World Food Books' programme is largely produced on Kulin Nation land. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the first and continuing custodians of this land, and pay respect to their Elders past, present, and emerging.
World Food Books is an arts and special interests bookshop in Naarm / Melbourne. Founded in 2010, World Food Books is devoted to the presentation of a rotating, hand-selection of international art, design, literary and counterculture publications with an emphasis on the anti-traditional, the experimental, the avant-garde, the heretic, the marginal.
Presenting new titles alongside rare and out-of-print books, catalogues and journals spanning the fields of modern and contemporary art, design, photography, illustration, film, literature, poetry, cultural theory, philosophy, sexuality, popular and underground culture in its many radical forms, World Food Books wishes to encourage adventurous, thoughtful and open-minded reading, looking, writing, and exchange of publishing and ideas, both current and historical.
As well as our bookshop, located in Melbourne's historical Nicholas Building, all of our inventory is available internationally via our online mail-order service.
World Food Books semi-regularly co-ordinates "Occasions", a programme of exhibits and events at the bookshop and in partnership with other hosts (such as museums and art galleries) that develop out of the activities, relationships and content of the bookshop itself.
World Food Books
The Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Room 5, Level 6
Melbourne 3000
Australia
SHOP HOURS:
OPEN 12—5 THU—FRI
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7.
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
Art
Theory / Essay
Architecture / Interior
Graphic Design / Typography
Photography
Fashion
Eros
LGBTQ+
Fiction / Poetry
Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction / Horror
Transgressive / Visceral / Abject
Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle
Film / Video
Painting
Sculpture / Installation
Performance / Dance / Theater
Drawing
Sound / Music
Curatorial
Group Shows / Collections
Periodicals
Out-of-print / Rare
Posters / Ephemera / Discs
Signed Books
World Food Books Gift Voucher
World Food Book Bag
Australian Art
Australian Photography
Japanese Photography
Conceptual Art
Minimal Art
Dada
'Pataphysics / Oulipo
Fluxus
Concrete Poetry
Pop Art
Surrealism
Arte Povera
Arte Informale / Haute Pâte / Tachism
Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic
Situationism / Lettrism
Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art
Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic
Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées
Furniture
Italian Radical Design / Postmodernism
Textiles
Ceramics / Glass
Counterculture
Protest / Revolt
Anarchism
Socialism / Communism / Capitalism
Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language
Feminism
Fetishism / BDSM
Drugs / Psychedelia
Crime / Violence
Animal Rights / Veganism
Occult / Esoterica
Ecology / Earth / Alternative Living
Whole Earth / Crafts
All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Please note: The bookshop is closed until February 1, 2024.
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after this date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 3 weeks of ordering as we have limited storage space. Orders will be released back into stock if not collected within this time. No refunds can be made for pick-ups left un-collected.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund, exchange) for items received in error. All our orders are packed with special care using heavy-duty padding and cardboard book-mailers or bubble mailers (for smaller books), using reinforcement where required. We cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels.
Insurance
Should you wish to insure your package, please email us directly after placing your order and we can organise this at a small extra expense. Although all standard/express tracked packages are very safe and dependable, we cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels. We recommend insurance on valuable orders.
Interested in selling your old books, catalogues, journals, magazines, comics, fanzines, ephemera? We are always looking for interesting, unusual and out-of-print books to buy. We only buy books in our fields of interest and specialty, and that we feel we can resell.
We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels. We offer cash, store credit, and can take stock on consignment. All
about 25% of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Sell your books any day of the week. You can drop them off and return later. If you have a lot of books, we can visit your Sydney home.
We buy books that we feel we can resell. We offer about 25 % of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Philadelphia Wireman
03 August - 01 September, 2018
World Food Books is proud to announce our next Occasion, the first presentation of sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman in Australia.
The Philadelphia Wireman sculptures were found abandoned in an alley off Philadelphia’s South Street on trash night in 1982. Their discovery in a rapidly-changing neighbourhood undergoing extensive renovation, compounded with the failure of all attempts to locate the artist, suggests that the works may have been discarded after the maker’s death. Dubbed the "Philadelphia Wireman" during the first exhibition of this work, in 1985, the maker’s name, age, ethnicity, and even gender remain uncertain. The entire collection totals approximately 1200 pieces, all intricately bound together with tightly-wound heavy-gauge wire (along with a few small, abstract marker drawings, reminiscent both of Mark Tobey and J.B. Murry). The dense construction of the work, despite a modest range of scale and materials, is singularly obsessive and disciplined in design: a wire armature or exoskeleton firmly binds a bricolage of found objects including plastic, glass, food packaging, umbrella parts, tape, rubber, batteries, pens, leather, reflectors, nuts and bolts, nails, foil, coins, toys, watches, eyeglasses, tools, and jewellery.
Heavy with associations—anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and socio-cultural responses to wrapped detritus—the totemic sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman have been discussed in the context of work created to fulfil the shamanistic needs of alternative religions in American culture. Curators, collectors, and critics have variously compared certain pieces to sculpture from Classical antiquity, Native American medicine bundles, African-American memory jugs, and African fetish objects. Reflecting the artist’s prolific and incredibly focused scavenging impulse, and despite—or perhaps enhanced by—their anonymity, these enigmatic objects function as urban artefacts and arbiters of power, though their origin and purpose is unknown. Philadelphia Wireman, whatever their identity, possessed an astonishing ability to isolate and communicate the concepts of power and energy through the selection and transformation of ordinary materials. Over the course of the past two decades, this collection has come to be regarded as an important discovery in the field of self-taught art and vernacular art.
Presented in collaboration with Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, and Robert Heald, Wellington.
Susan Te Kahurangi King
02 February - 10 March, 2018
Susan Te Kahurangi King (24 February 1951 - ) has been a confident and prolific artist since she was a young child, drawing with readily available materials - pencils, ballpoint pens and felt-tip markers, on whatever paper is at hand. Between the ages of four and six Susan slowly ceased verbal communication. Her grandparents William and Myrtle Murphy had developed a special bond with Susan so they took on caring responsibilities for extended periods. Myrtle began informally archiving her work, carefully collecting and storing the drawings and compiling scrapbooks. No drawing was insignificant; every scrap of paper was kept. The King family are now the custodians of a vast collection containing over 7000 individual works, from tiny scraps of paper through to 5 meter long rolls.
