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:
THU—FRI 12—6 PM
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
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All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after order date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 2 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. If you cannot make it in to the bookshop in this time-frame, please choose postage option.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund or 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, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 308 pages, 24 x 16 cm
1st UK Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$70.00 - In stock -
First 1977 hardcover edition of Passages in Modern Sculpture, Rosalind E. Krauss classic study of major works by important sculptors since Rodin in the light of different approaches to general sculptural issues to reveal the logical progressions from nineteenth-century figurative works to the conceptual work of the present.
"...Krauss's book is undoubtedly the best treatment of its subject yet written. As a textbook, it ought to raise the level of discourse in art history classes, for it is the meaning, not the chronology, of sculpture since Rodin that is the book's central concern. Krauss avoids the conventional plodding survey and divides the book into a sequence of 'case studies' that permit sustained attention to specific works and artists. In so doing, she attempts to trace a 'tradition' to stand behind that portion of American sculpture of the past 15 years which she espouses critically."—Art in America
"Distinguished art historian and critic Rosalind Krauss analyzes with exceptional clarity and insight the major works that have led 20th century sculpture from the traditional and figurative to the revolutionary conceptual art of the 1970s—an art which has developed a new 'syntax' that discards 'narrative' for instantaneous impact and boldly breaks new ground. Beginning with a penetrating study of Rodin's modernity in rejecting 'narrative' in his 'The Gates of Hell,' she moves successively through detailed examinations of futurism, constructivism, Duchamps' 'readymades,' Brancusi, David Smith's 'Tanktotem,' sculptural realism, and the introduction of light, motion, and theatrical elements into sculpture by Picabia, Calder, Oldenburg, and others right up to younger sculptors like Carl Andre, Blochner, and others [including Robert Morris, Don Judd, Richard Serra, Sol Le Witt, Robert Smithson, and Michael Heizer]. As critic and theorist, Krauss makes demands that will challenge even the most sophisticated."—Publishers Weekly
Rosalind E. Krauss, editor and cofounder of October magazine, is University Professor at Columbia University. She is the author of The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths, The Optical Unconscious, Bachelors, and Perpetual Inventory, all published by the MIT Press.
Very Good in VG dust jacket designed by Krauss with interior architect Alan Buchsbaum!
1986, English
Softcover, 138 pages, 27 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$55.00 - Out of stock
First 1986 edition of Derek Jarman's Caravaggio. This film photo book documents the complete Caravaggio script by Derek Jarman with his commentaries throughout, accompanied by over 100 photographs by Gerald Incandela, as well as reference imagery. Caravaggio is a 1986 British drama film directed by Jarman, a fictionalized re-telling of the life of Baroque painter, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. "Funded by the British Film Institute and produced by film theorist Colin MacCabe, Caravaggio became Jarman's most famous film to date, and marked the beginning of a new phase in his filmmaking career: from then onwards, all his films would be partly funded by television companies. Caravaggio also saw Jarman work with actress Tilda Swinton for the first time. Overt depictions of homosexual love, narrative ambiguity, and the live representations of Caravaggio's most famous paintings are all prominent features in the film.
Very Good copy.
1986, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 239 pages, 25 x 31 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$80.00 $20.00 - Out of stock
Edited by Robert A.M. Stern, one of the world's leading exponents of the Post-Modern movement, "The International Design Yearbook 1985/86" was "the first volume of an important annual review of domestic design in an international context. It shows the best, the most characteristic and the most exciting recent designs in furniture, lighting, ceramics, textiles, glass and metalware. It illustrates the work not only of such leading figures as Rossi, Hollein, Venturi, Sottsass and Castiglioni, but of hundreds of other contemporary designers around the world, whose work is notable for its topicality and promise, or for its aesthetic or functional excellence."
As well as contemporary design of the mid 1980's, the annual "deals with the reproduction of classic designs by such masters as Eileen Gray, Hoffman, Mackintosh, Rietveld and Le Corbusier." The annual also functioned as a guidebook to the featured designers and the respective companies, manufacturers and retailers of their designs. Biographies for all those designers featured are included, plus texts throughout.
This large book is richly illustrated with wonderful examples of the featured designers in their many forms via 520 illustrations, 382 in colour. Many works rarely (some possibly never) seen documented in any other book.
