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ANNENKOFF, George. Autograph Letter. (c. 1930's). Autograph letter. First eight pages only, on four blue quarto sheets. An important letter, addressed to Abram Markovitch (Efros) and most likely written in the 1930s. Efros was a well-known art historian and critic who worked in the Moscow Art Theater with Stanislavsky. He began corresponding with Annenkoff in 1922 and introduced him to Stanislavsky. The first four pages of this manuscript are dedicated to thoughts about the life of the painter in Paris. Annenkoff compares the painter to a worker at the Citroen company. As soon as a painter becomes dependent upon his agent he is like a worker on a production line -- which he sees as having both good and bad aspects. This, he contends, is totally different from the painter's life in Russia. Annenkoff further discusses the state of the Russian government, mentions the book 17 Portraits, for which he is well known, and lists the original portraits from the book that he still has in his possession. Very good.
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2,500.00 |
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ANNENKOFF, George (1889-1974). Autograph Manuscript. c. 1920. Autograph notebook, approximately eleven folio sheets, including an early draft of his novel, Novel about Nonsense, eventually published in Berlin in 1934, as well as one page of an important memoir about the opening of the House of Art in Petersburg. The House of Art was inaugurated on 19 November 1919 and became the center of the city’s literary and artistic life until 1922 when its spiritual leader, Maxim Gorky, went abroad. Annenkoff describes the role and structure of the House of Art and lists the members of its board of directors: M. Gorky, A. Blok, A. Benois, K. Chukovsky, V. Sazonov. The notebook also includes various drafts of letters, sketches and notes. A historical document of real significance.
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9,500.00 |
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ANNENKOFF, George (1889-1974). Autograph Manuscript. (c.1930). Fifteen-page autograph manuscript. An extremely important manuscript assembling Annenkoff’s thoughts on the evolution of Russian art from Peter the Great through the Soviet era. Annenkoff is best known for his portraits of Russian writers and artists published in the book Portraits, descriptions of members of the Soviet government published in the book 17 Portraits and illustrations for Alexander Blok’s poem The Twelve. He illustrated many books, worked in theater and as a teacher during the years 1918-1919. He moved to Paris in 1925, where he participated in major exhibitions, worked as a book illustrator, and created works for theater and movies. Annenkoff begins: "Let’s agree: Russian literature and music are in the forefront of world art. The glory of the Russian theater is recognized by everyone. But in painting the situation is drastically different -- we definitely lag behind Western Europe, which is led by Paris." He mentions such artists as Repin, Lentulov, members of the "World of Art" circle, Benois, Somoff, Bilibin and many others. About Chagall he writes: "The first real master in Europe is, of course, Chagall. The bright national characteristics of his art do not absorb the quality of painting, instead -- they only add importance." The manuscript is the size of a small French notebook and is in an excellent state of preservation. (The last two pages, written in pencil, appear to be a rough draft of a letter to unknown recepient.) Extensively corrected and revised.
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3,750.00 |
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ANNENKOFF, George (1889-1974). Autograph Manuscript. (c. 1924). Eleven-page autograph manuscript. Annenkoff lists his own works and articles about him published before 1924, as well as a selection of his portraits, book illustrations and works for theater. Very good.
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3,250.00 |
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ANNENKOFF, George (1889-1974). Autograph Manuscript. n.d. One-page autograph manuscript, of a poem, most likely unpublished, with a distinct anti-revolutionary flavor. Though better known as an artist, Annenkoff's literary literary achievements did not go unnoticed -- his novel, Novel about Nonsense, was published to much acclaim in Berlin in 1934. In addition, Annenkoff worked for numerous Russian magazines, published works on theater and a book of memoirs. Written on a sheet rather carelessly removed from a notebook, and well used.
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1,250.00 |
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BELLMER, Hans. Mode d'emploi. Paris: Les Editions Georges Visat, 1967. Octavo, 22pp. First edition of this superb livre d'artiste, consisting of a brief quasi-scientific treatise by Bellmer on the arcane correspondences between the body, the image and memory. Number 87 of 150 copies on Grand Velins de Rives with an extra suite of engravings on Japon. The work contains seven etchings by Bellmer (fourteen with the extra suite), all signed by the artist. Fine, loose sheets laid into two paper chemises, the whole housed in an elegant decorated cardstock chemise and slipcase.
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7,500.00 |
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(BOSSCHERE, Jean de.) ARTAUD, Antonin. L'Art et la Mort. Paris: L'Enseigne des Trois Magots, 1929. Large octavo, 87pp. First edition of this series of meditations on art and death by the impressario of "total theater." Artaud is perhaps the most influential figure in the modern theater in spite of, or perhaps because of, his madness. One of 749 numbered copies on pur fil Lafuma. Inscribed by the author to O. G. Van Hecke. With a frontispiece illustration by Jean de Bosschere. Darkening to, and with some wear to head and foot of, spine; small closed tear to front wrapper, else a very good copy in publisher's printed wrappers. Artaud presentations are rare.
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6,500.00 |
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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.
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125,000.00 |
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FITZGERALD, F. Scott. Gatsby le magnifique. Paris: Simon Kra, 1926. Small octavo, 217pp. "Fourth edition" of the first translation of the great work into French, in a translation by Victor Llona. The indication of fourth printing is what is known in the parlance of the French book trade as a "mention fictive": the sheets are the first edition sheets and each successive thousand of the print run receives a new slug on the title page indication a new edition. In effect, this is a copy from the fourth thousand off the press in the first edition. Not that we Americans can readily give credence to such a rationale for collecting first editions that overtly claim to be something else. The present copy is rather distressed: the book block is cracked and one signature is sprung, bound at an early date in modest red cloth, without the original wrappers. However, it does bear the distinction of having been inscribed by Fitzgerald on the frontispiece photographic portrait of the author, "A mon nouvel ami la tres cher et ??? ??? (name). F. Scott Fitzgerald."
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8,500.00 |
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[HATRY, Heide.] KEATS, John. When I Have Fears. Heidelberg: 2001. Small folio, unpaginated. Unique artist's book -- a prototype actually -- treating John Keats's immortal sonnet, When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be. A wonderful lettrist engagement with the text: a loose plate contains the whole of the poem, conveying in its regular rhythms an apposite sense of the infinity symbolized for Keats by the vastness of the sea before which the voice of the poem is arrested as by his own insignificance. The text is then elaborated over thirteen plates, moving through a lighter to a darker palatte as the final resigned couplet is pronounced. Hovering in the background of the plates is the spectral image of a human face. A powerful encounter with one of the greatest short poetical texts in English. The work is housed in a simple notebook, overpainted in black and white with sand emulsion.
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2,250.00 |
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