ars libri ltd.
rare and scholarly books
on the fine arts
ars libri ltd.
rare and scholarly books
on the fine arts
Catalogue 130-N: Modern Art: Rarities of the Avant-Garde
182
(LISSITZKY) Sel’vinskii, Il’ia
Zapiski poeta. Povest’ [Notes of a Poet. A tale]. 91, (3)pp., 1 folding page of verse. Dec. wraps., printed in red and sepia with a photomontage design by El Lissitzky. Lissitzky’s famous cover design incorporates his double-exposed portrait photograph of Hans Arp (1924), set against a section of the back page of "391" No. 14 (Tristan Tzara’s "Une nuit d’échexs gras," advertising Dada publications). As Compton has noted, the page Lissitzky chose features two different settings of the title "391" one above the other, which seems to echo the double-exposure of the photograph of Arp. He also added the name of the hero of the book to Arp’s collar. Folding page with expert mend to clean tear; the Lissitzky cover in very fresh and bright condition.
Moscow/Leningrad (Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo), 1928. $1,500.00
Nisbet 1928/1, color plate 102; MOMA 750, color plate p. 218; Getty 700; Compton p. 90, illus. 53; Barron/Tuchman 165; Andel: Avant-Garde Page Design 1900-1950, no. 334
183
(LORENZ, KARL) Shakespeare, W.
Helena. [Aus: Ein Sommernachtstraum. Übersetzt von A.W. Schlegel. Schnitte von Karl Lorenz.] (2. Gastdruck.) (3), 12, (3)ff., printed entirely in full-page woodcuts, all with black ground, finished by hand in red, yellow, blue, green and brown watercolors. The cuts include text on most leaves (all partly illuminated in watercolor), five leaves with watercolored figure compositions (each signed and dated "KLorenz 27" in pencil), and watercolored abstract decorative endpapers. Sm. folio. Self-wraps., printed in woodcut and finished by hand in colors. Copy 19, signed and numbered in pencil, from the unstated limited edition. The writer and artist Karl Lorenz (1888-1961), editor of "Die Rote Erde" and "Das neue Hamburg" and an influential figure of the Expressionist movement in Hamburg, was also important in the history of modern German artists’ books for the small woodcut editions he designed and printed at his own Turmpresse, between 1925 and 1933. This book combines bold, deliberately childlike images of a moon-faced stick-figure, delineated in primary colors against a deep black ground, with a large-scale simplified text, set on facing pages against the same deep black. Simple and as casual in style as a crayon drawing, the graphic and coloristic effect is almost of a children’s book realized in glowing stained glass. This copy is accompanied by an exuberantly written 13-page autograph letter, dated 30 August 1928 (in transit, on a train), to a Studiendirektor Notnagel, discussing the Turmpresse at length, and including a sketch in ink of the same figure which appears in the book.
[Malente-Gremsmühlen] (Turmpresse), 1927. $4,000.00
Rodenberg Erg.-Bd. 64
184
LUCA, GHERASIM
Inventatorul Iubirii. Urmat de Parcurg Imposibilul si de Moartea Moarta. 116, (4)pp. 10 full-page halftone plates in text. Lrg. 8vo. Wraps. One of 500 numbered copies on Vergé-chamois, from the limited edition of 520 in all. Luca’s illustrations--five grid compositions of photographic fragments, and five photographs of his sometimes Giacometti-influenced wire sculptures--show him to be an advanced and interesting artist, as well as littérateur.
Bucuresti (Editura Negatia Negatiei), 1945. $2,500.00
Ilk K459, illus. p. 104
185
LUCA, GHERASIM
Un Lup Vazut Printr’o Lupa. Ilustrata cu trei vaporizari de Trost. 105, (7)pp. 3 illus. Lrg. 8vo. Wraps. One of 250 numbered copies on offset paper, from the limited edition of 269. Trost’s three "vaporizations" are angular ink drawings reminiscent of tree branches. A little light wear; index leaf mended, without loss.
Bucuresti (Editura Negatia Negatiei), 1945. $1,800.00
Ilk K458, illus. p. 105
186
LUCA, GHERASIM & TROST [DOLFI]
Dialectique de la dialectique. Message addressé au mouvement surréaliste international. 30, (2)pp. Wraps. One of 330 numbered copies on vergé, from the limited edition of 553. An important Rumanian surrealist manifesto.
Bucarest (Surréalisme), 1945. $1,500.00
Ilk K463
187
(LUCA / TROST) Bucuresti. Sala Brezoianu
Gherasim Luca, Trost. Présentation de graphies colorées, de cubomanies et d’objets. Janvier 1945. (16)pp. 2 tipped-in halftone illus. Lrg. 8vo. Self-wraps. Texts by the artists. Unstated limited edition, estimated by Ilk at circa 500 copies.
Bucuresti, 1945. $950.00
Ilk K465, illus. p. 105
188
LUCA, GHERASIM, et al.
Éloge de Malombra. Cerne de l’amour absolu. [Par] Gherasim Luca, Gellu Naum, Paul Paun, Virgil Teodorescou, Trost. (8)pp. 1 halftone illus. (film still). Self-wraps., stapled as issued. Unstated limited edition, estimated by Ilk at circa 500 copies. "Ce texte, inspiré par le film involontairement surréaliste ‘Malombra’...." A little worn, backstrip partly split.
Bucarest (Surréalisme), 1947. $600.00
Ilk K464
189
MA. Aktivista Folyóirat. Vol. VIII, No. 9/10.
Editor: Lajos Kassák. (16)pp. 9 illus. Sq. folio. Dec. self-wraps., printed in red and black. Texts (in Hungarian throughout) by Kassák, Fernand Léger, Hans Richter, Jean Cocteau, Tibor Déry, Pál Sánta, Farkas Molnár, Henrik Glauber, Hans Suschny, and Ernö Kállai; illus. after Baumeister, Molnár, Brommer, industrial architecture. Unobtrusive central fold.
Wien, 1923. $1,000.00
190
MAHRT, HAAKON BUGGE
Modernisme. 127, (1)pp., 10 plates with 28 illus. 3 line-drawn figs. Lrg. 4to. Wraps., with photomontage cover design. A quite interesting study of modernism, with chapters on, among other things, the Douanier Rousseau, abstraction, the machine, Russian drama, and film, including Chaplin in particular; there are several film stills as full-page plates. Unopened; covers slightly chipped at backstrip and extremities.
Oslo (Gyldendal Norsk Forlag), 1931. $375.00
191
MAIAKOVSKII, V.
Kak delat’ stikhi [How to Make Poetry]. (Biblioteka "Ogonek." 273.) 53, (3)pp. Sm. 8vo. 14,500 copies printed.
Moskva (Akts. Izd-vo. "Ogonek"), 1927. $650.00
Getty 512