Includes the work of: Verner Panton, Nathalie du Pasquier, Charlotte Perriand, Paolo Piva, Andrée Putman, Dieter Rams, Gerrit Rietveld, Aldo Rossi, Stanley Tigerman, Brian Faucheux, Jay Stanger, Yrjo Kukkapuro, Hans Gunnarsson, Studio Alchimia, Gabrielle Regondi, John Smith, Alberto Salvati and Ambrogio Tresoldi, Paolo Deganello, Alessio Sarri, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Matteo Thun, Pierre Jeanneret, Memphis, Giuseppe Terragni, Robert George Sowden, SITE, Afra Scarpa, Tobia Scarpa, Robert Venturi, Ugo La Pietra, Le Corbusier, Ettore Sottsass, Adolf Loos, Robert Mallet-Stevens, Richard Meier, Alessando Mendini, Fujiwo Ishimoto, Hans Hollein, Josef Hoffmann, William Morris, Frank Gehry, Robert A.M. Stern, Eileen Gray, Michael Graves, Michele De Lucchi, Joe Colombo, Achille Castiglioni, Mario Bellini, Gae Aulenti, Hans Ansems, Ron Arad, Emilio Ambasz, Alver Aalto, Daniel Weil, Marco Zanini, to name but a few!
Very Good copy with VG dust jacket, light tanning to page edge.
1974, English
Softcover, 216 pages, 21 x 16 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$30.00 - Out of stock
Environments and Happenings by painter and poet Adrian Henri, published by Thames & Hudson in 1974, forms one of the first mainstream book surveys to trace the phenomenon of environmental/performative/total living artworks that became prevalent in the 1960s/70s. This historical study is profusely illustrated in colour and b/w with many international works from Fluxus to Zero to Dolle Mina to Nouveau Réalisme to Provo to Gutai to The Situationists and much more. Includes the works of Joseph Beuys, Clarence Schmidt, Ray Johnson, Öyvind Fahlström, Paul Thek, Yves Klein, Allan Kaprow, Hans Haacke, Kurt Schwitters, Marcel Duchamp, Guerllia Art Action Group, Daniel Spoerri, Wolf Vostell, Gustav Metzger, Peter Kuttner, Jackson Pollock, Alison Knowles, Dick Higgins, Robert Morris, Situationist International, Ferdinand Kriwet, Klaus Rinke, Duane Hanson, A-Yo, Meret Oppenheim, Space Structure Workshop, Ferdinand Cheval, Dolle Mina (Mad Mina), Robert Smithson, Jeff Nuttall, Stefan Wewerka, Christo, Dennis Oppenheim, Vladimir Tatlin, Provo, Barry Flanagan, Andy Warhol, Meredith Monk, Atsuko Tanaka, Kazuo Shiraga, Ed Keinholz, Yayoi Kusama, Piero Gilardi, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Claes Oldenburg, Les Levine, James Rosenquist, Red Grooms, Tom Wesselmann, George Segal, Eduardo Paolozzi, and many many more. Includes reproductions of performance scripts, partial chronology, etc.
Very Good copy, previous owner name to front endpaper.
1975 / 1983, English
Softcover, 135 pages, 20.5 x 20.5 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$65.00 - Out of stock
Design and Form is the most complete document of one of the landmarks of modern education in art — the famous Basic Course at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany. Itten was the teacher who organized it at the invitation of Walter Gropius. First published in 1963 when Itten was still alive, the book has been revised and updated by Itten's widow, Anneliese Itten, and includes new material fro the basic course at the Bauhaus, as well as visual examples and descriptions of the refinements made by Itten in later courses in Berlin (1926—1932), Krefeld (1932—1938), and Zurich (1938—1960)."—publisher
Revised 1975 edition, 1983 printing.
Very Good copy. Small bump to back cover lower corner.
1987, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 208 pages, 24 x 16.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$90.00 - Out of stock
Scarce original 1987 hardcover edition of Harmonies of Heaven and Earth, published by Thames & Hudson, London. Joscelyn Godwin explores music's effects on matter, living things, and human behavior. Turning to metaphysical accounts of the higher worlds and theories of celestial harmony, the author follows the path of musical inspiration on its descent to Earth, illuminating the archetypal currents that lie beneath Western musical history.