The scrapbooks and diaries reveal Myrtle to be a woman of great patience and compassion, seeking to understand a child who was not always behaving as expected. She encouraged Susan to be observant, to explore her environment and absorb all the sights and sounds. Myrtle would show Susan’s drawings to friends and people in her community that she had dealings with, such as shopkeepers and postal workers, but this was not simply a case of a grandmother’s bias. She recognised that Susan had developed a sophisticated and unique visual language and sincerely believed that her art deserved serious attention.
This was an unorthodox attitude for the time. To provide some context, Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to describe work created by self-taught artists – specifically residents of psychiatric institutions and those he considered to be visionaries or eccentrics. In 1972 Roger Cardinal extended this concept by adopting the term Outsider Art to describe work made by non-academically trained artists operating outside of mainstream art networks through choice or circumstance. Susan was born in Te Aroha, New Zealand in 1951, far from the artistic hubs of Paris and London that Dubuffet and Cardinal operated in. That Myrtle fêted Susan as a self-taught artist who deserved to be taken seriously shows how progressive her attitudes were.
Susan’s parents Doug and Dawn were also progressive. Over the years they had consulted numerous health practitioners about Susan’s condition, as the medical establishment could not provide an explanation as to why she had lapsed into silence. Dawn educated herself in the field of homeopathy and went on to treat all twelve of her children using these principles – basing prescriptions on her observations of their physical, mental and emotional state.
Doug was a linguist with an interest in philosophy who devoted what little spare time he had to studying Maori language and culture. To some extent their willingness to explore the fringes of the mainstream made them outsiders too but it was their commitment to living with integrity and their respect for individuality that ensured Susan’s creativity was always encouraged.
Even though Susan’s family supported her artistic pursuits, some staff in schools and hospitals saw it as an impediment to her assimilation into the community and discouraged it in a variety of ways. Her family was not always aware of this and therefore did not fully understand why Susan stopped drawing in the early 1990s. However, rather than dwell on the challenges that Susan faced in pursuit of her artistic practice, they prefer to highlight her achievements. In 2008 Susan began drawing again in earnest, after an almost 20 year interruption, and her work is now shown in galleries around the world.
Susan grew up without television and has been heavily influenced by the comics she read as a child. She is absolutely fearless in the appropriation of recognizable characters, such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, in her work. She twists their limbs, contorts their faces, compresses them together, blends them into complex patterned backgrounds - always imbuing them with an incredible energy. Although Susan often used pop culture characters in her work they are not naive or childlike. These are drawings by a brilliant self-taught artist who has been creating exceptional work for decades without an audience in mind.
Mladen Stilinović
"Various Works 1986 - 1999"
02 February 16 - September 10, 2016
Various works 1986 - 1999, from two houses, from the collections of John Nixon, Sue Cramer, Kerrie Poliness, Peter Haffenden and Phoebe Haffenden.
Including: Geometry of Cakes (various shelves), 1993; Poor People’s Law (black and white plate), 1993; White Absence (glasses, ruler, set square, silver spoon, silver ladel with skin photograph and wooden cubes), 1990-1996; Exploitation of the Dead (grey and red star painting, wooden painting, black spoon with red table, red plate), 1984-1990; Money and Zeros (zero tie, paintings made for friends in Australia (Sue, John, Kerrie), numbers painting), 1991-1992; Words - Slogans (various t-shirts) - “they talk about the death of art...help! someone is trying to kill me”, “my sweet little lamb”, “work is a disease - Karl Marx”; Various artist books, catalogues, monographs, videos; Poster from exhibition Insulting Anarchy; "Circular" Croatian - Australian edition; Artist book by Vlado Martek (Dostoyevsky); more.
Thanks to Mladen Stilinović and Branka Stipančić.
Jonathan Walker
Always Will Need To Wear Winter Shirt Blue + Ochre Small Check Pattern
21 August - 21 September, 2015
Untitled
I am not a great reader of poetry but I always return to the work of Melbourne poet, Vincent Buckley (1925- 1988). Perhaps I find his most tantalising piece to be not a finished poem but a fragment left on a scrap of paper discovered on his desk after the poet’s death.
The poetry gathers like oil
In the word-core, and spreads
It has its music meet,
Its music is in movement.
This fragment is more the shell left behind from a volatile thought than a finished poem. I find the last two lines honest but awkward whereas the first two lines work like an arrow. Most likely he could not find a resolution so it was left. Still, in its present form, it remains an eloquent testimony to the ultimate failure of a medium to express mobile thought and sensation, in Buckley’s case, through verbal language. It’s an important matter because this is something all artists have to deal with regardless of the medium.
I have never written a poem, however, I am forever copying fragments from books on paper scraps in a vain effort to fix certain notions in my head. At first, they function as bookmarks that are sometimes returned to when I open the book. But before long, as they accumulate, they fall out littering the table interspersed with A4 photocopies, bills, books and medications.
To return to Buckley’s fragment, the first two lines very much evoke how I paint nowadays. As you age, detail diminishes and patches of light become more luminous and float. I feel the most honest way of dealing with this is by smearing the oil paint on the canvas with the fingers and working close-up, blind. Only if the patches coalesce into an approaching image can the work gain a life.
-
Jonathan Walker was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up on a dairy farm in Gippsland. In the 1970’s he studied painting at RMIT and won the Harold Wright Scholarship to the British Museum, London. During the 1980’s he exhibited at Pinacotheca Gallery, Richmond and had work shown at the NGV and Heidi City Art Gallery. Over the same period he designed the cover for the “Epigenesi” LP by Giancarlo Toniutti, Italy and conducted a mail exchange work with Achim Wollscheid, Germany. The work with artists through the post resulted in an article published in the bicentenary issue of Art and Australia 1988. He showed in artist run spaces such as WestSpace in the 90’s and 2000’s, and until 2012, taught painting at Victoria University, which is where we (Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford) as organisers of the exhibition, among many others, had the privilege of being his student.
Walker’s knowledge was imparted to students through the careful selection of music, literature, and artists found in books that he himself had ordered for the library. Walker’s strategy was the generosity of sharing his vast knowledge with references specific to each student and their context.
Walker’s paintings share a similar focus and intimacy.
This exhibition presents a small selection of recent paintings alongside a publication that includes Walker’s writing. Observational and analytical, Walker’s work is a type of material notation — the time of day, colour and how it is blended, the both specific and fleeting location of a reflection on lino or the question of whether a chair leg should be included in a painting.
