Description

Ars Libri, Ltd., Boston, Published 1991. Wraps, 116 pp.; 28 cm.In Very Good condition. Gray and white pictorial paper covers wrap front and back with a satirical cartoon mapping the American art world as a genealogical tree of schools, movements, artists, and influences (balloons as sponsors, flags as influences, branches as schools). Mild shelf wear with light bumping to corners and edges and light toning to the spine panel. Binding is tight. Interior is text only, clean and unmarked.Bookseller's catalog issued January 1991 by Ars Libri of Boston, offering 3044 numbered items (descriptions and asking prices) for books, periodicals, and archives on American art, organized in four parts: Part I, General Works (items 1-1097); Part II, Annuals, Biennials, and Triennials (items 1098-1780); Part III, Monographs on Artists (items 1781-2944); Part IV, Periodicals (items 2945-3044).Noteworthy offerings include item 2705, a David Smith research library described as "probably the largest and most extensive in private hands," comprising 59 solo exhibition catalogues, more than 150 group show catalogues, 10 monographs, and an original circa-1950 photograph album made by Smith himself of his own sculptures (9 original photographs with handwritten captions and calligraphed cover, all by Smith), together with catalogues of Smith's 1938 first one-man show and his 1940 "Medals for Dishonor," at $19,500; item 68, Sylvester Baxter's "Spanish-Colonial Architecture in Mexico" (Boston: J.B. Millet, 1901), the rare "Tresguerras Edition" in 12 folio volumes with 197 original silver-print photographs by Henry Greenwood Peabody mounted loose in passepartouts, at $5,500; item 2786, Mark Tobey's "Six Impromptus on Omar Khayyam" (Frankfurt: Edition de Beauclair, 1971), a folio portfolio of six original color aquatints each signed and dated by Tobey, edition of 75, at $4,000; item 3039, a near-complete run of the Surrealist-inflected little magazine "View" edited by Charles Henri Ford, all published (lacking only Series I, Nos. 2-5), New York, 1941-1947, at $2,750; item 3032, a mint set of the 1968 portfolio publication "S.M.S." (William Copley, editor; The Letter Edged in Black Press), the complete six-issue run of boxed multiples with contributions by Man Ray, Roy Lichtenstein, Yoko Ono, Joseph Kosuth, On Kawara, Claes Oldenburg, Bruce Nauman, Richard Hamilton, Christo, Meret Oppenheim, John Cage, Walter de Maria, La Monte Young, and dozens more, at $2,750; item 2667, Ben Shahn's "The Alphabet of Creation" (New York: Pantheon, 1954), the signed and numbered edition de tete copy on uncut Umbria hand-made paper containing an original calligraphic brush-and-ink drawing of the letter alef, from the library of Paul J. Sachs, at $2,500; and item 2270, the original 17 x 16 inch orange-printed mailing poster for Allan Kaprow's "18 Happenings in 6 Parts" at the Reuben Gallery, October 1959, the foundational poster for the first Happening, at $2,000. A rich working snapshot of the 1991 market for American art bibliography, archives, and monographs.