The power of music is spiritual. It is, for many people, the principal point of access to a consciousness beyond that of ordinary life. Musicians and listeners alike can read analyses of the physics or the psychology, the technique or the history of music; but there is a contemporary need, as Joscelyn Godwin reveals in this challenging book, for informed discussion of the almost too obvious fact that there is something supernatural in musical experience. This is that universal dimension of which Plato, Kepler, Rameau and Novalis wrote, and of which Wagner said: 'I feel that I am one with this vibrating Force, that it is omniscient, and that I can draw upon it to an extent that is limited only by my own capacity." The spiritual power of music surfaces in folklore, myth and mystical experience, refusing as music always does- to be bound by narrow rationalism. It embraces Heaven as well as Earth, the music of the spheres as well as the music that is played and sung.
Joscelyn Godwin begins his closely argued study with music's perceived effects on matter, on plants, on animals and on human behaviour. He then turns inward, to the absorbing accounts that have been given of the higher worlds that are the birthplace of Harmony, and of the realm of pure Intelligence which lies both within and beyond. To hear music, however, we need composers and performers, and the argument then follows Harmony on its descent from Heaven to Earth. This descent takes place in the musician's inspiration, in the listener's experience, and in the world at large; for archetypal currents run beneath the surface of musical history, in the centuries that encompass the polyphony of Perotin or J.S. Bach and the psychic impact of Webern, Stockhausen and rock'n'roll. A self-contained final section embodies the fullest account ever given of ancient and modern theoretical systems of celestial harmony, from Pythagoras to Marius Schneider, Rudolf Steiner and Gurdjieff.
Joscelyn Godwin was born in Kelmscott, Oxfordshire, England on January 16, 1945. He was educated as a chorister at Christ Church Cathedral School, Oxford, then at Radley College (Music Scholar), and Magdalene College, Cambridge (Music Scholar; B.A., 1965, Mus. B., 1966, M.A. 1969). Coming to the USA in 1966, he did graduate work in Musicology at Cornell University (Ph. D., 1969; dissertation: "The Music of Henry Cowell") and taught at Cleveland State University for two years before joining the Colgate University Music Department in 1971. He has taught at Colgate ever since.
Near Fine in VG—NF dust jacket. Beautifully preserved, unread.
1978, English
Softcover, unpaginated, 20.5 x 28 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$35.00 - Out of stock
First edition of this volume of 41 colour plates depicting the works of Dutch/Netherlandish fantastic painter Hieronymus Bosch (1450—1516), published by Thames and Hudson, London, 1978, accompanied by texts by Gregory Martin.
Hieronymus Bosch (1450—1516) was a Dutch/Netherlandish painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school, his work, generally oil on oak wood, mainly contains fantastic illustrations of religious concepts and narratives. His pessimistic fantastical style cast a wide influence on northern art of the 16th century, with Pieter Bruegel the Elder being his best-known follower. Within his lifetime his work was collected in the Netherlands, Austria, and Spain, and widely copied, especially his macabre and nightmarish depictions of hell. Little is known of Bosch's life. He spent most of it in the town of 's-Hertogenbosch, where he was born in his grandfather's house. Today, Bosch is seen as a hugely individualistic painter with deep insight into humanity's desires and deepest fears. Attribution has been especially difficult; today only about 25 paintings are confidently given to his hand along with eight drawings. About another half-dozen paintings are confidently attributed to his workshop. His most acclaimed works consist of a few triptych altarpieces, including The Garden of Earthly Delights.
Good copy but with some edge wear and tanning to back colour, delicate spine, light markings.
1981, English
Softcover, 174 pages, 23 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$45.00 $20.00 - In stock -
First 1981 edition of this catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, April 4—May 17, 1981. Heavily illustrated with many works by all artists featured, accompanied by texts by Otto Brecha and Christian Nebehay, this volume explores the radical, shocking and ground-breaking artistic expression of Vienna's "grand three" avant-garde artists at the dawn of the twentieth century. A city bursting with intellectual and sensual energy, Vienna's burgeoning society was constantly at odds with the conservative and often disapproving nineteenth-century culture — Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka often at the center of this controversy. Beautiful examples of their drawings and watercolours in b/w/ and colour throughout.
Good copy with wear to delicate spine and small tear to top of spine cover edge. General age and wear.