Please join us on Friday August 21 between 6-8pm to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.
Curated by Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford.
B. Wurtz
Curated by Nic Tammens
March 26 - April 4, 2015
B.Wurtz works from a basement studio in his home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
This local fact is attested to by the plastic shopping bags and newsprint circulars that appear in his work. As formal objects, they don’t make loud claims about their origins but nonetheless transmit street addresses and places of business from the bottom of this long thin island. Like plenty of artists, Wurtz is affected by what is local and what is consumed. His work is underpinned by this ethic. It often speaks from a neighborhood or reads like the contents of a hamper:
“BLACK PLUMS $1.29 lb.”
“Food Bazaar”
“USDA Whole Pork Shoulder Picnic 99c lb.”
“RITE AID Pharmacy, with us it’s personal.”
“H. Brickman & Sons.”
“Sweet Yams 59c lb."
Most of the work in this exhibition was made while the artist was in residence at Dieu Donne, a workshop dedicated to paper craft in Midtown. Here Wurtz fabricated assemblages with paper and objects that are relatively lightweight, with the intention that they would be easily transportable to Australia. This consideration isn’t absolute in Wurtz’s work, but was prescriptive for making the current exhibition light and cheap. Packed in two boxes, these works were sent from a USPS post office on the Lower East Side and delivered to North Melbourne by Australia Post.
Wurtz appears courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.
Thanks to Rob Halverson, Joshua Petherick, Sari de Mallory, Matt Hinkley, Helen Johnson, Fayen d'Evie, Ask Kilmartin, Lisa Radon, Ellena Savage, Yale Union, and "Elizabeth".
John Nixon
"Archive"
December 15 - January 20, 2014
The presentation of John Nixon's archive offered a rare showcase of this extensive collection of the artist's own publications, catalogues, posters, ephemera, editions and more, from the mid 1980s onwards, alongside a selection of his artworks.
Organized by John Nixon, Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley.
"Habitat"
at Minerva, Sydney (organised by Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley)
November 15 - December 20, 2014
Lupo Borgonovo, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley,
Lewis Fidock, HR Giger, Piero Gilardi, Veit Laurent Kurz,
Cinzia Ruggeri, Michael E. Smith, Lucie Stahl, Daniel Weil, Wols
Press Release:
“...It contained seven objects. The slender fluted bone, surely formed for flight, surely from the wing of some large bird. Three archaic circuitboards, faced with mazes of gold. A smooth white sphere of baked clay. An age-blackened fragment of lace. A fingerlength segment of what she assumed was bone from a human wrist, grayish white, inset smoothly with the silicon shaft of a small instrument that must once have ridden flush with the surface of the skin - but the thing’s face was seared and blackened.”
William Gibson, “Count Zero”, 1986
"Autumn Projects Archive"
Curated by Liza Vasiliou
March 6 - March 15, 2014
World Food Books, in conjunction with the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival 2014, presented the Autumn Projects archive, consisting of a selection of early examples in Australian fashion with a particular interest in collecting designers and labels from the period beginning in the 1980’s, who significantly influenced the discourse of Australian Fashion.
Curated by Liza Vasiliou, the exhibition provided a unique opportunity to view pieces by designers Anthea Crawford, Barbara Vandenberg, Geoff Liddell and labels CR Australia, Covers, Jag along with early experimental collage pieces by Prue Acton and Sally Browne’s ‘Fragments’ collection, suspended throughout the functioning World Food Books shop in Melbourne.
H.B. Peace
presented by CENTRE FOR STYLE
November 14, 2013
"Hey Blinky, you say chic, I say same"
Anon 2013
H.B. Peace is a clothing collaboration between great friends Blake Barns and Hugh Egan Westland. Their pieces explore the divergences between 'character’ and ‘personality’ in garments....etc
Special Thanks to Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley of WFB and Gillian Mears
and a Very Special Thank you to Audrey Thomas Hayes for her shoe collaboration.
Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley
"Aesthetic Suicide"
May 10 - June 8, 2013
The first of our occasional exhibitions in the World Food Books office/shop space in Melbourne, "Aesthetic Suicide" presented a body of new and older works together by artists Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, including videos, prints, a wall work, and publications.
During shop open hours videos played every hour, on the hour.
1977, French
Hardcover (gilt-blocked, decorated clothbound w. gold dust jacket), 294 pages, 22 x 31 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Draeger / Paris
$220.00 - In stock -
First French edition of this extravagant, lavishly illustrated book of wines and famous vineyards, created by Dalí in honor of his wife Gala and published in 1977 by Draeger, Paris. The perfect, equally surreal and sensual viticulture follow-up companion to Dalí's best-selling cookbook, Les dîners de Gala. A Dalínian take on pleasures of the grape and a coveted collectible, the book sets out to organize wines “according to the sensations they create in our very depths.” Through eclectic metrics like production method, weight, and color, the book presents wines of the world in such innovative, Dalíesque groupings as “Wines of Frivolity,” “Wines of the Impossible,” and “Wines of Light.”
Bursting with imagery, the book features more than 140 illustrations by Dalí. Many of these are appropriated artworks, including various classical nudes, all of them reconstructed with suitably Surrealist, provocative touches, like Jean-François Millet’s The Angelus, one of Dalí’s favorite points of reference over the decades. Dalí also included what is now considered one of the greatest works from his late “Nuclear Mystic” phase, The Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955), which sets the iconic biblical scene in a translucent dodecahedron-shaped space before a Catalonian coastal landscape. Dalí was by this stage a devout Catholic, simultaneously captivated by science, optical illusion, and the atomic age.
The first section is dedicated to “Ten Divine Dalí Wines,” an overview of 10 important wine-growing regions, while the second develops Dalí’s revolutionary ordering of wine by emotional experience, instead of by geography or variety. Rather than any prescriptive classification, it’s a flamboyant, free-flowing manifesto in favor of taste and feeling, as much a multisensory treat as a full-bodied document of Dalí’s late-stage oeuvre, in which the artist both reflected on formative influences and refined his own cultural legacy. Texts in French by Dalí, Max Gerard, Louis Orizet.
Very Good copy in beautiful gold dust jacket, only light wear.
