Livers des Artistes

Frida Kahlo

Livers des Artistes. Fairfax, CA, Jungle Garden Press, 1994. One of only three copies, signed by the illustrator, Carl Dern, and the printer, Marie Dern. 

Playing with, or possibly parodying, the concept of the livre d'artiste, or artist's book, the tongue-in-cheek illustrations in this portfolio interpret the work of eight famous modern artists, incorporating a representation of a human liver into the artists' works.

Georgia O'Keefe

Ram's Head - 1930 (via)

Georges Seurat

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte - 1884 (via)

 

Kurt Schwitters

Mz 410 irgendsowas (something or other) - 1922

 (via)

Joan Miró

Nocture - 1940 (via)

Also included are parodies of René Magritte, Eva Hesse, and Joseph Beuys. Each illustration is preceded by a page bearing the name of the artist, letterpress printed by Marie Dern. The loose sheets are housed in a purple clamshell box designed by Dominic Riley.

 

In a Dadaist touch, a textured, liver-shaped piece of metal is laid in, and attached to the box on a piece of string is a small plastic figurine of a baby. It is a fitting "closure" to this quirky tribute to modern art done as a collaborative effort between Marie Dern, a book artist, and Carl Dern, an accomplished sculptor, and it reflects the sense of humor and irony found throughout the work of both artists.

Announcing our new print catalogue #138

Our latest print catalogue is now available via our website. Catalogue 138 features recent acquisitions that range from works by fine presses and illustrated books, to a few fine bindings and fore-edge paintings, first editions, and juvenalia. Highlights include:

Checkerboard. Honolulu, Punahou Service, 1942. Folding tapa-covered boards containing a hand-cut checkerboard with two small manila envelopes pasted on opposite sides, containing thirteen red and yellow plastic disks. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the acting Dean of Girls at Punahou School -- the largest independent college preparatory school in the United States and alma mater of President Barack Obama --  re-structured Punahou Service, an extant arts and crafts program, to aid in the war effort. The students produced handmade items for soldiers, the most popular of which "was a cigar box 'pastime kit' containing a crossword puzzle, a file case, pad and pencil, a folder, a deck of cards, and small cribbage and checker boards."...[more]

Gedichte, Entwürfe zu Gedichten und Bruchstücke aus den Jahren MDCCXCVI-MDCCCIV, by Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin. Aurora, NY, and Lexington, KY, Stamperia del Santuccio, 1949. One of 51 copies. Known as Victor Hammer's "American masterpiece," Hölderlin's Gedichte represents a near complete collection of the poet's work between the years 1796 and 1804, printed in the original German as Hammer believed was the proper way to do the poems full justice. Illustrated with a single brass-plate engraving by Hammer showing the poet in the pose of the Seer, a likeness of Hölderlin taken from a 1792 pastel drawing of him by F. C. Hiemer...[more]

Harlequin and Mother Goose: Or The Golden Egg. London, Laurie & Whittle, 1807. Framed engraved writing sheet with a mirror over the blank area in the center usually reserved for examples of penmanship. The mirror is near-contemporary to the writing sheet, and together they create an attractive piece that perhaps could have served as decoration in a child's room. The ten hand-colored illustrations bordering the mirror depict the pantomime of Harlequin and Mother Goose or, the Golden Egg, featuring the characters of the Harlequinade...[more]

The Harvard Advocate, illustrated by Edward Gorey. Cambridge, MA, Advocate House, 1950. The cover illustration by Edward Gorey shows two Mr. Earbrass-style characters throwing sticks at two hooded heads on pikes. This constitutes Gorey's first published appearance as an illustrator. This issue is also remarkable for the appearance of three pieces by Gorey's Harvard roommate, Frank O'Hara: two poems and a short prose work entitled "Late Adventure." This is O'Hara's third print appearance, and it predates his landmark first book, A City Winter, by two years...[more]