1973, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 180 pages, 22 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$45.00 - Out of stock
First 1973 hardcover edition of this English study on Dutch/Netherlandish fantastic painter Hieronymus Bosch (1450—1516). No one can look at the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch without amazement and bewilderment. Professor Gibson shows that what seems inexplicable to us today "the canvases full of torture, monsters, and leering devils" was perfectly intelligible to the fifteenth-century viewer. The subjects of Bosch's paintings were in fact the overwhelming concerns of late medieval Europe: the Last Judgment, original sin, death, temptations of the flesh. The author describes each picture in detail, placing each work within the context of medieval folklore and religion, and explains that many of the acts portrayed in the pictures were visual translations of verbal puns or metaphors.
Hieronymus Bosch (1450—1516) was a Dutch/Netherlandish painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school, his work, generally oil on oak wood, mainly contains fantastic illustrations of religious concepts and narratives. His pessimistic fantastical style cast a wide influence on northern art of the 16th century, with Pieter Bruegel the Elder being his best-known follower. Within his lifetime his work was collected in the Netherlands, Austria, and Spain, and widely copied, especially his macabre and nightmarish depictions of hell. Little is known of Bosch's life. He spent most of it in the town of 's-Hertogenbosch, where he was born in his grandfather's house. Today, Bosch is seen as a hugely individualistic painter with deep insight into humanity's desires and deepest fears. Attribution has been especially difficult; today only about 25 paintings are confidently given to his hand along with eight drawings. About another half-dozen paintings are confidently attributed to his workshop. His most acclaimed works consist of a few triptych altarpieces, including The Garden of Earthly Delights.
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket.
1973, English
Softcover (soft boards), 204 pages, 29.6 x 21.2 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / average
Published by
Harry N. Abrams / New York
Thames and Hudson / London
$25.00 $15.00 - Out of stock
English edition wide ranging and comprehensive survey of conceptual and other contemporary art movements circa 1973—1974, profiling 53 contemporary artists from 18 countries, edited and designed by the legendary Dutch typographer and museum curator, Willem Sandberg, with associates including Jean-Christophe Ammann, Harald Szeemann, Achille Bonito Oliva, Yona Fischer and many others. Original cover by Alighiero Boetti. Profusely illustrated throughout in colour and black and white with collected works by each artist or original pieces made for the publication, aside from the occasional accompanying artist's text it is entirely made up of visuals. Artists featured include : Sergi Aguilar, Gilles Aillaud, Keith Arnatt, Gábor Attalai, Lothar Baumgarten, Ola Billgren, Alighiero Boetti, Christian Boltanski, Marcel Broodthaers, Boris Budan, Luciano Castelli, Mary Corse, William Crozier, Hanne Darboven, Jan Dibbets, Braco Dimitrijević, Gino De Dominicis, Benni Efrat, Luciano Fabro, Robert Filliou, John-E Franzen, Hamish Fulton, Tibor Gayor, Avital Geva, Zbigniew Gostomski, Allan V. Harrison, Jeroen Henneman, Martha Jungwirth, Zdzislaw Jurkiewicz, Per Kirkeby, Christof Kohlhöfer, Harriet Korman, Piotr Kowalski, Richard Long, Urs Lüthi, Inge Mahn, Richard Nonas, Lev Nusberg, Panamarenko, Antonio Soler Pedret, Ireneusz Pierzgalski, Vettor Pisani, Joan Hernández Pijuan, Carl J. Plackrnan, Markus Raetz, Franz Ringel, Salvador Sauna, Kjartan Slettemark, Hugo Suter, Endre Tot, Jerzy Treliński, Carel Visser, Rolf Winnewisser...
Average—Poor copy, contents and interior in good shape and complete, cover and edges with decent wear and marking, spine 75% torn away, although all still thread-bound.
1982, English
Hardcover (dust jacket), 280 pages, 27 x 30 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$75.00 - In stock -
When The History of Photography by Hemut and Alison Gernsheim was first published in 1955, it immediately established itself as the standard work on the subject, described by the Financial Times as 'the most important singe historical work in the field.' The first part of this classic book was revised by Professor Gernsheim and published here as The Origins of Photography (1982). Now, in The Rise of Photography, he brings the revision of his magnum opus up to 1880.
