[ITHACA, NY] National Book Auctions, located in Ithaca, NY, will host a Sunday, February 19th auction featuring a broad range of rare antique books, as well as intriguing ephemera and artwork.  Of particular note are rare first editions of early and modern titles, many of which are signed.  Also featured are important Civil War history titles including large, important reference sets.  Ephemera lots include magazines, postage and postal history, advertising and various other genres.  Also being offered are two important bronze sculptures and Major League Baseball collectibles.

Important books in this auction include first editions, many of which are author-signed. Noteworthy examples include an author-signed copy of Michael Shaara’s “The Killer Angels” and first editions by Cormac McCarthy and Herman Melville.  Other lots include decorative sets by classic authors such as Henry Fielding and Charles Dickens as well as early printings of works by Charles Darwin.  Early works in French and Italian, dating back to the 1700’s, will also be sold.  Civil War historical works include the entire 128-volume work, “The War of the Rebellion:  A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies” and the complete 36-volume printing in leather by the Easton Press of “The Library of the Civil War.”  Modern works include hundreds of signed first editions by prominent writers such as Sue Grafton, Ha Jin, Tess Gerritsen, Jeffrey Archer, John Grisham, P. D. James, Dean Koontz and Dick Francis, to name just a few.

Found throughout this auction are pleasing groups of ephemera and artwork. Leading the art field is a pair of limited edition bronze sculptures of works by Erte and Mario Jason.  Dozens of the ephemera lots in this auction offer early postage and postal history including early American cancels and postage from Roman States, as well as cancels which date back centuries.  A large collection of vintage and antique collectible magazines will also be offered.

Other important collections offered in this auction include an array of themes. Reference libraries of Sherlockiana and volumes relating to the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy will be sold.  We will also bring to market more material from the estate of renowned philanthropist and collector, Charles Rand Penney, including items from the 1893 Columbian Exposition, the 1934 Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago and the New York World’s Fair in 1939.  Several signed baseballs will be offered including two Waterford Crystal limited edition pieces which commemorate the 2000 World Series win by the New York Yankees.

National Book Auctions is a public auction service specializing in books, ephemera, and art. National Book Auctions is a targeted service offering experience and expertise unique to marketing antique and modern books and ephemera for consignors and collectors alike. Preview for the upcoming Sunday, February 19th auction is at 10 a.m. and the live auction starts at noon. For more information or to consign collectible material please contact David Hall, Business Manager, at 607-269-0101 or email
mail@nationalbookauctions.com.

The Center for Book Arts is Pleased to Present Its Winter 2012 Featured Artist Project
Patricia S. Ward: Re/Vision
January 18th to March 31st 2012
Patricia S. Ward: Re/Vision
When: January 18th to March 31st 2012 Where: 28 W. 27th St., 3rd Floor, New York, NY
Subway: N/R to 28th St, or F to 23rd St Admission: free
Organized by Alexander Campos, Executive Director

In a site-specific installation titled Ward presents a replica of her workspace, along with a number of miniature books and book-objects created from shredded pieces of an unpublished novel on loss, nostalgia, and war. The installation reflects her journey of moving beyond the experience of rejection to delving into the themes that permeate her writing, returning at last to her wartime childhood and incorporating the memorabilia she has carried with her since leaving Lebanon. All objects in the exhibition are meant to be touched and explored, so that viewers can experience more intimately the artist's journey.

Visit our website for up-to-date details: www.centerforbookarts.org

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR BOOK ARTS
The Center for Book Arts is committed to exploring and cultivating contemporary aesthetic interpretations of the book as an art object, while invigorating traditional artistic practices of the art of the book. The Center seeks to facilitate communication between the book arts community and the larger spheres of contemporary art and literature through exhibitions, classes, public programming, literary presentations, opportunities for artists and writers, publications, and collecting. Founded in 1974, the Center for Book Arts was the first organization of its kind in the nation.
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The Center for Book Arts is Pleased to Present Its Winter 2012 Featured Artist Project
Ethan Shoshan: Strange Birds
January 18th to March 31st 2012
Ethan Shosan: Strange Birds
When: January 18th to March 31st 2012 Where: 28 W. 27th St., 3rd Floor, New York, NY
Subway: N/R to 28th St, or F to 23rd St Admission: free
Organized by Alexander Campos, Executive Director

Social ecologist Ethan Shoshan presents an archive of 31 treasured objects and their accompanying conversations. This project encompasses vignettes of people’s lives through objects that hold significant personal meaning to them. Through each object on display, a conversation with its caretaker begins; visitors have the freedom to peruse the objects and listen to an accompanying audio guide conversation. It is through these stories that we engage with the person and create an intimate connection to something deeper within ourselves. Shoshan’s Strange Birds weaves together forgotten histories, memories, and embodied experiences in an affirmation of life and its lessons. Collaborators include: Arthur Aviles, Jill L. Conner, Barry Frier, Bibbe Hansen, Geoffrey Hendricks, Jim Hubbard, Stephen Kent Jusick, Stephen Lack, Agosto Machado, Stefani Mar, Liz McGarrity, Lucia Maria Minervini, Angelo Monaco, Augustmoon Ochiishi, Uzi Parnes, Dennis Redmond, Hunter Reynolds, Charles Rice-Gonzalez, Rob Roth, Edward Rubin, Rafael Sanchez, Arleen Schloss, Gervaise Soeurouge, Sur Rodney Sur, Chris Tanner, Brad Taylor, Gail Thacker, Jack Waters, Kathleen White, Brian "Soigne" Wilson, and Stephen Winter.

Visit our website for up-to-date details: www.centerforbookarts.org

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR BOOK ARTS
The Center for Book Arts is committed to exploring and cultivating contemporary aesthetic interpretations of the book as an art object, while invigorating traditional artistic practices of the art of the book. The Center seeks to facilitate communication between the book arts community and the larger spheres of contemporary art and literature through exhibitions, classes, public programming, literary presentations, opportunities for artists and writers, publications, and collecting. Founded in 1974, the Center for Book Arts was the first organization of its kind in the nation.
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PARIS February -- LES ENLUMINURES gallery will showcase several exceptional examples of Illuminated Medieval and Renaissance miniatures, manuscripts, stained glass and finger rings at TEFAF Maastricht from March 16 - 25.