Petites Fleurs de Saint François d'Assise. Paris, Jacques Beltrand, 1913. One of 120 copies. With 74 color wood engravings, historiated borders, initials, and paraphs by Marice Denis, one of the co-founders of Les Nabis, a relatively short-lived artistic movement aligned with Symbolism. Bound by Georges Mercier in full dark brown morocco with an elaborate neo-Gothic motif on both panels. This is noted art critic Lucien Henraux's copy, as indicated on the colophon page...[more]








Romola. London, Smith, Elder & Co, 1880. One of 1,000 numbered copies comprising a deluxe edition. Illustrated with twenty-four engraved plates by Sir Frederick Leighton and numerous smaller vignettes. Each volume features three fore-edge paintings in the style typical of Thomas & John Fazakerley: in each, a larger central painting is flanked by two smaller, atmospheric paintings, all of which are directly related to Eliot's novel. These paintings, which characteristically do not require fanning to view, are further heightened by Fazakerley's trademark gauffered strapwork, which essentially frames each painting, giving it further emphasis. This strapwork carries across the three edges of the text block...[more]

The Story of Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf. New York, The Viking Press, 1936. Octavo. First edition, signed by the author on the title page. With full-page black & white drawings by Robert Lawson on each recto page illustrating text on the opposite page. The story of Ferdinand the bull, who would rather sit under his favorite cork tree and smell flowers than battle a matador in the bull fighting ring, was an immensely popular children's book in the 1930s and to this day. Fine in original dust jacket...[more]

The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, by William Shakespeare. Weimar, Cranach Press, 1930. One of fifteen copies on Imperial Japanese paper, with an extra suite of fifty-three loose proofs initialed in pencil by the artist, Edward Gordon Craig...[more]




All items in the catalogue are photographed and available to view on our website here. To request a print version of the catalogue, contact us via email or through our website.

Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair 2012

Bromer Booksellers has always had a close relationship with the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair. We have exhibited there since its inception in 1977, and Florence Finn, Anne’s mother, even promoted the show for the first ten years.

However, for the first time ever, this year we will be taking a respite as exhibitors and, instead, will welcome collectors and dealers to our shop, where all of our stock will be available for sale and discounts will be available during the week of the fair. We invite you to visit us in Copley Square, just five blocks from the Hynes Convention Center.

Our hours during the weekend of the fair are as follows:

• Friday, November 16th, we will be open during our normal business hours, 9:30 to 5:30.
• Saturday, November 17th, we will have special open hours from 9:30 to 2:00.
• Sunday, November 18th, we will be closed.

We also invite our customers and colleagues to our annual Wine and Cheese Reception at our shop on Thursday, November 15 from noon to 5:30pm. As in years past, it is sure to be an afternoon of fine fare, books, and cheer.

We look forward to greeting you at 607 Boylston Street (second floor) the weekend of the book fair.

W. A. Dwiggins

In preparation for the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair (more on that tomorrow), we have set up a display in our shop devoted to one of the greatest graphic designers of the twentieth century: William Addison Dwiggins. Dwiggins is credited with coining the term "graphic designer," and besides his work for Alfred A. Knopf, he also had his own press with Dorothy Abbe, called Püterschein-Hingham.

Our collection (above) includes materials Dwiggins designed for Knopf and Püterschein-Hingham, an essay he wrote on the atrocities of the present design of currency and postage stamps, manuscript material, and the original zinc plate for a creative exercise Dwiggins called a "Graphic Response to Verbal Stimuli." At the center of the display is Strings Attached, a book by Anne Bromer about Dorothy Abbe, who partnered with Dwiggins at Püterschein-Hingham and was one of his most important collaborators.

Dwiggins was also very interested in marionettes, and he took on the role of director, carved the figures, and designed the stages, scenery, costumes, and lighting for his productions. A photograph of one of his marionettes, modeled after F. Morton Smith, a Boston lawyer who was a friend of Dwiggins, is part of the group, as is a photograph of Dwiggins himself (seen above).

Rounding out the group is a woodcut illustrating Stravinsky's ballet Petrouchka, printed by Dorothy Abbe from a wood block cut by Dwiggins. We liked this image so much that we used it for the front cover of our most recent print catalogue (available here).