First 1982 hardcover edition of this important volume.
Helmut Gernsheim (1913—1995) was a photographer, collector, historian, curator, author and lecturer, and the first historian to be inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame. Gernsheim pioneered many aspects of collecting photographica and writing about photography’s history.
Profusely illustrated with beautiful historic images of photography as an art and technique from its antecedents to 1857, the book contents cover : the prehistory of photography — Heliography — The daguerreotype — Negative/positive processes on paper — Direct positives on paper — Other independent inventors — The daguerreotype in France — The daguerreotype in America — The daguerreotype in Great Britain, 1839-c. 1857 — The daguerreotype in German-speaking countries — The origins of photography in Italy — Stereoscopic daguerreotypes — The calotype and other paper processes in Great Britain, 1841-c. 1857 — The progress of photography on paper in other countries.
Very Good copy in Good dust jacket (w. some small chips to edges, light wear). Preserved under mylar wrap.
1974, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 288 pages, 33 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$75.00 - In stock -
First hardcover UK edition of this comprehensive volume, published in 1974. Degas: The Complete Etchings, Lithographs and Monotypes collects and beautifully reproduces almost 300 graphic works by one of most celebrated French Impressionists, Degas, compiled and accompanied by text from Jean Adhémar and Françoise Cachin, along with a foreword by John Rewald. An important reference on the artist.
Very Good copy in original dust jacket, preserved under mylar wrap.
2002, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 24.5 x 27.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$55.00 - Out of stock
"Balthus is one of the most elusive of living painters. This book offers an insight into the mind and work of the artist, bringing together a wide selection of his most important pictures from the 1930s to the present."
Major monograph compiling the most important works of the great Polish-French artist Balthus. Following his father's death, Stanislas Klossowski de Rola has written a new introduction to this expanded edition that also includes the addition of Balthus's last work, The Waiting, and the controversial Guitar Lesson from 1934. Rare photographs show the young Balthus in his studio, while more recent images by his friend Henri Cartier-Bresson complete this tribute to one of the great artists of recent times.
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
Very Good copy.
2022, English
Softcover, 320 pages, 23 x 15.2 cm
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$49.00 - In stock -
This pioneering book stands as the most comprehensive treatment of the lives, ideas and art works of the remarkable group of women who were an essential part of the Surrealist movement. Leonora Carrington, Léonor Fini, Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim, Dora Maar, and Dorothea Tanning, among many others, became an embodiment of their age as they struggled towards artistic maturity and their own 'liberation of the spirit' in the context of the Surrealist revolution. Their stories and their achievements are presented here against the background of the turbulent decades of the 1920s, 30s and 40s, and the war that forced Surrealism into exile in New York and Mexico.
Foreword by Dawn Ades.
1985, English
Softcover (w. dust-jacket), 200 pages, 21 x 25 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$190.00 - Out of stock
The exquisite "Café du Reve" book by the British-based artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz (b. post-war Paris). This is a copy of the first English printing from 1985.
Scarce these days, this beautiful artists book's content is entirely composed, designed and collated from cover to cover by Chaimowicz in the style of a somewhat autobiographical scrap-book. Each page is designed by hand and illustrated with Chaimowicz's decorative motifs and patterns that carry upon them his hotel letterhead correspondence, writings and poetry, paired with photographs of objects, places and people - snapshots taken by Chaimowicz or appropriated from magazines.
"Café du Reve" remains a perfect early example of Chaimowicz's encompassing artistic practice that is immersed in the spatial and emotional experience of environments and décor, literature, the domestic sphere, interior design, ceramics, applied art, wallpaper and textiles.
Born in 1947, Paris, Marc Camille Chaimowicz is a London-based artist whose cross-disciplinary work in painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, installation, furniture, lighting, ceramics, textiles, and wallpaper challenges the categorical divisions between fine and applied arts, masculine and feminine, public and private, past and present. His works are in the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and Victoria and Albert Museum collections.
Highly recommended.
Very Good in VG dust jacket.