The world’s premier antiques and art show, The European Fine Arts Fair attracts over 250 of the most esteemed dealers from more than 17 countries and is vetted by no less than 29 different committees comprised of 175 world experts. Each year Maastricht attracts the world’s leading museums, collectors and connoisseurs of art.

Galerie Les Enluminures founder, Dr. Sandra Hindman says she is particularly thrilled to have “Triumph of David,” by the Berlin Master of Mary of Burgundy to show at this year’s TEFAF.
 
Dr. Hindman says, “The Master of Mary of Burgundy was originally named after two manuscripts, one in Berlin (Kupferstichkabinett, MS 78 B 12) made for Mary of Burgundy and her husband Maximilian I and another one in Vienna also made for Mary of Burgundy (ÖNB, Cod. 1857).  Recent scholarship has distinguished between the styles of these two manuscripts, identifying two different artists. This lyrical c1480 illumination is attributed to the Berlin Master, noted as a colorist, with a fine sense of decorative details, and with access to many designs that circulated among the group artists known as the Ghent Associates.”

The Belgian work (153 x 110mm) in tempera and gold leaf has a provenance that includes the Collection Ambroise Firmin-Didot (1790-1876) Hotel Drouot, Catalogue des livres précieux, manuscrits, et imprimés faisant partie de la Bibliothèque de M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, 10-14 June, 1884, lot 88 and it has been extensively described in literature including Brinkmann, B., et al, in Das Berliner Studenbuch der Maria von Burgund und Kaiser Maximilians:  Handschrift 76 B 12 m Kupfertichkabinett der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin Preussischer Kulturbesitz, exh. cat., Berlin, 1998; Kren, T., and S. McKendrick, eds., Illuminating the Renaissance. The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe, exh. cat., London/Los Angeles, 2003; Pächt, O., The Master of Mary of Burgundy, London, 1948.

A second rare and important work to be featured at TEFAF is a Book of Hours (use of Paris) dating from 1410 and the Workshop of the Luçon Master (Paris active c1405-1415).

In Latin and French, this illuminated manuscript is on parchment, complete, and bound in old red velvet. It measures 171 x 130 mm.

Hindman says, “The Luçon Master, a Parisian illuminator of the ‘Golden age of French illumination,’ is known for his elegant sinuous figures and subtle tonalities.  He was active in the generation just before and contemporary with the Boucicaut Master and was first christened by Millard Meiss in 1956 after the cycle of miniatures that illustrates a Missal-Pontifical commissioned by Étienne Loypeau, Bishop of Luçon, later belonging to Jean, Duke de Berry (c. 1405-1407; Paris, BnF, MS lat. 8886).”

“It was written about in Meiss, Millard, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Limbourgs and Their Contemporaries, 2 vols., New York, Braziller, 1974, pp. 351-352, 393-397; Meiss, Millard, “The Exhibition of French Manuscripts of the XIII-XVIth-Centuries at the Bibliothèque Nationale,” Art Bulletin 38 (1956), pp. 187-196.”

Sandra Hindman founded Les Enluminures gallery in Paris 20 years ago and has seen it become among the top ranked sources for the most significant Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts and art entering the market.

Les  Enluminures is expanding and adding a New York gallery at 23 East 73 Street in May, 2012. Its Paris gallery is opposite the Louvre at Le Louvre des Antiquaires and Dr. Hindman maintains an office in Chicago where she twice headed the Art History department at Northwestern University during her academic career.  She has written 10 books on the subject and publishes comprehensive catalogues on the four specialties of her business, which include Medieval and Renaissance Illuminations, Manuscripts, Finger Rings and Stained Glass.

Les Enluminures clients range from major museums, libraries and universities to important private collectors.  The gallery is a featured exhibitor at the world’s most prestigious antiques and art fairs in New York, Paris, Maastricht, London, San Francisco and Florence. It has pioneered the use of 21st century technology for this genre, incorporating video ‘tours,’ and a ‘turn the page’ feature for viewing manuscripts on its web site and embracing social media platforms.

IF YOU GO
Galerie LES ENLUMINURES
at TEFAF MAASTRICHT Stand  #274
March 16 - 25
daily 11-7 Sunday 11-6
 
and at Le Louvre des Antiquaires,
2 Place du Palais-Royal,
75001 Paris (France)
Tel: +33 1 42 60 15 58
info@lesenluminures.com
www.lesenluminures.com

NEW YORK, February 3, 2012—Print/Out at The Museum of Modern Art examines the many roles that prints play in artistic practices today, embracing the versatile and global nature of contemporary art in the last two decades. On view from February 19 to May 14, 2012, in The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition Gallery, Print/Out brings together approximately 70 series or projects drawn from MoMA’s extensive collection of more than 50,000 prints and illustrated books, while also including several important loans from private and public collections. Print/Out is part of a series of large-scale print surveys periodically organized by the Museum’s Department of Prints and Illustrated Books in order to assess the current state of the medium. The last two exhibitions were Printed Art: A View of Two Decades, organized by Riva Castleman in 1980, and Thinking Print: Books to Billboards: 1980-1995, organized by Deborah Wye in 1996. Part of Print/Out takes place on the Museum’s second floor with the exhibition Printin’, co-organized by the artist Ellen Gallagher and Associate Curator Sarah Suzuki, and centered around Gallagher’s major portfolio DeLuxe (2004-05). The Museum is also hosting Print Studio, an interactive space that explores the evolution of artistic practices relating to the medium of print, from January 23 to March 9, 2012, in the Mezzanine Level of The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building. Print/Out is organized by Christophe Cherix, The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books, with Kim Conaty, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books, The Museum of Modern Art.