1976, English
Softcover, 432 pages,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Vision / London
$55.00 - In stock -
First softcover edition of The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, published by Vision in London in 1976. Painter, designer, and filmmaker Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) was one of the most colourful and controversial figures in twentieth-century art. A pioneer of Surrealism, he was both praised and reviled for the subconscious imagery he projected into his paintings, which he sometimes referred to as hand-painted dream photographs.
This early autobiography, first published in 1942, which takes him through his late thirties, is as startling and unpredictable as his art. On its first publication, the reviewer of Books observed: It is impossible not to admire this painter as writer. As a whole, he ... communicates the snobbishness, self-adoration, comedy, seriousness, fanaticism, in short the concept of life and the total picture of himself he sets out to portray. Dalí's flamboyant self-portrait begins with his earliest recollections and ends at the pinnacle of his earliest successes. His tantalizing chapter titles and headnotes—among them Intra-Uterine Memories, Apprenticeship to Glory, Permanent Expulsion from the School of Fine Arts, Dandyism and Prison, I am Disowned by my Family, My Participation and my Position in the Surrealist Revolution, and Discovery of the Apparatus for Photographing Thought—only hint at the compelling revelations to come.
Here are fascinating glimpses of the brilliant, ambitious, and relentlessly self-promoting artist who designed theater sets, shop interiors, and jewellery as readily as he made surrealistic paintings and films. Here is the mind that could envision and create with great technical virtuosity images of serene Raphaelesque beauty one moment and nightmarish landscapes of soft watches, burning giraffes, and fly-covered carcasses the next. For anyone interested in twentieth-century art and one of its most gifted and charismatic figures, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí is essential reading.
Illustrated with photographs of Dalí and his works, and scores of Dalí drawings and sketches. Translated by Haakon M. Chevalier; introduction by Robert Melville.
Good copy, creasing to covers, light general wear.
2007, English
Hardback (w. dust jacket), 242 pages, 21 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Yale University Press / New Haven
$45.00 - In stock -
As a very young artist in training at the academy in Madrid, Salvador Dalí worked in two distinct modes a highly detailed naturalism (under the influence of the return to order”) and a more avant-garde, cubist-derived style that owed much to Picasso (whom Dalí visited in Paris in 1926). Then, in 1927, the twenty-three-year-old artist, influenced by André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto of 1924 and the paintings of such artists as Joan Miró and Yves Tanguy, began to move towards Surrealism. In the spring of 1929, to coincide with the shooting of Buñuel’s Un Chien andalou, Dalí organized his first Paris exhibition, thereby gaining acclaim as a full member of the surrealist movement.
This book offers a wealth of new material about Dalí’s formative years as a young artist in Spain and first years in Paris. Fèlix Fanés, one of the most knowledgeable Dalí scholars in the world, transforms perceptions of the artist and shows how the stage was set for the emergence of Dalí’s mature artistic personality. With a fresh and detailed assessment of Dalí’s truly revolutionary work, Fanés reveals the central role of the artist not only in the development of the Surrealist movement but also the course of 20th-century art.
Out-of-print, As New copy.
1979, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 238 pages, 32 x 27 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Park Lane / New York
$65.00 - In stock -
First English hardcover edition of this monographic on Salvador Dalí by Spanish writer Ramón Gómez de la Serna, published by Park Lane in 1979.
This book is a tribute to two great Spanish personalities of our century, the painter Salvador Dali and the writer Raman Gomez de la Serna. When Raman Gomez de la Serna undertook a study of Salvador Dali, Dali himself promised to illustrate the text with original drawings. Unfortunately, the death of the writer in 1963 prevented the project from being realized until recently, when the study, almost complete, was discovered posthumously among his papers. Dali kept his word and this magnificent book is the result.
Supported by other writings, photographs, and illustrations, Dali is made up of three sections. The first of these is largely composed of the essay and the drawings, with a note by the Spanish scholar Sebastian Grasso on Ramon Gomez de la Serna, and a chronology which charts the life and works of the surrealist artist. The second section contains more than 80 color reproductions of Dali's works....
Lavishly illustrated in paintings, drawings, Dalí's home, studio, furniture, musuem, testimonials, and much more.
Painter, designer, and filmmaker Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) was one of the most colourful and controversial figures in twentieth-century art. A pioneer of Surrealism, he was both praised and reviled for the subconscious imagery he projected into his paintings, which he sometimes referred to as hand-painted dream photographs.
Ramón Gómez de la Serna y Puig (3 July 1888 in Madrid – 13 January 1963 in Buenos Aires) was a Spanish writer, dramatist and avant-garde agitator. He strongly influenced surrealist film maker Luis Buñuel.
Very Good in Good dust jacket, some edge wear.
1984, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 69 pages, 28 x 21cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Drummer / San Francisco
$65.00 - Out of stock
Very rare copy of The Erotic Art of Bill Ward, a book of homoerotic fantasy comic stories by British gay graphic artist, Bill Ward (1927–1996), published by Drummer magazine. This volume collects his various graphic erotic adventures that would appear in the pages of British and American magazines from about 1976 onwards, such as Him, Zipper, Manifest Reader, Stroke, Drummer, etc. It particularly focusses on his famed "Adventures of Drum" series, and also the strips of "King". Muscular bears, bikers, barbarians, cops and mythological creatures in sexual quests that play out in clubs, alleys and dungeons.
Bill Ward was a gay graphic artist born 20th August 1927 in East London. (Not to be confused with the American heterosexual erotic artist by the same name, William Hess Ward 1919-1998). Bill's publishing career began as a copyboy in newspaper publishing before becoming an art editor for children’s comics and then a graphic artist. He worked as a graphic artist for Amalgamated Press and Fleetway on childrens’ comics, notably their Thriller series (November 1951 – May 1963). In 1957 Bill had his first erotic drawings published anonymously in the British physique magazine Male Classics and he would later work openly for hard-core American magazines. Bill’s work features in the same issue of Drummer that includes Robert Mapplethorpe’s first commissioned cover (issue 24, September 1978). Bill was a member of the British gay bikers club called MSC London. Bill Ward died on 24th July 1996 at Stratford in London at the tail end of the worst period of the AIDS epidemic.
Good copy with light wear and spine pinching.