1984 / 2002, English
Softcover, 104 pages, 27.5 x 21 cm
Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$45.00 $25.00 - Out of stock
The groundbreaking 1984 book, Subway Art, photographers Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant documenting the work of graffiti writers who illegally painted subway cars in New York City. Exploding with incredible vivid colour reproductions, Henry Chalfant's stunning train images capture some of the most innovative and iconic pieces from the period, with top-to-bottom whole car shots, panels, pull-out spreads, tags, interiors, details, and action shots, and Martha Cooper's narrative pictures tell the story — an introduction for the uninitiated to the NYC crews and writers, vocab, styles, et al, with loads of portraits and quotes from the writers. Includes the work of Iz The Wiz, Quik, Dondi, Zephyr, Noc, Futura 2000, Lady Pink, T-Kid, Lee, Crash, Blade, Daze, Lady Heart, Seen, Kase 2, Smily, Phase 2, Mitch, Skeme, Duro, Shy 147, and many others. This long out-of-print 2002 reprint retains the original design in facsimile, unlike the newer, reduced, re-designed/edited editions.
Very Good - Fine copy.
1980, English
Softcover, 96 pages, 28 x 20.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$65.00 - Out of stock
First edition of the long out-of-print monograph on the work of Sidney Sime (1867-1941), remembered for his fantastic and satirical artwork, especially his story illustrations for Irish author Lord Dunsany. Published in 1980, Master of the Mysterious collects Sime's incredible paintings, illustrations and graphic works, which are extremely hard to find documented anywhere today, alongside in-depth biographical texts by authors Simon Heneage and Henry Ford, tracing his entire life and career. Includes bibliography, published works, and a full index, making it the most comprehensive resource on the artist ever printed.
"Sidney Sime is probably the greatest imaginative English artist since Blake." — Hannen Swaffer, The Graphic, 1922
Sidney Sime (1867-1941) was an artist whose mysterious and fantastic illustrations were published in the well-known magazines of the turn of the century. He was also a graphic humorist, theatre designer and book illustrator whose imagery became inseparable from the new world of weird fiction and books of horror. Along with long and harmonious collaboration with Lord Dunsany, the Irish story-teller and playwright, a partnership without peer in the annals of fantasy illustration, Sime also provided illustrations to stories by William Hope Hodgson and Arthur Machen, amongst others. Mentioned in the same breath as Goya, Aubrey Beardsley, Arthur Rackham and Kay Nielsen, there is nothing quite like the mysterious works of Sime. Born in Manchester in poverty, Sime began his career working in the mines, before studying at the Liverpool School of Art. Sime had a meteoric career. He rose from pit-boy to artist in the space of a few years and made his name in London largely as an illustrator though he was also a painter of distinction. His abhorrence of Exhibitions (‘that last infirmity of senile kind’) and the effect of the First World War when artists tended to join movements and become socially conscious left the self-doubting individualist Sime somewhat isolated, becoming a recluse in his country house in Surrey. While his reputation languished and talent was neglected by a wider audience, his profound influence has been recorded in the work of writer H. P. Lovecraft and artist Roger Dean. One wouldn't be surprised if Sydney Sime's imagery was a precursor to worlds later created by Miyazaki, Dr. Seuss, and Moebius.
Very Good copy.
1989, English
Softcover, 126 pages, 23 x 29.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$100.00 - Out of stock
First, now very scarce 1989 English-language edition of the monograph on the outstanding work of Italian artist, architect and designer, Gaetano Pesce. The first major, and still the best, published study on Pesce, this profusely illustrated and in-depth volume covering the subject matter explored in Pesce's experimental (foam and resin) furniture, building and environment designs, film, theatre design, eyewear, lamps, and much between. In all his work, he expresses his guiding principle: that modernism is less a style than a method for interpreting the present and hinting at the future in which individuality is preserved and celebrated. His iconic, unparalleled work has been exhibited the world over since the height of 1960s Italian radical design to the current day and is work is held in major museum collections.
Gaetano Pesce was born in Italy in 1939 and studied architecture at the University of Venice. After graduating in 1965, he moved between London, Padova, Helsinki, and Paris, before settling in New York in 1980. From the beginning, Pesce’s practice has straddled the boundaries between art, design, urban planning, and architecture, always using his work as a vehicle to communicate his perspective on the world today. With resin, foam, and plastics as his signature materials, Pesce has designed for companies such as Cassina, B&B Italia, and Vitra. His architectural work includes the Organic Building of Osaka, the Children’s House for Parc de la Villette, the Gallery Mourmons in Belgium, and the TBWA\Chiat\Day office in New York. Pesce has served as a visiting lecturer and professor at many prestigious institutions in America and abroad, principally the Cooper Union in New York. He is currently a faculty member at the Institut d'Architecture et d'Etude Urbaines in Strasbourg.