Focusing on the medium’s defining characteristics—its reproducibility, collaborative nature, and ability to circulate widely—Print/Out explores how artists have integrated these ideas in some of the most innovative art practices of our time. The exhibition features some 40 artists and artist groups, including Ai Weiwei, Trisha Donnelly, General Idea, Martin Kippenberger, Lucy McKenzie, Aleksandra Mir, Robert Rauschenberg, Rirkrit Tiravanija, SUPERFLEX, and Kelley Walker, along with publishers and publishing projects such as Edition Jacob Samuel, museum in progress, and Permanent Food. Among the notable installations is Thomas Schϋtte’s Low Tide Wandering (2001), an ambitious series of 139 prints that will be hung on site by the artist, criss-crossing the gallery space to create a maze-like, immersive environment.

The earliest works in the exhibition coincide with the geopolitical transformations of the late 1980s and early 1990s, an emblematic point of departure for examining a medium, which, because of its capacity to disseminate information, has often been linked to social change. For Vienna-based association museum in progress (founded 1990), newspapers, magazines, and other media spaces offered effective sites for artist interventions, which founders Kathrin Messner and the late artist Josef Ortner commissioned from an impressive range of international artists. While recognized as an artist and political activist, Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957) is often overlooked in his role as a pioneering publisher, yet the three volumes he produced in the 1990s—known as The Black Cover Book (1994), The White Cover Book (1995), and The Grey Cover Book (1997)—could well be among his most impactful and enduring legacies. These paperbacks, comprised of artists’ submissions, essays, and translations of existing art-historical and critical texts, offered a new vehicle for circulating and disseminating information among China’s contemporary artists during a moment marked by a near total lack of access to foreign monographs, exhibition catalogues, and art magazines.

Another notable artist’s project that demonstrates the potential of the print medium for spreading ideas across vast geographies is Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ “Untitled” (1991). Based on a black-and-white photograph of an unmade bed, this site-specific project is to be presented on public billboard spaces. As part of Print/Out, the work will be on view on billboards in the following six locations throughout New York City from February 20 to March 18, 2012: 11th Avenue and 38th Street in Manhattan; Neptune Avenue and Guider in Brooklyn; Pennsylvania Avenue near Fulton Street in Brooklyn; Van Dam Street near Queens Boulevard in Queens; 31st Street near Ditmars Boulevard in Queens. One additional billboard will be on view at the entrance to the exhibition.

Print/Out opens with a work by Martin Kippenberger (German, 1953-97), who realized an impressive body of multiples in collaboration with various publishers and galleries throughout his career. On view is a set of screenprints from 1992, Inhalt auf Reisen (Content on Tour), which Kippenberger produced with Austrian publisher Edition Artelier. This series is the result of a multi-stage process that began in 1989 when the artist asked his assistant to make a group of paintings after his own. Deeming the copies “too good,” Kippenberger decided to destroy them, but this apparent end was just the beginning. Several works grew out of these paintings, among them sculptures of industrial containers made to house the smashed-up, discarded paintings, and Content on Tour, whose imagery is based on a photograph of the destroyed paintings in one of the containers. The screenprint exists in four variants: one of the full image and three smaller, cut-down versions, each of which has been mounted on plywood. The artist then used a circular saw to make random linear marks on the surfaces, partially destroying the images and also distinguishing each print as a unique object. The works became the material result of the artist’s previous endeavors in painting, photography, and sculpture, ultimately producing a work that transcends its origin through a long sequence of reproduction and alteration.

Robert Rauschenberg’s (American, 1925-2008) The Lotus Series forms the other bookend to the exhibition. The last printed project completed by the artist before his death, The Lotus Series (2008) exemplifies the experimentation with process and transfer techniques that Rauschenberg engaged in throughout his career. Based on the artist’s small, faded photographs from his trips to China between 1982 and 1985, these 12 large-scale prints were made using high-resolution scans and digital printing processes as well as the photogravure technique. With this series, Rauschenberg blends tradition with innovation, prompting the viewer to look at the receding past with the hyperclarity that recent technology has made possible.

Other featured artists, like Rirkrit Tiravanija (Thai, b. Argentina, 1961) and Philippe Parreno (French, b. 1964), have used prints to recount, share, or reactivate earlier events and ephemeral works. Tiravanija has been challenging traditional models of art-making since the early 1990s, developing a practice based in participation, interaction, and collaboration. Around 1992, the same year as his paradigmatic work Untitled (Free) (which was recently on view in MoMA’s Contemporary Galleries), Tiravanija began to produce editions, publishing the first of many multiples in relation to his ephemeral or experience-based work. These editions included tins of curry paste or a backpack equipped for an expedition, both of which are on view in Print/Out. In 2011 Tiravanija completed what he considers to be his first traditional print project, Untitled 2008-2011 (the map of the land of feeling), comprising three scrolls stretching more than 80 feet altogether. The relentlessly peripatetic artist’s expansive passport—reproduced page by page, end to end—provides both a central organizing structure and an autobiographical narrative, the story of the artist’s life through the places he has visited. For Tiravanija, the laborious production process required for prints of this scale and complexity, involving the collaboration of 40 assistants over a span of four years, was an integral part of the final work.

In Parreno’s Fade to Black (2003)—a set of posters printed in phosphorescent ink—the artist recounts a series of past events organized in collaboration with some of his contemporaries, including Tiravanija as well as Liam Gillick and Pierre Huyghe. Each poster depicts an image or text related to one of these earlier events, with Parreno‘s Argentina vs. Netherlands 1978, Medina 2003 (2003) consisting of a photograph of a workshop that he gave in Medina, Argentina, in 2002. At that workshop Parreno screened the 1978 World Cup soccer final and then asked students “to replay the game in the schoolyard like they would have with a classical theatrical play.” In Print/Out this poster, along with the other posters in the series, is presented in a space in which the lights are programmed to go on and off at regular intervals, producing the strange effect of seemingly blank, white sheets, whose imagery suddenly emerges, glowing vibrantly when the room plunges into darkness. The images repeatedly fade in and out of sight, creating, as the artist describes, “a flickering memory” of his artistic practice.