1977, English
Softcover, 100 page, 22 x 30 cm
Out of print title / used / average
Published by
Ballantine Books / New York
$10.00 - Out of stock
The Graphic Work of M.C. Escher, published in 1971 at the height of Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher's new-found appreciation, and only a year before his death in 1972. Born in 1898, Leeuwarden, Netherlands, Escher made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. Escher was for most of his life neglected in the art world, even in his native Netherlands. He was 70 before a retrospective exhibition was held. His popularity in the 1960's amongst hippies, admiring Escher's prints for their psychedelic qualities, ushered in a wider appreciation in the late twentieth century, and in the twenty-first century he has been celebrated in exhibitions around the world. Today he's seen as a precursor of chaos theory and cyberspace for his Moebian diagrams and weird doppelgangers. This popular book presents 76 of his most beloved graphics, mostly in b/w, some colour.
Average copy with wear, cover creases.
1976, English
Softcover, 234 pages, 28 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Da Capo Press / New York
$15.00 - Out of stock
First softcover edition of this heavy volume from 1976, Pattern: A Study of Ornament in Western Europe 1180-1900 ( Volume I: The Middle Ages), first published by Clarendon Press in Oxford in the 1930s. Profusely illustrated throughout, this extensive study traces the development of European ornamental art from the beginning of the Gothic period in France to the end of the Middle Ages, explaining and illustrating in fascinating detail the Pastoral vision of nature used in art of every sort, as well as the rise of Decorative Heraldry. Includes bibliographical references.
Good copy with light wear to covers.
1971, German
Hardcover (cloth-bound), 264 pages, 18.5 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / average
Published by
Propyläen-Verl / Berlin
$15.00 - Out of stock
First edition of this catalogue raisonne of lithographs by German painter, sculptor and graphic artist, Paul Wunderlich (1927—2010). Illustrated heavily throughout, this wonderful and extensive reference book of graphic works by Wunderlich was compiled by the artist, together with gallerist Dieter Brusberg, and accompanied by texts from art historians and philosophers Max Bense, Hanns Theodor Flemming, Fritz J. Raddatz, Frank Whitford, and others.
Paul Wunderlich (1927—2010) is known for his erotic, Surrealist-inspired paintings, prints, and sculptures featuring mythological imagery. A pioneer of Magic Realism, Wunderlich received the Japan Cultural Forum Award and the Kunstpreis des Landes Schleswig-Holstein among other accolades. Despite his iconic works being held in some of the world’s most prominent museums, such as the Museum of Modern Art, the British Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, Wunderlich remains an “artist’s artist.” He studied graphic arts at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg; he later learned printmaking techniques from Oskar Kokoschka and Emil Nolde. His early paintings displayed an abstract, Tachist style, although he embraced figuration in the late 1950s and he developed his characteristic style. He portrayed dismembered figures and sexually provocative imagery reminiscent of the Surrealists, but also influenced art movements such as Art Deco and Art Nouveau. His work was critically received as so scandalous that, in 1960, his lithograph series Qui s’explique (1959) was seized by authorities in Hamburg, and he often had trouble with raids that destroyed his works. Paul Wunderlich was married to photographer Karin Székessy in 1971, and the couple pursued art projects together.
Average copy as the fragile glue has deteriorated and many pages are loose, though all are present.
2014, Japanese / English
Hardcover (w. postcard and sticker), 166 pages, 25 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Toei / Japan
$100.00 - Out of stock
Beautiful hardcover catalogue of the extraordinary Japanese 2014 travelling exhibition "Moomin! Moomin Exhibition: Tove Jansson's 100th Anniversary", organised with the collections of the Tampere Art Museum. This profusely illustrated book is very special in that it concentrates it's contents on Jansson's sketches and illustrations for her famous Moomintroll books and other productions. Over 200 illustrations spanning 1940s-1970s, in pencil, ink, gouache and watercolour, throughout which Jansson's message is clear: "She wanted people to be friendly and helpful, open-minded and adventurous. She loved nature, especially the sea and all its creatures. She would have wanted us to take care of our environment and the people living on earth. There is still a lot learn from the Finnish family Moomintroll." Also includes an illustrated biography, portraits of Jansson in Finland and Japan, and further images of her dolls, animation models, other paintings, etc. Texts in Japanese with introduction in English. A book that will not disappoint any Moomin fan.
Tove Marika Jansson (1914 – 2001) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish author, novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author. Brought up by artistic parents, Jansson studied art from 1930 to 1938 in Stockholm, Helsinki and Paris. Her first solo art exhibition was in 1943. She continued to work as an artist and a writer for the rest of her life, and it was with the creation of her much-loved Moomin characters that she become known around the world. Jansson wrote the Moomin books for children, starting in 1945 with The Moomins and the Great Flood. Her books became international classics translated to 35 languages. For her work as a children's writer she received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1966.
Fine copy w. inserted exhibition postcard and sticker.
2019, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 32 pages, 29.5 x 21 cm
Published by
Daniel Buchholz Galerie / Köln
$38.00 - Out of stock
This beautiful brochure was published on the occasion of the exhibition Otto Meyer-Amden “Vorbereitung” at Galerie Buchholz New York, in 2019, and contains a new essay by Dieter Schwarz, alongside colour plates of all exhibited works. This is the English edition.
Otto Meyer-Amden (Born Otto Meyer, February 20, 1885, Bern - January 15, 1933, Zürich) was a Swiss painter and graphic artist.
2015, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 160 pages, 27 x 31 cm
Published by
Marot / Brussels
$90.00 - Out of stock
From the start, the Belgian Surrealists—among them René Magritte, Paul Delvaux, Paul Nougé, E.L.T. Mesens and Marcel Mariën—distinguished themselves from their Parisian counterparts with their dry wit, brilliant conceptualism and knack for combining the fantastical and the everyday (e.g., Magritte's bowler-hatted men, or Marcel Mariën's iconic single-lensed spectacle), and their disinclination to issue Breton-style manifestos.
This revelatory volume celebrates the Surrealist movement in Belgium through a group of more than 250 paintings, drawings, photographs, prints and books by artists such as Rachel Baes, Paul Delvaux, Camille Goemans, Jane Graverol, Tom Gutt, Jacques Lacomblez, René Magritte, Marcel Mariën, Jacques Matton, Edouard (E.L.T.) Mesens, Paul Nougé, Gilbert Senecaut, Louis Scutenaire, Max Servais, Armand Simon, André Stas Raoul Ubac, Louis Van de Spiegele, Rogier Van de Wouwer and Robert Willems.