Good copy with general wear.
2020, English
Hardcover, 368 pages, 17 x 24 cm
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
Museo Nacional del Prado / Madrid
$50.00 - Out of stock
Drawings by Francisco de Goya presents the fruits of the research undertaken for the publication of a new catalogue raisonné of Goya’s drawings, a subject to which the Museo del Prado has always devoted particular attention and which is one of the keystones of its collection. Since the publication of Gassier’s catalogue in 1973 the number of drawings attributed to Goya has changed, giving rise to the need for a new catalogue raisonné which updates the enormous body of information accumulated over the course of two centuries of literature on this subject.
This book brings together more than 100 drawings by Goya from the Prado’s own collections and from public and private ones around the world. It is presented as a chronological survey of his work that includes drawings from throughout his career, ranging from the Italian Sketchbook to the Bordeaux Albums. It also offers an up-to-date vision of the ideas that recurrently appear in Goya’s work, revealing the ongoing and long-lasting relevance of his thinking.
1987, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 28.7 x 23.8 cm
1st UK Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$60.00 - Out of stock
The Mollino book - a wonderful, comprehensive monograph (160 pages with 360 photographs, drawings, diagrams, etc.) covers all facets of Carlo Mollino's incredible career as a leading exponent of Italian postwar design: his furniture, buildings, interiors, women's clothing, theatre design, film sets, racing cars, etc., alongside the presentation of Mollino's many interests as an avid erotic photographer, student of the occult, writer, skier, racecar driver and stunt pilot.
Edited by Giovanni Brino.
"Everything is permissible as long as it is fantastic." - Carlo Mollino (1905-1973)
Carlo Mollino (1905-1973) was one of the most original and enigmatic exponents of architecture in Italy in the 20th century. Disapproved of by the critics and nonconformist in the extreme, he expressed himself through his architectural designs, his furniture and interiors, in a language assimilated from surrealism and futurism. The influence of architects ranging from Gaudi to Mendelsohn, from Aalto to Le Corbusier, can be seen in his highly individual designs. Projects such as the sledge-lift station at Lago Nero, the Teatro Regio in Turin and the Lutrario ballroom demonstrated his exceptional powers of imagination. The interaction between Mollino's professional activities and his many interests, which included aeronautics, downhill racing, set design and eroticism, resulted in a unique phenomenon in the history of contemporary architecture. With the demolition of his massive masterpiece, the Ippica in Turin, and the destruction of his most prestigious interiors, all that remains today of Mollino's work is his furniture. Drawing on largely unpublished photographs and documents, this important monograph is the first to reconstruct Mollino's work through more than eighty interiors and pieces of furniture spanning his career, pieces built with such bravura that they Often resemble sculpture more than works of industrial design. The impact of Carlo Mollino on the recent history of architecture and taste in general is now being increasingly recognized, and this study gives us a detailed picture of his achievements.
Editor Giovanni Brino has taught environmental design in the United States, Switzerland, France and Italy. He has carried out projects of urban planning in Turin and has directed professional training courses in urban colour and town planning in Italy, Switzerland and France. In 1984 he was awarded the Fabre International design prize for his achievements in the field of environmental colour.
First UK edition. Average-Good ex-libris copy w. cover coating and stamping, otherwise a tightly bound Good copy throughout.
1966, English / German / French
Hardcover, 244 pages, 23 x 28.3 cm
1st UK Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
Les Editions d'Architecture / Zurich
$120.00 - Out of stock
Le Corbusier 1946-52, 1966 first UK edition from Thames and Hudson. Published as part of a series of comprehensive monographs compiling the complete architectural work of Le Corbusier (published by Les Editions d'Architecture Zurich). The exceptional Œuvre Complète (Complete Works) documented the enormous spectrum in the oeuvre of one of the most influential architects of the 20th Century. Published between 1929 and 1970, edited by Swiss architect Willy Boesiger in close collaboration with Le Corbusier himself, and frequently reprinted ever since, the eight volumes comprised an exhaustive and singular survey of his work. This volume from the collection (Vol. V) surveys the years 1946-52 in great detail, presenting Le Corbusier's architectural projects, urban planning, art works, drawings, plans, and much more from this very important period. Includes L'Unite d'Habitation in Marseille, La Chapelle de Ronchamp, Der Modulor, The Open Hand, the NYC MoMA exhibition, L'Unite d'Habitation in Nantes-Rezé, and so much more. Profusely illustrated throughout well over 200 landscape pages bound in cloth. Texts in English, German, and French. Introduction by Le Corbusier, March 1953.