Another special project presented in Print/Out is by SUPERFLEX, the Copenhagen-based artists’ group (Bjørnstjerne Christiansen [Danish, b. 1969], Jakob Fenger [Danish, b. 1968], and Rasmus Nielsen [Danish, b. 1969]) that has been organizing projects questioning social and economic structures since 1993. The group describes its practice in terms of tools (rather than artworks), utilized in the service of concrete cultural interventions; these tools are not finished products but rather instructions for doing and calls for participation. Copy Light/Factory (2008) addresses the larger implications of copyright through a workshop in which a series of lamp designs are “refabricated” by affixing photocopies of the designs to a basic cubic lighting structure. The resultant lamps reveal how copies of copies can become originals again. At certain times over the course of the exhibition, visitors to the Museum can participate in this project by making these lanterns at work stations, with the results going on view within the gallery space.

Investigating the nature of networks and circulation, Aleksandra Mir (American/Swedish, b. Poland, 1967) has developed a practice that merges cultural anthropology and fine art, investigating social structures, globalization, and the contemporary urban experience. Mir’s elaborate mapping project Naming Tokyo (2003-present) is organized around her solicitation from friends and colleagues of names for Tokyo’s otherwise undesignated streets. Print/Out presents one of the incarnations of this project: blank maps of the city, with legends on the reverse offering proposed organizations for Tokyo’s neighborhoods and streets, according to her research and her friends’ suggestions. Another project, Venezia (all places contain all others) (2009), organized for the 2009 Venice Biennale, consisted of one million fake postcards—ten thousand each of one hundred designs—combining stock images of generic or well-known scenery (such as a picturesque harbor or the New York City skyline) with the Italian city’s name. Just as the colorful maps and playful descriptions of Naming Tokyo mask its underlying critique of colonialism, the Venezia postcards—free souvenirs within the Biennale grounds—explored ideas of tourism, cultural geography, and displacement. In all of her projects, the artist’s light-handed and witty approach to her material often belies the heavier cultural and political content that it invokes.

Print/Out also includes a presentation of the work of California-based printer and publisher, Jacob Samuel (Edition Jacob Samuel, founded 1988). Samuel is best known for his unconventional approach to the print medium, adapting his expertise in the traditional technique of etching to the diverse practices of contemporary artists. This exhibition focuses on Samuel’s “portable printing studio,” a specially made, travel-ready aquatint box that he first used in 1996 with the performance artist Marina Abramović (Yugoslav, b. 1946), traveling to the artist’s Amsterdam studio to work with the artist in her own environment. The result, Spirit Cooking (1996), a portfolio that functions as a cookbook of “essential aphrodisiac recipes,” is on view in the exhibition, along with Samuel’s project with Chris Burden, Coyote Stories (2005), which recounts through handwritten texts and allusive imagery the artist’s personal encounters with coyotes near his Topanga Canyon, California, home. As part of Print/Out, Samuel has worked on a new portfolio with the artists and twin brothers Gert and Uwe Tobias (German, b. Romania, 1973), whose colorful, graphic compositions draw on a range of motifs, from popular culture, Eastern European folk art, and Russian Constructivism. Over the course of three days, Samuel worked with the artists in their Cologne studio, teaching them the basics of etching and helping them translate and adapt motifs from their visual lexicon into a set of plates. Print/Out follows this project through the printing, proofing, and publishing process, presenting a range of working materials and documentation in the galleries, and taking the opportunity to study one of Samuel’s collaborations from start to finish.

Within the exhibition these and other focused presentations are featured alongside areas physically demarcated with dotted wallpaper, in which print series by various artists—including Trisha Donnelly, Damien Hirst, Guillermo Kuitca, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Julie Mehretu, Jorge Pardo, Slavs and Tatars, Kara Walker, Franz West, Pae White, and Xu Bing—are broken apart and interspersed throughout the galleries. The layouts of these sections were designed by Armand Mevis and Linda Van Deursen (Mevis and Van Deursen, Amsterdam), who also served as the designers of the exhibition’s publication. The resulting view within the galleries captures both the familiarity and the ubiquity of prints in today’s landscape, and attests to the extraordinary vitality of a medium central to contemporary artistic practice.

Printin’
February 15-May 14, 2012
The Paul J. Sachs Prints and Illustrated Books Galleries, second floor
As part of Print/Out, the related exhibition Printin’, co-organized by artist Ellen Gallagher (American, b. 1965) and Sarah Suzuki, Associate Curator, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books at MoMA, is also on view. Printin’ takes as its starting point DeLuxe (2004-05), a tour de force portfolio of 60 works by Gallagher that challenged traditional ideas of what a print could be. This technically complex work employs a range of mediums, unorthodox tools, and elements, from slicks of greasy pomade to plastic ice cubes. DeLuxe also offers a constellation of ideas, touching on such issues as portraiture, identity, history, advertising, commodity, and the disruption, translation, and recasting of space. Proposing a kind of technical dissection and conceptual unpacking of this portfolio, Printin’ brings together work by more than 50 artists from multiple disciplines in a sweeping chronology that extends from the 17th century to the present day, to propose a free-flowing yet incisive web of associations that are reflected in DeLuxe. Encompassing prints, drawings, films, books, photographs, sculptures, videos, and comic strips, the exhibition features such artists as Vija Celmins, David Hammons, George Herriman, Rammellzee, Robert Rauschenberg, Martha Rosler, Experiens Sillemans, and many others, forming a dense network of formal, technical, and conceptual connections and intersections.

SPONSORSHIP: Major support for Print/Out is provided by MoMA’s Wallis Annenberg Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art through the Annenberg Foundation.

The Museum acknowledges generous funding from Anna Marie and Robert F. Shapiro, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Orentreich Family Foundation, Mary M. Spencer, Philip Aarons and Shelley Fox Aarons, and Sally and Wynn Kramarsky.

Additional support is provided by The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art.

