shifted pictorial planes to dissect individual letters and created a dynamic graphic configuration by playing with different scales in letters, often incorporating hugely oversized characters. This composition anticipated the Russian avant-garde’s sculpture/constructions from the late 1910s and early 1920s, and shared with his later Suprematist paintings the effect of free-floating forms” (Andel). Provenance: Robert Shapazian, lent by him to “The Avant-Garde in Russia 1910-1930” (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1980). An exceptionally fine, fresh copy, the magnificent Malevich cover bright, rare thus.

St. Petersburg (Zhuravl’), 1913. $6,500.00 MOMA 38; Getty 318; Compton pp. 125, 53f., 56, 78f., figs. 34, 50, 76-78; Barron, Stephanie & Tuchman, Maurice (eds.):

The Avant-Garde in Russia 1910-1930 (Los Angeles, 1980), no. 174 (illus.); Lodder p. 251f.; Aus vollem Halse no. 24; Andel, Jaroslav: Avant-Garde Page Design 1900-1950 (New York, 2002), p. 94, ill. 83; Khnizhnaia letopis’ 1913 no. 24569


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9 PARIS. CHARLES RATTON. Exposition surréaliste d’objets. Mai 1936. (8)pp. Sm. 4to. Self-wraps. Glassine d.j. A very

rare deluxe copy printed on japon (an issue of which no references are recorded; another example was in the library of André Breton, sold in April 2003). Text by André Breton. Though on view for only a week, in a private residence (that of the well-connected dealer and expert in primitive art Charles Ratton), this was one of the most important exhibitions of the surrealist epoch, inspiring a famous special issue of “Cahiers d’Art” (with a cover designed by Duchamp) devoted to the object. In addition to surrealist objects per se (Arp, Bellmer, Cahun, Calder, Gala and Salvador Dalí, Duchamp, Giacometti, Hugnet, Man Ray, and many others, including Meret Oppenheim and the fur-covered teacup), the show included numerous works of Amerindian and Oceanic art and a variety of items carefully classified as natural objects, perturbed objects, found objects, readymades, and so forth. Perfect condition.

Paris, 1936. $3,000.00 Rubin 411, p. 266f.; Jean p. 247ff.; Jean Autobiography 163; Nadeau p. 333; Reynolds p. 47; Milano. p.652; Sheringham

Ac263; Pompidou: Breton p. 229; Paris; Calmels Cohen: André Breton, 42 rue Fontaine. Vente Livres I, 7 avril 2003, lot 156


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10 SCHWITTERS, KURT. Merz. [No.] 4. Banalitäten. Juli 1923. Redaktion des Merzverlages: Kurt Schwitters. (16)pp.

(paginated 33-48). 9 line-drawn and halftone illus. Contents printed on pink stock. Lrg. 8vo. Orig. wraps., with typographic composition by Schwitters. Contents printed on pink stock. Containing Schwitters’ “Banalitäten,” Arp’s “Die Hausernkaserne,” Hausmann’s “Chaoplasma,” and other texts and verse by Ribemont-Dessaignes, Tzara, Malespine and others. Illustrations by and after Picasso (‘Sacipos’), Rietveld, Schwitters, Oud and Van Doesburg, Segal, Arp, Moholy-Nagy, et al. Slightest wear to wrappers, two very small clean marginal tears within: a clean, crisp and attractive copy.

Hannover (Merzverlag), 1923. $8,000.00 Schmalenbach/Bolliger 235; “Typographie kann unter Umständen Kunst sein”: Kurt Schwitters Typographie und

Werbegestaltung (Wiesbaden, 1990) 7; Wilpert/Gühring 6; Raabe/Hannich-Bode 273.12; Heller, Stephen: Merz to Emigre and Beyond, p. 61ff.; Gershman p, 51; Dada Global 110; Ades p. 123ff., 6.19; Almanacco Dada 91; Gershman p. 51; Motherwell/Karpel 78; Verkauf p. 180; Rubin 469; Dada Artifacts 71; Pompidou Dada 1385, illus. pp. 687, 901; Washington: Dada p. 169ff.


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11 TORRES-GARCIA, JOAQUIN. Guiones. Fascículo nos. 1-3 (all published). 7, (1)pp. each. Sm. 4to. Printed grey wraps.,

stapled as issued. Having moved from Paris to Spain in December 1932, as the international economic situation worsened, Torres-García quickly reestablished himself as an artist and theorist, experimenting with the Constructivist boundaries of his work to reflect his interest in pre-Columbian art, and lecturing to a new audience of artists and intellectuals. During this comparatively brief interlude (he left for Montevideo in April 1934), Torres-García helped to organize the Group of Constructivist Artists, an alliance of young painters in Madrid, who first presented their work at the Salón de Otoño.

In this series of pamphlets ('Guides'), Torres-García condenses his artistic theories into free verse form. All three are addressed to the "Grupo de Arte Constructivo (Trabajo de conjunto en colaboración)," and datelined at the end, respectively Madrid, 16 July 1933; Paris, 5 March 1930; and Madrid, 30 July 1933. The telegraphic clarity of the statements, with their striking poetic enjambment, may show the influence of Federico García Lorca and Guillermo de Torre, with whom he had recently become friends.

Staples a bit oxidized; a fine set, very crisp and clean. OCLC records only three copies worldwide (MOMA, Art Institute of Chicago, and MFA Houston). Very rare.

Madrid ((The Author)), 1933. $7,500.00 University of Texas at Austin Art Museum: Joaquín Torres-García, 1874-1949: Chronology and Catalogue of the Family

Collection (Austin, 1974), p. 33

Ars Libri, Ltd. 500 Harrison Ave. · ARS LIBRI ELECTRONIC LIST 88: NEW ACQUISITIONS Ars Libri, Ltd....

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