2001, German
Softcover, 50 pages, 23 x 17 cm
Published by
Galerie Buchholz / Köln
$48.00 - In stock -
This early artist's publication by the artist Kai Althoff features drawings, photographs and installation views of his exhibition 'Aus Dir' at Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne. The book, entirely designed by the artist, contains pieces of artist-writings in German which parallels in his work of the two installations. Heavily illustrated throughout with Althoff's paintings, drawings and collected photographs.
Kai Althoff (born 1966 in Cologne) is a German visual artist and musician. Borrowing from moments of history, religious iconography, and counter-cultural movements, Althoff creates imaginary environments in which paintings, sculpture, drawing, video, and found objects commingle. Tapping a multitude of sources, from Germanic folk traditions to recent popular culture, from medieval and gothic religious imagery to early modern expressionism, Althoff’s characters inhabit imaginary worlds that serve as allegories for human experience and emotion. His image bank and painterly style also draw on the past, especially early-20th-century German Expressionism, reconfigured by introducing collaged technique.
1983, French
Softcover (w. plastic dust-jacket), 126 pages, 24 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Temps Futurs / France
$200.00 - In stock -
First 1983 edition of the one-of-a-kind L’Art Medical, edited by French author, artist and core member of the "Bazooka" art collective and early Metal Hurlant magazine, Romain Slocombe. Published by Temps Futurs in France in 1983, this incredible book celebrates the phenomenon of "medical art", lavishly illustrated throughout with the incredible work of Slocombe, who brought us the provocative cult classic photobook, City of Broken Dolls. Anyone familiar with that book would know what to expect here. Photographs, paintings and illustrations, alongside Slocombe's study, with artworks throughout by fellow "Bazooka" art collective members, Kiki Picasso, Bernard Vidal, Natsuko, Yoshi Ichimura, Fred Chalmer, Loulou Picasso, plus Didier Eberoni, Kim Tchoun Kwang, Jena-Baptiste Mondino, Natsuko, Yoichi Nagata, Shigenari Onishi, and more. Full of paintings and photography of women in casts and slings, in hospitals and at accident scenes, medical erotica, body manipulation/mutilation, plus many visual historical references to violent fantasy, medical fetishism and bondage in film, illustration, erotic magazines, and other forms of popular culture from Japan and Europe. Nothing like it, and a long out-of-print collector's item.
Very Good copy still in original publisher's plastic dust jacket. Light wear and age.
1997, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 240 pages, 31 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Taschen / Cologne
$150.00 - Out of stock
First hardcover English-language edition of this exceptionally in-depth and comprehensive book by H.R. Giger, published by Taschen in 1997.
“I paint what frightens me,” says H.R. Giger, who compiled and designed this comprehensive retrospective himself, documenting and describing his work from the early 1960s to the late 1990s. Lavishly illustrated with reproductions of his biomechanical visions, accompanied by his own detailed commentaries offering privileged insight into a uniquely imaginative mind. The book cover Giger's life and working methods, followed by page after page of Giger's artworks and various lesser-seen creations from the deepest recesses of the mind and of the Giger personal archives — from his early oil experiments to the Giger Bar in Tokyo to his killer condoms to his nightmare garden train! Includes an extensive illustrated chronology. An uncommon book in the original, long out-of-print foiled hardcover issue with English text (not a later reprint). Highly recommended resource for any Giger fan.
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket.
1974, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 126 pages, 23.6 x 31.4 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Grove Press Inc. / New York
$60.00 - Out of stock
First edition of this classic volume on the work of one of the great elusive erotic-fantasy artists from Europe, Raymond Bertrand. Published in New York in 1974, this edition is one of the few publications on Bertrand outside France or Germany. A wonderful collection wrapped in hardcover with an introduction by Emmanuelle Arsan.
"This beautiful volume presents a comprehensive selection of the drawings and paintings of a contemporary French artist whose sensuous fantasy and surrealistic obsession have paid homage to the female body in a series of works which has no equal in modern art. 'The body,' says Emmanuelle Arsan in her introduction, 'is beautiful only if it is invented.' In this collection of drawings and paintings, Raymond Bertrand invents a female unlike any ever beheld by human eyes." (from dust jacket)
Along with Leonor Fini, Raymond Bertrand became acknowledged as one of the major new artists dealing with the modern sexuality in a highly personal fashion in the late 1960s-early 1970s, a period that seemed to encapsulate the entire published work of this little-known artist. Bertrand's work became known through his incredible illustrations for French SF journals Fiction, Galaxie, illustrations for the erotic Emmanuelle novels, and Eric Losfeld published collections. Bertrand is a somewhat elusive and shadowy figure about whom it is hard to find biographical information, and it is sadly unknown whether he continued his work after this period.
1970, French
Softcover (staple-bound), 14 pages,
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Eric Losfeld / Paris
$45.00 - Out of stock
Scarce issue No. 5 of Arcanes, the "bulletin terrain vague" issued by publisher Eric Losfeld, Paris. With a cover feature on French artist Raymond Bertrand's "dessins érotiques", this issue also features the artwork of Guido Crepax and Jean-Claude Forest, as well as other information on the happenings around the Losfeld imprint.
Éric Losfeld (1922 - 1979) was a Belgian-born French publisher who had a reputation for publishing controversial material and was as often sued as Jean-Jacques Pauvert. A publisher who despised profit, he boasted that he had been, throughout his life, "in debt like a mule". When the creditors and the prosecutors gave him a little respite, he who defined himself as a "free editor" had only one principle: to be faithful to his tastes and unfaithful to his disgusts. "The only literature that touches me," he proclaimed, " is literature written with passion, or rather passionate literature." Thus, for thirty years, Losfeld created, at Arcane Editions, Le Terrain Vague, and under his own name, an invaluable and often clandestine catalog of Babouvist and hallucinated principality, and where he gathered all his preferences. For surrealism, eroticism, anarchism, romanticism, fantasy, black humor, jazz and comics. The world according to Losfeld, was that of Artaud, Mandiargues, Druillet, Sade, Vian, Peret, Allais, Jarry, Gbe, Sternberg, Forneret, Bealu, Topor, Arrabal, Peellaert or Klossowski. He was the publisher of Emmanuelle (1967), surrealist magazines ("Bief") and cinematographic magazines ("Midi Minuit Fantastique" and "Positif"), and the Barbarella science fiction comic book created by Jean-Claude Forest, amongst many other titles. Losfeld's tombstone inscription reads, "Tout ce qu'il éditait avait le souffle de la liberté." ("Everything he edited had the breath of freedom.").