RELATED INSTALLATION:
Millennium Magazines
February 20-May 14, 2012
Mezzanine Level, The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building
This survey of experimental art and design magazines published since 2000 explores the various ways in which contemporary artists and designers utilize the magazine format as an experimental space for the presentation of artworks and text. Throughout the 20th century, international avant-garde activities in the visual arts and design were often codified first in the informal context of a magazine or journal. This exhibition, drawn from the holdings of the MoMA Library, follows the practice into the 21st century. The works on view represent a broad array of international titles within this genre, from community-building newspapers to image-only photography magazines to conceptual design projects. The contents illustrate a diverse range of image-making, editing, design, printing, and distribution practices. There are obvious connections to the past lineage of artists’ magazines and small press architecture and design magazines of the 20th century, as well as a clear sense of the application of new techniques of image-editing and printing methods. Assembled together, these contemporary magazines provide a first-hand view into these practices and represent the MoMA Library’s sustained effort to document and collect this medium. Millennium Magazine is organized by Rachael Morrison and David Senior, MoMA Library.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS:
Artist and Publisher: Printmaking and the Collaborative Process
MoMA hosts two conversations between publishers and artists featured in the exhibition Print/Out and Printin’ as they discuss their creative practice and the process of collaboration. Christophe Cherix, The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books and organizer of Print/Out, moderates.
Thursday, February 16, 6:00 p.m., The Celeste Bartos Theater
Artist Ellen Gallagher in conversation with publishers and printers at Two Palms Press.
Tuesday, February 28, 6:00 p.m., The Celeste Bartos Theater
Artist Marina Abramović in conversation with Los Angeles publisher/printer Edition Jacob Samuel.
Tickets ($10, $8 members and corporate members, $5 students, seniors and staff of other museums) are available online, at the information desk in the main lobby, and at the film desk after 4:00 p.m. Any remaining tickets may be picked up one hour before the start of the program at the Education and Research Building ticketing desk.

Print Studio
January 23 to March 9, 2012
Open daily, Wednesday to Monday, 12:00-4:00 p.m.
Mezzanine Level, The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building
Print Studio is an interactive space that explores the evolution of artistic practices relating to the medium of print. The Studio offers a series of free drop-in workshops, lectures, and events that emphasize accessible and sustainable models for the production and dissemination of ideas.
See separate press release for complete details and schedule or visit MoMA.org/PrintStudio.
Print Studio is made possible by a partnership with Volkswagen of America.

AUDIO GUIDES:
The audio guide accompanying Print/Out features exhibition organizer Christophe Cherix joined
by artists Rirkrit Tiravanija, Alexandra Mir, and Lucy McKenzie, among other artists, publishers, and printers, along with a new, specially-produced soundscape by participating artist Trisha Donnelly. The audio guide accompanying Printin’ is led by artist Ellen Gallagher and Associate Curator Sarah Suzuki. Artists David Shrigley, Simon Fujiwara, and Martha Rosler also discuss the exhibition, while poet Terence Hayes and artist-performer Theaster Gates read the poetry of Aimé Césaire and Bob Kaufman. MoMA Audio is also available for download at MoMA.org, at MoMA.org/audio, and as a podcast on iTunes. MoMA Audio is available free of charge courtesy of Bloomberg.

PUBLICATION:
A fully illustrated publication accompanies the exhibition and includes essays and interviews by Mr. Cherix, Ms. Suzuki, and Ms. Conaty. Print/Out: 20 Years in Print features focused sections on 10 artists and publishers—Ai Weiwei, Ellen Gallagher, Martin Kippenberger, Lucy McKenzie, Aleksandra Mir, museum in progress, Edition Jacob Samuel, SUPERFLEX, Robert Rauschenberg, and Rirkrit Tiravanija—as well as rich illustrations of printed projects from the last two decades by major artists such as Trisha Donnelly, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Thomas Schütte, and Kelley Walker. 236 pages, 585 illustrations. Paperback, $50. Available at the MoMA Stores and online at MoMAStore.org. Distributed to the trade through ARTBOOK | D.A.P. in the United States and Canada, and through Thames & Hudson outside North America.

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Public Information:
The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019, (212) 708-9400, MoMA.org
Hours: Wednesday through Monday, 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Friday, 10:30 a.m.-8:00 p.m. Closed
Tuesday
Museum Admission: $25 adults; $18 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $14 full-time students with current I.D. Free, members and children 16 and under. (Includes admittance to Museum galleries and film programs). MoMA.org: $22.50 adults; $16 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $12 full-time students with current I.D. No service charge for tickets ordered on MoMA.org. Tickets purchased online may be printed out and presented at the Museum without waiting in line. (Includes admittance to Museum galleries and film programs).
Film Admission: $12 adults; $10 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $8 full-time students with current I.D. (for admittance to film programs only)
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BEVERLY HILLS, CA - One of just 300 first edition copies printed of Ernest Hemingway’s first book - Three Stories & Ten Poems. [Paris]: Contact Publishing Co., 1923 - is expected to bring $75,000+ when it comes across the auction block on Thursday, Feb. 8, as the lead lot in Heritage Auctions’ Rare Books Signature® Auction, taking place at the company’s Beverly Hills showroom, 9478 West Olympic Boulevard.

“Any Hemingway first edition is a highly sought-after thing,” said James Gannon, Director of Rare Books auctions at Heritage, “let alone the very first book he ever published. Making it even more interesting is the warm inscription from Hemingway to two of the editors of The Little Review, the important ‘little magazine’ that published works by avant garde writers of the time such as James Joyce and T. S. Eliot and who published Hemingway’s first mature prose work the very same year.”

That inscription reads: “For j.h. [Jane Heap] and Margaret Anderson with love from Hemingway.”

Heritage Rare Book auctions have increasingly become known as a leader in rare Sci-Fi and Fantasy editions, and one of the most interesting groupings of the auction comes from the Jack Cordes Collection of Science Fiction. It is an amazing assemblage of rare first edition Sci-Fi books inscribed to Mr. Cordes by a veritable who’s who of the genre: Ray Bradbury, Ayn Rand, Kurt Vonnegut, Charles Beaumont, and more, including a 1957 first edition of Philip Jose Farmer’s classic The Green Odyssey, New York: Ballantine Books, inscribed to Cordes: “Jack, /I know you'll have/a pleasant voyage on your/green odyssey through the/matrimonial sea, because/you'll not be wanting to escape/your own personal Amra./Philip Jose Farmer.” It is estimated at $2,000+.

