Book Fairs | August 27, 2018

Northhampton, MA—Flamingo Eventz and the Southern New England Antiquarian Booksellers have joined forces to present the 14th Annual Pioneer Valley Book & Ephemera Fair on Sunday, October 14, 10am - 4pm at Smith Vocational School, 80 Locust St (Rt. 9), Northampton, MA. Exhibitors from across the Northeast will fill the school’s cafeteria, stage, corridors, and lobby with collectible, rare, antique, modern, fine, scholarly and used books, manuscripts, prints, maps, autographs, photographs, postcards and every other sort of printed ephemera.

Exhibitor Specialties include: Advertising Covers, African American, Americana, Architecture, Art, Art Deco, Auctions, Autographs, Aviation, Baseball, Books, Bibles, Black History, Black Power, Calendars, Calling Cards, Christmas, Circus, Civil War, Cook Books, Charts, Children’s Books, Cocktails, Design, Dogs, Die Cuts, Documents, Engineering, Engraving, Ephemera, Erotica, Esoterica, Fantasy, Fashion, Fishing, Floridiana, Folklore, Folk Music, Foreign Language, Furniture, Games, Gardens & Horticulture, Graphics, Historic Documents, Horses, Hunting, Illustrated Books, Interior Design, Japan, Judaica, Letters, Logbooks, Manuscripts, Maps, Maritime, Medicine, Middle East, Military, Modernism, Music, Native American, Natural History, Nautical, Naval, New York City, New York State, New Jersey, Novelties, Olympic Games, Pacifica, Photographs, Photography, Pochoir, Polar, Pop-Ups & Moveable Books, Poetry, Postcards, Posters, Presentation Copies, Presidential Archives, Press Books, Prints, Pulitzer Prize Winners, Psychedelica, Puppetry, Puzzles, Railroad, Reference, Revolutionary War, Russia, Scholarly, Science, Science Fiction, Sports, Sporting, Technical, Theatre, Theology, Trade Cards, Trade Catalogues, Travel & Exploration, Travel Brochures, Typography, U.S. Coastal History, Vanity Fair Prints, Valentines, Voyages, Watercolors, Whaling, Wine, Yachting. These, and many other specialties, will be found at this event. Be sure to check our website, FlamingoEventz.com, for a full Exhibitor List and complete details.

The Pioneer Valley is a primary foliage destination in the fall, with many scenic hikes and drives, and you can pick your own apples and stock up on cider, pumpkins and chrysanthemums while visiting. Northampton and nearby Pioneer Valley towns provide a great variety of restaurants and entertainment. The Five Colleges, Smith College, University of Massachusetts, Amherst College, Hampshire College, and Mount Holyoke College offer library and museum exhibits and cultural events, but if it is Parents Weekend, hotels may fill quickly, so book early. Old Deerfield is nearby, Yankee Candle, too.

The school is on Route 9, near Cooley-Dickinson Hospital; there’s plenty of free parking. The event is catered by Black Sheep Deli from Amherst. Admission is $6, $1 off with a card or advertisement; $3 ages 12-21; under 12 free with paid Adult. Click flamingoeventz.com and pioneervalleybooks.com for more information as many local SNEAB members always exhibit. All are cordially invited.

Dates/Hours: Sunday October 14, 2018; 10am-4pm.

Location: The Smith Vocational School, 80 Locust Street (Rt. 9), Northampton, MA 01060.

Admission: Adults: $6, Students & Young Collectors 12-21: $3, under 12 free w/Paid Adult.

Directions: I-91 Exit 18, left on Pleasant Street, left on Rt. 9, Elm St, follow Rt. 9, it becomes Locust St.

Miscellaneous: Plenty of free parking and Refreshments will be available at an on-site café during show hours.

Book Fairs | August 24, 2018

Before the i-phone and “selfies”, there was the photobooth—the forerunner of instant photography. Baby Boomers will  remember sitting in the photobooth , primping, making faces, squeezing in friends. But, surprisingly, it is Millennial who are rediscovering the fun of the Photobooth. Invented by Siberian émigré, Anatol Josepho and first introduced in 1925, the photobooth is enjoying renewed popularity. Today, they’re a “must” for wedding receptions and would you believe - even made an appearance at the Academy Awards and the Emmys!  

At the upcoming Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair, Sept. 8 & 9 at the Brooklyn Expo Center in Greenpoint, the fascination of the photobooth will be explored in both a one-of-a-kind exhibit and talk by film and dark room photographer Nakki Goranin. The author of the American Photobooth, published by W.W. Norton and Co., and a long-time collector of fascinating photobooth images, Ms. Goranin will present her talk ,” The Photobooth: A Short History and Conversation about a Photographic Revolution,” on Saturday, Sept. 8th at 4:00 pm.  At the same time, show goers won’t want to miss the photobooth exhibit she has created especially for this Fair. It features a dozen blow-ups of her own work, including both photobooth and tintype art. 