Good copy, w/o dust jacket. Usual light tanning and some wear to cloth board spine, light fraying at tips. Light Ex-libris markings.
1994, English
Hardcover, 160 pages, 260 x 250 mm
Out of print title / Used*,
Published by
Los Angeles County Museum of Art / Los Angeles
Thames and Hudson / London
$25.00 - Out of stock
Adrian Saxe, the contemporary Californian ceramist, takes his inspiration from such diverse sources as Chinese bronzes, French porcelain garnitures and American pop culture, to produce pieces which are astonishing and entertaining technical tours de force. Their sumptuous glazes, richly ornate materials and elegant forms are leavened with refreshing doses of humour and post-modernist references to numerous art-historical traditions. A Chinese ritual vessel is topped by a high-heeled shoe; a gilded gourd-shaped jar sprouts Mickey Mouse ears complete with sparkling earstud; an aubergine mutates into a teapot. Occasioned by the 50th birthday of the artist, "The Clay Art of Adrian Saxe" is an survey of his achievement featuring 85 works, many photographed from several angles with enlarged colour views. Authoritative commentary is provided by Martha Drexler Lynn and Jim Collins of Notre Dame University.
In a 1993 review of Saxe's work, art critic Christopher Knight wrote:
“With outrageous humor and unspeakable beauty, he makes intensely seductive objects that exploit traditional anthropomorphic qualities associated with ceramics. Having pressed the question of the utility of his own art in a post-industrial world, his work engages us in a dialogue about our own place in a radically shifting cultural universe. The result is that Saxe has become the most significant ceramic artist of his generation.”
1984, English
Softcover, 156 pages (260 b/w & 140 colour ill.), 28.0 x 23.0 cm
Out of print title / Used*,
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$65.00 - Out of stock
Edited by Andrea Branzi, The Hot House was one of the finest books published to trace the history of Italy's radical design studios from 1960 to the dawn of Memphis. Through academic texts and profuse visual documentation of the work of Alessandro Mendini, Gaetano Pesce, Superstudio, Ettore Sottsass, Natalie Du Pasquier, UFO Group, Enzo Mari, Alchymia, Michele De Lucchi, 9999, Archizoom Associati, Mattheo Thun, Memphis, and many others.
1971, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 216 pages, 15.5 x 22 cm
1st edition, Out of print title / used*,
Published by
Thames and Hudson / London
$58.00 - Out of stock
First edition (hardcover) of this first in-depth book on architect Rudolph Schindler, published in London in 1971.
The Los Angeles-based architect R.M. Schindler (1887 Vienna - 1953 Los Angeles) is regarded today as one of the central figures of the Modern movement. Trained in Vienna under Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos, Schindler then migrated to Los Angeles under the apprenticeship of Frank Lloyd Wright. Surrounded by a clientele of progressive thinkers in the emerging intellectual culture of Hollywood, Schindler created a radical and intensely personal architectural conception, resulting in some of the seminal works of the twentieth century.
Gebhard's Schindler, first issued in 1971, is the only full-length account of Schindler's prolific yet unfulfilled career. Illustrated heavily throughout with photographs of Schindler's buildings and interiors, his plans, schemes and projections.
Chapters are: Preface by Henry-Russell Hitchcock; New worlds and old; American apprenticeship; The years with Wright; Opportunity: California in the twenties; Theories in practice; The making of a personal style; Schindler's 'de Stijl'; The depression: a new clientele; Living space; Modern versus Moderne; Business commissions; The uses of wood; The final phase; Schindler's place in architecture.
Charles Moore said, "David Gebhard's book about Rudolph Schindler was, for me, the most moving story of an architect that I have read since I was astonished at an early age by Frank Lloyd Wright's autobiography."
Includes a preface by Henry-Russell Hitchcock.