Two of the 18th century’s greatest writers are represented by first editions of what are among their most important works: fans of Charles Dickens will thrill to the inclusion of several of his Christmas books, including A Christmas Carol; The Chimes; The Cricket on the Hearth; The Battle of Life; The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain (estimate: $15,000+), while Edgar Allan Poe aficionados will take special note of his Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1840 (estimate: $15,000+).

James Bond fans will be happy to find several early Ian Fleming works in this auction, including a gorgeous first edition of Goldfinger, London: Jonathan Cape, [1959], inscribed by Fleming on the front free endpaper, “To Gerald Micklem, This piece - of homework! from (sic) Ian Fleming.” It carries a pre-auction estimate of $15,000+.

A rare Pony Express Bible - The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments… - New York: American Bible Society, 1857, is already making collectors take note as it readies for the auction. The thick, pocket-sized volume, bound in eights, is still in its original custom leather binding, with "PRESENTED BY / RUSSELL, MAJORS & WADDELL / 1858" in gilt at the center of the front board. It is estimated at $10,000+.

“There few things more evocative to Americans than the thought of the Pony Express,” said Gannon. “These bibles, issued to riders and employees of the company that ran the Pony Express are true prizes of Americana, and we expect collectors will bid accordingly.”

Rare Incunabula, or books from the first 50 years of printing following Gutenberg, are represented in the Feb. 8 auction by a rare copy of Guillelmus Duranti’s Rationale divinorum officiorum. [Paris: Ulrich [Gering], Martin [Crantz], and Michael [Friburger], 13 April 1475], which is expected to bring $15,000+.

“This auction, across the board, presents a superb selection of major literature from across the epochs,” said Gannon, “from Chaucer to Cormac McCarthy, a considerable grouping of rare early American imprints, a wonderful selection of genre literature, an outstanding group of children's & illustrated titles and more selected artwork from the estate of illustrator Garth Williams. There is something for every level of collector in this one.”

Further highlights include, but are not limited to:
Samuel Augustus Mitchell, Description of Oregon and California, Embracing an Account of the Gold Regions... Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwait & Co., 1849: Second edition, with an excellent example of the rare “New Map of Texas Oregon and California.” Estimate: $7,500+.

Thomas Hardy, Desperate Remedies. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1871: First edition of Hardy's rare first book, one of only about 500 copies printed. Inscribed by Hardy on a slip of paper mounted on the recto of the front free endpaper of volume I: “Autographed as requested- / Thomas Hardy.” Estimate: $7,000+.

(Joaquin Miller) C. H. Miller, Specimens (A Tale of the Rogue River War), Portland, printed by George Himes, 1868: First edition of Miller's first book and one of the rarest of all books to emanate from the west - only about 10 copies exist. Estimate: $7,500+.

Henry M. Stanley, In Darkest Africa or the Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of Equatoria. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1890: Estimate: $4,000+.

Salvador Dali, Illustrator - Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 12 Illustrations with Original Woodcuts and an Original Etching by Salvador Dali. New York: Maecenas Press-Random House, 1969: One of 2,500 numbered portfolios printed on Mandeure paper, signed by the artist on the title-page. Estimate: $4,000+.

Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are Prints, (N.p., 1971): Complete set of four art prints, each printed in 1971 from the original drawings for this classic and influential picture book, each printed on a single sheet, measuring 15 x 24 inches, and signed by Sendak in the lower left hand corner. Estimate: $3,000+.

The Center For Book Arts is Pleased to Present Its Winter 2012 Exhibition

Fine & Dirty
Contemporary Letterpress Art
January 18th to March 31st 2012
Fine & Dirty
When: January 18th to March 31st 2012 Where: 28 W. 27th St., 3rd Floor, New York, NY
Subway: N/R to 28th St, or F to 23rd St Admission: free

Organized by Betty Bright and Jeff Rathermel, Minnesota Center for Book Arts

The practice of letterpress printing incorporates craft standards and the book’s haptic character, along with art world strategies, materials and content. With Fine & Dirty, the Center for Book Arts’ Winter 2012 Exhibition, the curators assemble work that represents the best in letterpress books today, created by established and emerging artists. The exhibit explores the forces that are reshaping the meanings of craft in letterpress printing in the twenty-first century, and that may shed light on the larger craft-world’s relationship to art and to life. The exhibition also investigates other influences on current letterpress work. These include DIY (Do It Yourself) and its playful organizational spin-off for letterpress, ILLSA (Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts); Asian influences such as wabi sabi; international influences such as the UK’s Ken Campbell’s improvisatory approach and Ron King’s theatrical presentations, and a heightened focus on design and on a wide use of papers seen in work by Germany’s Viktoria Schäpers and Barbara Tetenbaum.

Visit our website for up-to-date details: www.centerforbookarts.org

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR BOOK ARTS

The Center for Book Arts is committed to exploring and cultivating contemporary aesthetic interpretations of the book as an art object, while invigorating traditional artistic practices of the art of the book. The Center seeks to facilitate communication between the book arts community and the larger spheres of contemporary art and literature through exhibitions, classes, public programming, literary presentations, opportunities for artists and writers, publications, and collecting. Founded in 1974, the Center for Book Arts was the first organization of its kind in the nation.
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Los Angeles - Timed to coincide with the 45th California International Antiquarian Book Fair, Bonhams is pleased offer property from the Serendipity Bookstore in Berkeley, CA on February 12.  Highlights will include general antiquarian books, art and fine press, modern literature and poetry with a section dedicated to John Steinbeck, Americana and early baseball literature.
 
Peter Howard [1939-2011] of the landmark Bay Area Serendipity Books has been eulogized as "one of the most imaginative booksellers of his generation."  Howard stocked not only individual titles but entire collections.  The store was organized in sections by the original source: a collection of modern poetry from collector X is in one corner; another collection with similar titles from another source might be on the opposite side of the building.  It wasn't a library and so, to Howard's mind, it wasn't supposed to be organized like one.