Very Good copy.
1981, German
Softcover, 32 pages, 29.5 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Institut Mathildenhöhe / Darmstadt
$140.00 - Out of stock
Very rare early Genzken catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition Isa Genzken : Skulpturen, Zeichnungen, Fotografien, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff-Stipendium, Institut Mathildenhöhe, Darmstadt, Jan.-Feb. 1981. Profusely illustrated throughout with Genzken's work in colour and b/w, with text (in German) by Bernhard Kerber and exhibition history.
Very Good copy with light bump to top of spine with small split, otherwise perfect.
2019, Japanese
Hardcover (cloth), 312 pages, 195 x 130 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Asahi Shimbun / Japan
$120.00 - Out of stock
Stunning new hardcover catalogue published on the occasion of the largest traveling Moomin exhibition ever staged, Moomin: The Art and The Story, Japan, 2019. Beautifully designed by the exhibition designer Yuria Oshima, this comprehensive book delves into the world of Tove Marika Jansson's Moomins in such detail that only a Japanese book could. Made in collaboration with the Moomin Museum in Tampere, who loaned 500 works for the exhibition, almost every exhibited item is captured here in in print across various paper stocks, including a miniature inlayed facsimile of the marvellous Trollvinter, first published in 1957. There is so much material captured in this book that has not been previously published, including countless original sketches and illustrations, paintings, first-edition Moomin books, all the original Moomin dolls, products and animations, commercial Moomin work, personal photographs of Jansson and much more, all thoroughly indexed. 2019 also marked the 100th Anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Finland, Tove Jansson’s native country. Jansson visited Japan twice, in 1971 and 1990, each time making social and professional connections, sketches, and photographs. She also passionately collected the prints of 19th Century woodcut masters like Hiroshige, Hokusai and many more, which are captured here alongside her own artwork, drawing out the obvious influence, and admiration Jansson had for Japanese art. Also includes her Japanese hotel drawings, correspondences and photographs of her visits. An invaluable and inspiring resource for any Moomin fan.
Tove Marika Jansson (1914 – 2001) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish author, novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author. Brought up by artistic parents, Jansson studied art from 1930 to 1938 in Stockholm, Helsinki and Paris. Her first solo art exhibition was in 1943. She continued to work as an artist and a writer for the rest of her life, and it was with the creation of her much-loved Moomin characters that she become known around the world. Jansson wrote the Moomin books for children, starting in 1945 with The Moomins and the Great Flood. Her books became international classics translated to 35 languages. For her work as a children's writer she received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1966.
As New.
2014, Japanese
Hardcover, 253 pages, 25 x 19 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Asahi Shimbun / Japan
$120.00 - Out of stock
Beautiful hardcover catalogue of the extraordinary Japanese 2014-2015 travelling Tove Jansson Exhibition. This absolutely packed, comprehensive and profusely illustrated book covers Jansson's entire career, from her earliest childhood drawings, through her prolific painting career, political cartoons, commercial illustration, stage costume designs, and, of course, much of it's contents beautifully reproducing Jansson's sketches and illustrations for her famous Moomintroll books, spanning 1940s-1970s. This book gives a wonderful insight into the creative process of each page of Jansson's books, presenting her pencil sketch-ups alongside the final inked pages. Alongside the almost 400 illustrations in colour and b/w, it also includes many photographic portraits of Jansson, especially her island life and studio. It even reproduces her painting palettes! Texts in Japanese with a detailed index of all artworks. A book that will not disappoint any Moomin fan.
Tove Marika Jansson (1914 – 2001) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish author, novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author. Brought up by artistic parents, Jansson studied art from 1930 to 1938 in Stockholm, Helsinki and Paris. Her first solo art exhibition was in 1943. She continued to work as an artist and a writer for the rest of her life, and it was with the creation of her much-loved Moomin characters that she become known around the world. Jansson wrote the Moomin books for children, starting in 1945 with The Moomins and the Great Flood. Her books became international classics translated to 35 languages. For her work as a children's writer she received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1966.
As New copy.
2022, English / French
Softcover, 316 pages, 17 x 24 cm
Published by
Les Presses Du Reel / Paris
$55.00 - In stock -
Bi-lingual English/French publication of an in-depth essay by art historian Valérie Da Costa on the Italian period (1962-1976) of the American artist, Paul Thek (1933-1988), one of the most distinctive American artists of the latter half of the twentieth century, always refusing the artistic mainstream. Although never studied before now, Thek's life in Italy profoundly influenced the artist's imagination and his work.
From 1962 to 1976, he traveled to Italy, for multiple extended stays. In Rome, he discovered ancient sculpture, the achievements of the Renaissance, the Baroque churches, but above all the contemporary artistic effervescence of the capital. In Sicily, with his friend the photographer Peter Hujar, he was confronted with the question of death through reliquaries, religious processions or the extraordinary Capuchin catacombs. On the island of Ponza, he immersed himself in an ecstatic Mediterranean lifestyle, in osmosis with nature and the sea in particular. Many deeply felt experiences in Italy helped shape his artistic practice, from the famous Technological Reliquaries, to innovative installations and his return to painting and drawing.
Heavily illustrated throughout with Thek's many artworks, studies and cultural references in colour and b/w, this essay sets out to analyze, for the first time, the deep influence of this Italian life on the imaginary and work of Paul Thek.
Valérie Da Costa is an art historian, art critic and curator. She holds the position of associate professor in contemporary art history (twentieth-twenty-first centuries) at the University of Strasbourg. Her research focuses on Italian art of the second half of the twentieth century, on which she has published numerous articles and books, including Écrits de Lucio Fontana (Les presses du réel, 2013).
Translated from the French by Garry White.
2020, English
Hardcover, 287 pages, 19 x 29 cm
1st UK Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
ICA / Pennsylvania
$140.00 - Out of stock
First, only edition of this quickly out-of-print monograph. Celebrations of sentiment, wit and thought: an overview on the beloved and influential American postminimalist Ree Morton.
