Lame Duck Books

CORNELL, Joseph. Original Collage, with Hand-Painted Elements, Entitled "The Canister of Nokolai V. (Gogol.)" c. 1955. 30.5cm x 22.8cm, framed. A wonderful, subtly effected collage by the American surrealist, made for ballet dancer Allegra Kent. As with all of Cornell's best work -- and the present is an extraordinary collage -- the hand of the artist is scarcely in evidence. In his painstaking way, Cornell, the collector, the antiquary, the conservator of the lost fragments of civilization, has lovingly and almost invisibly applied highlights in oil to the found image of a teapot, onto and beneath which he has affixed the elements of the collage, including the word "Allegra." The effect, always so arresting in Cornell's work, of the redemption of forgotten things, of a refined, careful and loving intelligence applied to simple detritus, opens a world of allusion to the most fundamental practices of humanity -- to gathering, ordering, discrimination, to taxinomy (even to onomasty), and to memory. One somehow senses behind these artifacts the hand of a compassionate, if perhaps slightly confused, demi-urge who has taken it upon himslf to repair the broken shards that have accumulated unremarked alongside the career of civilization. Cornell, the balletomane, met Kent, then a nineteen year-old dancer in the New York City Ballet, in 1954. As was his wont, he immediately became enamoured and Kent would supply the material for his obsessive dream and waking life for some time. He had hoped to entice her to perform in a film he had conceived, but he was flatly refused by the callow girl. Although the beginning of the relationship must have been a bit disappointing for Cornell, he and Kent would become close friends in due course and maintain a friendship for years. The present work is set in a deep frame, made by Cornell, and highly reminiscent of his famous box structures. The entirety of the verso of the image is commented in pencil by Cornell, cryptically, and seemingly at random, and it is signed and titled there as well. Several gallery markings have been applied to the borders of the frame on the verso. The present Cornell is wonderfully subtle, conceptually significant, made for a close and important friend, highly worked on the verso -- where Cornell has written dozens of cryptic notes a la Duchamp, in a deep (ok, box-like, in case we didn't stress that enough) frame embellished by Cornell himself. You would be a fool not to buy this, and I would be a fool to sell it -- the unfortunate if little recognized dynamic of many transactions in the antiquarian trades. Like Gogol, Cornell died a virgin.

WRIGHT, Frank Lloyd. Photographic Portrait, Inscribed. 1945. 19.5cm x 24.6cm. A striking formal black-and-white portrait in three quarter view of the maverick architect who through his writings and teachings, as much as his designs, created a uniquely American approach to building in the landscape. This fine photographic print is inscribed "To No(venne) (sp?) --, at Taliesin -- July,20 '45, Frank Lloyd Wright." Stamped "Blackstone Studios," with a credit warning, and dated in pencil "Sept. 17, 1945." Signed photographs of Wright are rare.

DOSTOEVSKY, Fyodor. Photographic portrait of Dostoevsky, inscribed 1880. Cabinet photograph (130mm x 97mm) mounted on card (160mm x 104mm) printed recto and verso, by Konstantin Shapiro, showing Dostoevsky half length. Inscribed by Dostoevsky to Jacob Faddeevich Sakhar, 16th December 1880. An extremely rare photographic portrait of Dostoevsky, inscribed by the author. The photographer Konstantin Shapiro was a close friend of Dostoevsky, and also photographed Tolstoi and many other prominent Russians of the day. According to the 30-volume Academy of Sciences edition of Dostoevsky’s works, which is the current authoritative scholarly edition, there were, as of 1990, 16 known extant inscribed photographs of Dostoevsky, of which only 4 were not in institutional hands, the present example being one of the four noted. (For those who are interested, this edition further indicates that, as of 1990, there were only 47 known authentic Dostoevsky inscriptions in total – a remarkably small number for a prolific and significant author of the day.) The present example is the final example in terms of date, inscribed in the last few weeks of Dostoevsky’s life – he would die in late January 1881. The recipient, Yakov Faddeevich Sakhar, was a 22-year old student at the University of St Petersburg. A lover of literature and the arts from an early age, Sakhar began to collect signed photographs of Russian cultural figures. His first, apparently, was from Turgenev, who gave him an inscribed photo on 15th March 1879. By the end of his life (he died in St Petersburg in 1911), Sakhar's collection had acquired national significance. Years later, Sakhar's daughter (then living in Paris) gave the collection to the Russian Central State Archive for Literature and Art; but two photographs, those of Turgenev and Dostoevsky, had previously been dispersed, given by her to a collector in Paris. The Dostoevsky photograph later appeared at auction at Stargardt on the 23-24th May, 1967, where it was, properly, described as an "exceptional rarity." Light spotting, tiny closed hole near the top edge; corners of mount rubbed, light spotting and soiling to verso, but an excellent image in quite appealing condition. I suppose that this lily requires no gilding. Housed in an elegant full-morocco chemise.

PERÓN, Eva. Black-and-White Photograph, Inscribed. 1951. 10" x 14" black-and-white portrait photograph of Eva Perón, mounted on cardboard. Inscribed in the mount, "Para s(u). a(alteza). la infanta Maria Cristina de Borbón cariñosamente, Eva Peron 6/10/1951. An excellent image of this perennial cult icon. Very good or better. Rare.