The bookstore on University, for those who never crossed its threshold, was a warren of rooms filled to the roof with titles from the mundane and popular to the erudite and obscure.  Howard wanted people to search for their books, looking carefully and hopefully finding not only what they were looking for, but far more.
 
The centerpiece of the February sale is Howard's tremendous collection of John Steinbeck material.  This includes the typed manuscript of "The Pearl of the World," the original short story version of The Pearl (est. $15,000-20,000); copy number 4 of The Red Pony, a presentation copy inscribed to Louis Paul (est. $2,000-3,000); an inscribed copy of Cup of Gold (est. $10,000-15,000); an inscribed copy of The Grapes of Wrath (est. $10,000-15,000); Steinbeck's novella version of Lifeboat, written at the behest of Alfred Hitchcock (est. $5,000-7,000); advance proofs of several of his most famous novels (estimates vary); as well as letters, photographs (estimates vary), and even a signed document relating to a proposed musical version of Viva, Zapata! (est. $2,000-3,000).
 
The Antiquarian section features early printed works in architecture, travel literature natural history, and English literature including a first collected edition of Beaumont and Fletcher (est. $1,000-2,000) and several Thackeray titles in parts (estimates vary).
 
The Art, Fine Press and Photography offering includes a portrait of William Blake by Leonard Baskin (est. $1,000-1,500); a group of signed photographs of Wright Morris (est. $8,000-12,000); and several albums of 19th and early 20th century photograph albums, including images of India and California (estimates vary).
 
In the Modern Literature and Poetry section features a rare broadside of Elizabeth Bishop's poem, The Fish, one of only 12 known copies (est. $3,000-5,000); a large group of Lawrence Durrell first editions and letters (estimates vary); a strong selection of William Faulkner material, including a signed copy of Sartoris, the Ole Miss yearbook from 1918 featuring a submission by Faulkner (est. $8,000-12,000), screenplay adaptations of his work (estimates vary), and a photograph of himself taken in 1960, signed and inscribed for his longtime love, Meta Carpenter Rebner (est. $3,000-5,000).
 
The sale will also feature an impressive group of Robinson Jeffers novels and letters (estimates vary); the exceedingly rare James Joyce broadside, Gas from a Burner, his angry farewell to Ireland after the suppression of his book Dubliners (est. $12,000-18,000); Ross Macdonald's working manuscript of the screenplay version of The Instant Enemy (est. $5,000-7,000); Nancy Mitford's manuscript of her biography Madame de Pompadour (est. 1,200-1,800); Carl Sandburg's guitar (est. $10,000-15,000); and original costume designs by Orson Welles for Macbeth (est. $800-1,200) and another production (3,000-5,000).
 
In honor of Howard's great love for the game of baseball, the auction will conclude with a rare offering of baseball material, including one of the earliest known baseball broadsides for the first intercollegiate ball game (est. $2,500-3,500), and an 18th century German book that contains one of the first known mention of "das englische Base-ball" (and its other variants of the period, Thorball, Schnurball, Fangball and Prellball) (est.12,000-18,000).
 
Additional property from Serendipity Books will be offered by Bonhams throughout 2012 in the following auctions: Fine Photography in New York on May 8, Period Art & Design in San Francisco on April 15 and May 20, Made in California in Los Angeles on May 21, Fine Books and Manuscripts in New York on June 19 and Entertainment Memorabilia in Los Angeles on June 24.
 
The illustrated auction catalog for this sale will be available online for review and purchase at www.bonhams.com/us in the weeks preceding the sale.
 
San Francisco Preview: February 3-5
 
Los Angeles Preview: February 9-11
 
Auction: April 16, Los Angeles, simulcast to San Francisco

 

New York—On Thursday, February 23 Swann Galleries will conduct an auction of Private Press & Illustrated Books that features highly desirable press books from two fine American collections.

The top lot in the sale is the Kelmscott Press masterpiece The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer now newly imprinted, first edition, Hammersmith, 1896 (estimate: $30,000 to $50,000). Master craftsman William Morris only printed 425 copies of this extraordinarily influential book—he had to refuse orders for hundreds more due to time constraints—and upon his death later the same year the woodcuts were given to the British Museum and the fonts to the University Press, Cambridge, so no further copies could be printed.

Other Kelmscott examples of note include a first edition of the first book they printed, The Story of the Glittering Plain, 1891 ($3,000 to $4,000); a copy of The Poems of William Shakespeare, inscribed by Morris to English critic and poet Theodore Watts-Dunton in the year of its publication, 1893 ($4,000 to $6,000); and a rare edition of Syr Ysambrace, one of only eight on vellum and in the original binding, 1897 ($5,000 to $7,500).

Kelmscott’s influence led to the creation of several other English presses, many of which are also represented in the sale. From the Ashendene Press is Cervantes’s Don Quixote, London, 1927-28, which was Ashendene’s largest work ($1,200 to $1,800); and an association copy of Edmund Spencer’s Minor Poems, warmly inscribed by publisher Charles Henry St. John Hornby to engraver Emery Walker of Doves Press, Chelsea 1925 ($2,000 to $3,000). A handful of works by Doves Press are also in the sale.

A wonderful example by Eragny Press is a dedication copy of Songs by Ben Jonson, one of only 10 copies on vellum, with a colored frontispiece, border and initials by Lucien Pissarro, the press’s founder and son of Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro, inscribed by Lucien and Esther Pissarro to J.M. Andreini, London, 1906 ($1,500 to $2,500).

A run of works by the celebrated Golden Cockerel Press features Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, Waltham St. Lawrence, 1928-31 ($4,000 to $6,000); Troilus and Criseyde, 1927 ($2,000 to $3,500); and The Four Gospels of the Lord Jesus Christ, 1931 ($4,000 to $6,000).