This volume accompanies the first major United States exhibition of artist Ree Morton (1936–77) in nearly four decades. Edited by Kate Kraczon. Foreword by Amy Sadao. Text by Nayland Blake, Roksana Filipowska, Abi Shapiro.
During a brief but incredibly prolific career, Morton produced installations, sculptures and drawings rich in emotion and philosophically complex, that celebrated tropes of love, friendship and motherhood, radically asserting sentiment as a legitimate subject of artmaking. Her inclusion of personal narrative—through literary, theoretical and autobiographical references—and use of bold color and theatrical imagery infused her objects with sly humor and decorative energy, generating a feminist legacy increasingly appreciated in retrospect.
Long celebrated by peers and younger generations, Morton’s influence on contemporary art remains considerable yet widely under-recognized.
As New but damages from the factory - a crush to the front hardcover edge and bumping to top corner towards back of book, light edge wear to hardcovers. Otherwise Very Good, unread copy.
2020, English / French
Softcover, 136 pages, 12 x 19 cm
Published by
Diaphanes / Zürich
$32.00 - In stock -
English translation of Artaud le Mômo, edited in the spatial format Artaud intended, for the first time since its original edition in 1947. Includes eight original drawings by the French poet.
Artaud the Mômo is Antonin Artaud's most extraordinary poetic work of the brief final phase of his life, from his return to Paris from a nine-year incarceration in France's psychiatric institutions in 1946 until his death in 1948. The work is an unprecedented anatomical excavation carried through in vocal language, envisioning new gestural futures for the human body in its splintered fragments, while also generating black-humor illuminations into Artaud's own status as the scorned Marseille-born child-fool, the “mômo” (a self-naming that fascinated Jacques Derrida in his writings on this work). Artaud moves between extreme irreligious obscenity and delicate evocations of his immediate corporeal perception and his sense of solitude. The book's five-part sequence ends with Artaud's caustic denunciation of psychiatric institutions and of the very conception of madness itself.
This edition, translated by Clayton Eshleman—the acclaimed foremost translator of Artaud's work—presents the work in the spatial format Artaud intended, for the first time since its original edition in 1947. It also incorporates the eight original drawings by Artaud—showing reconfigured bodies, weapons of resistance and assault—which he selected for that edition, having initially attempted to persuade Picasso to collaborate with him.
The editorial material draws on Artaud's previously unknown manuscript letters of 1946-48 to the book's publisher, Pierre Bordas, which give unique insights into the work from its origins to its publication.
Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) was a French dramatist, poet, essayist, actor, and theater director, widely recognized as one of the major figures of twentieth-century theater and the European literary avant-garde.
2019, English
Softcover, 80 pages, 12 x 19 cm
Published by
Diaphanes / Zürich
$29.00 - In stock -
First English translation of Antonin Artaud's writings from his apocalyptic journey to Ireland in 1937.
Antonin Artaud's 1937 apocalyptic journey to Ireland and his writings from that journey form an extraordinary moment of accumulating disintegration and tenacious creativity in his work. After publishing a manifesto prophecy about the catastrophic immediate—future entitled The New Revelations of Being, Artaud abruptly left Paris and travelled to Ireland, remaining there for six weeks and existing without money, travelling first to the isolated island of Inishmore off Ireland's western coast, then to Galway, and finally to Dublin, where he was arrested as an undesirable alien, beaten by the police, and summarily deported back to France. On his return, he spent nine years in lunatic asylums, including the entire span of the Second World War. During that journey to Ireland—on which he accumulated signs of his forthcoming apocalypse, and planned his own role in it as “THE REVEALED ONE”—Artaud wrote letters to friends in Paris and also created several magic spells, intended to curse his enemies and to protect his friends from Paris's forthcoming incineration and the Antichrist's appearance at the Deux Magots cafe. To André Breton, he wrote: “It's the Unbelievable—yes, the Unbelievable— it's the Unbelievable which is the truth.” Many of his writings from Ireland were lost, and this book collects all of his surviving letters, drawn together from archives and private collections, together with photographs of the locations he travelled through.
This edition, with an afterward and notes by the book's translator/editor, Stephen Barber, marks the seventieth anniversary of Artaud's death.
Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) was a French dramatist, poet, essayist, actor, and theater director, widely recognized as one of the major figures of twentieth-century theater and the European literary avant-garde.
1984, Japanese
Softcover, 96 pages, 25.5 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Art Vivant / Tokyo
$70.00 - Out of stock
Issue 12 (1984) of Japan's great Art Vivant quarterly journal. This very special issue dedicated entirely to the work of Balthus (1908 – 2001). Heavily illustrated throughout with black and white reproductions of Balthus' drawings and etchings, along with a large colour section reproducing many of Balthus' paintings, also essays in Japanese, portraits, biography, and much more. Both front and back covers feature work by Balthus.
Very scarce and Very Good copy of this collectible issue.
Throughout his career, Balthus rejected the usual conventions of the art world. He insisted that his paintings should be seen and not read about, and he resisted any attempts made to build a biographical profile. A telegram sent to the Tate Gallery as it prepared for its 1968 retrospective of his works read: "NO BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS. BEGIN: BALTHUS IS A PAINTER OF WHOM NOTHING IS KNOWN. NOW LET US LOOK AT THE PICTURES. REGARDS. B."
Balthus (1908 – 2001), was a Polish-French modern artist born in Paris to Polish expatriate parents. His given name was Balthasar Klossowski - his sobriquet "Balthus" was based on his childhood nickname, alternately spelled Baltus, Baltusz, Balthusz or Balthus. His father, Erich Klossowski, was an art historian who wrote a noted monograph on Daumier. His older brother was the philosopher and artist Pierre Klossowski. An unusual figure in the history of twentieth century painting, Balthus both traveled among and drew upon the work of other major artists of his time, while at the same time following a unique individual trajectory. He was mentored by, friends of, and/or even collaborated with seminal creative figures from different eras, including Antonin Artaud, André Breton, and Rainer Maria Rilke, while cultivating his own highly refined style of dreamlike, classically-informed painting. The scenes he usually depicted were very ordinary bourgeois interiors or outdoor settings, which nonetheless managed to reveal the heightened inner states of his subjects as well as the states of mind of those who might be viewing them.
"I always feel the desire to look for the extraordinary in ordinary things; to suggest, not to impose, to leave always with a slight touch of mystery in my paintings." - Balthus
Good-Very Good copy.