To view more items associated with W. A. Dwiggins, visit our website and search for "Dwiggins" in the search bar on the left. Stay tuned for tomorrow's post, where we will outline our events for the weekend of the Boston Book Fair.

   

E-catalogue 30: Miniature Books

In his text announcing "A Miniature Lesson in the History of the Book" -- a 2005 exhibition of miniature books at Harvard University's Houghton Library -- Julian Edison declared that "Miniature books have been produced for reasons of practicality, curiosity, and aesthetics, and are limited in design only by the scribe's and printer's skill and the binder's imagination." Just as we admire Ginger Rogers because she did everything Fred Astaire did, only backward and in high heels, miniature books rise in our estimation because their creators can explore diverse subjects and design possibilities while working with a canvas of under three inches. Edison's elegant and effective summary is an appropriate epigraph for the books that make up our 30th e-catalogue, which is comprised of nearly 45 recent acquisitions.

Corrugations: Some Speculations on Australian Tin

The artist's book is a thriving art form in Australia. While books most typically convey ideas through their text, artists' books express meaning through a combination of illustrations, typography, and the form of the book itself. In Corrugations, Australian artist Katie Clemson worked in collaboration with the poet Anne Bell to capture the essence of the land where she grew up and create a tribute to a material that has become a characteristic part of Australia's architectural landscape: corrugated iron.


Utilitarian,
ubiquitous,
it transcends spaces;
dented by cricket balls in back yards everywhere,
rusted red as the sands of inland loneliness,
it flourishes alike in urban lanes
and the frayed edges of country towns.

Exerpt from Corrugations, Anne Bell, 2005


Although corrugated iron was first invented in London in 1828, Clemson explains that it was quickly adopted in newly-settled Australia. The material's lightness, durability, and low cost made it the perfect building material for the colonists, who used it to build their own domestic and industrial structures, from farmyard sheds and silos to homes and churches. John Lysaght began manufacturing the material in Australia in 1857 and business quickly boomed.




Corrugations is comprised of two accordion-fold volumes that can be opened in tandem or paged through separately. In the first volume, Clemson illustrates Bell's verses with linocuts of buildings and structures chosen from all over Western Australia to show the diversity and "quirkiness" of the material's applications.




Clemson was born in rural New South Wales and lived in both Australia and England. For the illustrations, she drew inspiration from the bright colors and sunlight of Australia and captures the look of buildings in the haze of heat, using pale yellows, blues, bright red, and shades of green. The book itself has an architectural quality as Clemson integrated pop-up elements into her linocuts. The peaks of steeples rise up from the page, and factory buildings take shape.

The smaller second volume folds out into a long corrugated iron fence, decorated with graffiti, business advertising, rust, and the patina of age. In the colophon, Clemson writes that "[The Lysaght firm's] claim that they could make a fence round Australia from one year's output of corrugated iron sheets was the inspiration behind the 'fence' book."

In the same way that the two volumes complement each other, Anne Bell's poetry perfectly corresponds with Clemson's illustrations, adding another dimension to the work. The contemplative, lyrical lines of her poem float across the page, italicized and printed in pale gray. Bell is also a native of Australia, and her poems often reflect on Australian themes. Her poetry has earned her the Henry Lawson Prize for Verse twice. According to the website of the Alembic Press, who published this book, "She writes with love about Australia with a keen sense of history, an eye for detail, and an ear for the music of the words."

These two volumes reveal the poetic side of this common building material and form a personal tribute to a land that both the poet and artist called home.

Sunrise is Coming After While

After a brief hiatus to focus on our latest print catalogue, we are back with a new acquisition that everyone at Bromer Booksellers admires: the Limited Editions Club publication of Sunrise is Coming After While.

This beautiful, and very large, book is a collection of poems by Langston Hughes, selected by Maya Angelou. It contains six silkscreen reproductions of collages by Phoebe Beasley, whose art Angelou also admired and felt would perfectly complement Hughes's eloquent poems.