Eric Gill, who designed typefaces and illustrated several works for Golden Cockerel, also collaborated on one of the most beautiful illustrated books of the 20th century: the Cranach Press’s The Tragedie of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, with a title page designed by Gill, one of 300 in deluxe red morocco binding, Weimar, 1930 ($3,500 to $5,000).

From the same era are a wonderful association copy of Merrymount Press’s printing of the controversial protestant Episcopal revision of The Book of Common Prayer by the General Convention of 1928, ex-collections J.P. Morgan and C.H. St. John Hornby, Boston, 1928-30 ($3,000 to $4,000); an unusually nice copy of Grabhorn Press’s edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, New York, 1930 ($2,000 to $3,000); Shakespeare Head Press’s Odes of Victory; The Nemean and Isthmian Odes by Pindar, one of seven on vellum, Oxford, 1930 ($4,000 to $6,000); and one of the most impressive books by the Gregynog Press, The History of Saint Louis by John, Lord of Joinville Seneschal of Champagne, 1937 ($1,200 to $1,800).

A rich assortment of titles from contemporary and modern American presses includes Arion Press’s Moby-Dick, or, The Whale, one of 250 copies of the first trade edition designed by Andrew Hoyem, San Francisco, 1979 ($5,000 to $7,500), and a deluxe edition of The Great Gatsby, signed by and with two original drawings by Michael Graves, who illustrated the book, 1984 ($4,000 to $6,000); Janus Press’s scarce Aura by Hayden Carruth with an accordion folded multi-color paper pulp landscape, from an edition of 50, West Burke, Vermont, 1977 ($2,000 to $3,000), and The Circus of Doctor Lao, by Charles G. Finney, signed by the author and illustrator Claire Van Vliet, 1984 ($2,500 to $3,500); and Pennyroyal Press’s Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, one of 50 deluxe copies for patrons signed by Barry Moser, 1982 ($2,500 to $3,500), and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, signed by Moser and with an additional suite of prints, 1985 ($1,500 to $2,500).

Examples of collectible Limited Editions Club books are signed copies of John Hersey’s Hiroshima, with a poem by Robert Penn Warren, and illustrated by Jacob Lawrence, New York, 1983 ($1,200 to $1,800); Duane Michaels’s A Tribute to Cavafy: A Selection of Poems with Photogravures, 2003 ($2,000 to $3,000); and Junichiro Tanizaki’s A Portrait of Shunkin, illustrated with Eikoh Hosoe photographs, 2000 ($1,200 to $1,800).

From the modern British Parvenu Press is Judith Kazantzis’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, one of 12 signed copies, London, 2003 ($2,000 to $3,000).

Rounding out the press books are editions from Aquarius Press, Bird & Pull Press, Cheloniidae Press, Essex House press, Grabhorn Press, Nonesuch Press, Officina Bodoni, Tideline Press and more.

Illustrated books of note include Michael Mazur’s collaboration with Robert Pinsky on a new illustrated translation of The Inferno of Dante, first deluxe edition, signed by Mazur, New York, 2002 ($5,000 to $7,500).

The auction will begin at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 23. The books will be on public exhibition Friday, February 17, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Tuesday, February 21 and Wednesday, February 22, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Thursday, February 23, from 10 a.m. to noon.

An illustrated catalogue, with information on bidding by mail or fax, is available for $35 from Swann Galleries, Inc., 104 East 25th Street, New York, NY 10010, or online at www.swanngalleries.com.

For further information, and to make advance arrangements to bid by telephone during the auction, please contact Christine von der Linn at (212) 254-4710, extension 20, or via e-mail at cvonderlinn@swanngalleries.com.

Live online bidding is available via Artfact. Click on the Artfact link on the swanngalleries.com homepage.
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ITHACA, N.Y. (Jan. 31, 2012) - Cornell University Library’s extensive new collection of African-American photographs contains impressive images of iconic leaders of the civil rights movement and world-changing events — but the less momentous moments in black history make up an equally important part of the collection.
 
Among the nearly 2,000 items, recently donated by Beth and Stephan Loewentheil, are images of African Americans going about their regular lives in the 19th and 20th centuries.
 
“Certainly, African Americans were fighting for justice in this country, but at the same time, they were celebrating births and graduations and marriages, mourning deaths, holding family reunions, buying new homes and cars and clothes — the stuff of everyday life,” said Katherine Reagan, curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts. “Those things can be easily overshadowed, but this collection provides a window into the lives of men and women who are so frequently underrepresented in the historical record.”

Images in the collection depict the African-American experience from slavery in the agricultural antebellum South to celebrities of modern media-frenzied America.

“I'm thrilled about the collection for the possibilities it offers for research in African and African American Studies, especially as portraits like those in the new collection are hard to find today in both private and public collections,” said Cheryl Finley, associate professor of art at Cornell. “Images such as these reveal volumes about the social, material, cultural and political lives of the people pictured as well as those who may have lived similar lives or had similar experiences.”

Among the collection’s most memorable images are striking photographs of Martin Luther King Jr. in a jail cell, rare tintypes of freed slaves and personal family photo albums. The photographs also encompass a wide diversity of formats: daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, carte-de-visite photographs, albumen prints, Polaroids and more.

In honor of Black History Month, the Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections will display a sample of the collection in the gallery space between Olin and Kroch libraries on Cornell’s main campus in Ithaca, N.Y. The exhibition will open Wednesday, Feb. 1, and it is free and open to the public.

The collection will soon be open to researchers from all over the world and, Reagan added, “it has a tremendously high research value. It’s a trove of material that will help scholars who are looking for a more comprehensive view of a period that saw enormous changes for people of color in the United States.”

The African-American photographs are the newest component of the Beth and Stephan JD ’75 Loewentheil Family Photographic Collection, a magnificent set of 16,000 historic images that make up a candid cross-section of the early American experience. Many of those photographs are also currently on display on level 2B of the Carl A. Kroch Library as part of the major exhibition, “Dawn’s Early Light: The First 50 Years of American Photography.”

To learn more and see a sampling of the images, visit http://communications.library.cornell.edu/news/afamphotos.