Ms. Goranin, whose interest in photography started in childhood, spends hours at the computer, taking small vintage photos, not much larger than a quarter, enlarging them, playing with the tones and transforming  them. What was a vernacular shot becomes fine art. “What is so wonderful about the photobooth was the changing world it represented, and the fact that it made photography available to everyone,” notes Ms. Goranin.  

As many as 7,500 people a day would line up to have their photos taken for 25 cents in Josepho’s Photomaton Studio on Broadway in the 1920s. The 1953 film The Band Wagon saw Fred Astaire dancing into and out of a Photomatic booth.   Four years later, Esquire magazine lugged an art deco photobooth into Richard Avedon’s NYC studio for a stunning photo essay that included images of Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Truman Capote and Ethel Merman. Andy Warhol became fascinated with photobooth images in the 1960s, envisioning the color and sense of movement the artist could achieve by combining a variety of poses from the booth. 

“I think about the people in the Photobooth,” adds Ms. Goranin, “who they were on that day,  the time in which they lived. My favorite photobooth images are the most tender ones -- couples shyly kissing for the first time; images in which you can see genuine affection between people, as well as portraits that show humor, such as a blowup of three ‘wise guys’ - young men puffing on their cigars. I love each photo. I fall in love with the people in them. I strive to convey this feeling to the viewer.”

Ms. Goranin’s exhibit will also feature tintypes - a wet-plate process whereby a photograph is taken as a positive and applied on a thin tin plate.  An outstanding example is a photographic panorama of the Chicago Exhibition of 1893, which Ms. Goranin created from two separate images she purchased twenty years apart -- two of the few tintypes to survive from the Exhibition. Admission to the talk is free with online registration and purchase of a Fair ticket.

Image: This vintage Photobooth image from Nakki Goranin’s exhibit at the Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair came from the Midwest and was probably made in the era of the great farming migration and the dust bowl days.  Most likely they were farmboys in town for a Saturday adventure, getting their photo taken in a Photobooth for a quarter. Ms. Goranin, author of American Photobooth, will also offer a special talk on The Photobooth and its Revival of Memories at the fair on Saturday, September 8th, at 4 pm. 

News | August 22, 2018

New York - LiveAuctioneers, the world’s leading online marketplace for exceptional fine art, antiques and vintage collectibles, has released its Mid-Year 2018 Report confirming record results and a year-over-year pattern of growth unrivaled in the industry.

“In the first six months of 2018, LiveAuctioneers delivered winning bidders on more than 300,000 items and processed billions of dollars in winning bids and underbids,” said LiveAuctioneers CEO, Phil Michaelson. “We dramatically outperformed the competition, and our accelerating growth and Internet best practices continue to drive the highest-quality consignments to auction houses that are on the LiveAuctioneers platform. It has been a source of great pride for our team to be the lowest-cost provider of premium services and yet drive the best results in the industry.”

The first half of the year comparisons on a year-over-year basis include:

  • An increase of 37% more bids
  • An industry-leading average sell-through rate of 24.7%
  • An increase of more than 50,000 new bidders, on average, every month
  • Web and mobile traffic of over 23 million visits, up 34%
  • Over 133,000 consignments directed, an increase of more than 27%
  • Record online-auction results for Lucio Fontana art ($210,000), blockchain art ($140,000), Atsuko Tanaka art ($88,000), Finn Juhl furniture ($60,000) and more 

LiveAuctioneers has continued to invest in new solutions for growing its auction house partners’ sales and increasing the flow of their respective consignments. Customer-driven innovations like Custom Auction Software, Auction Previews, Timed Auctions, and payment by cryptocurrency are converting traditional ecommerce shoppers to live-auction winners through LiveAuctioneers. “We out-execute the competition, and auction houses on our platform are enjoying an increase of up to 40% in the number of items sold as compared to the first half of 2017,” Michaelson said. LiveAuctioneers’ free auction price results database, with over 21 million listings, is now faster to search and continues to be the leading resource for appraisers and consignors seeking auctioneers with whom to place consignments.

“Many other exciting improvements are in the pipeline for later this year,” Michaelson said. “The incredible results LiveAuctioneers achieved in the first half of 2018 are just the beginning. Our goal is to empower auction-house partners with tools and marketing products that take their sales to the next level. Our business model ensures alignment. We focus all of our energy on enabling partners to grow their respective businesses. If we do that effectively, our success takes care of itself.”

Click to view LiveAuctioneers’ 2018 mid-year results.

 

Auctions | August 22, 2018

New York—This fall, as part of the ongoing dialogue over AI and art, Christie’s will become the first major auction house to offer a work of art created by an algorithm, which will be included in the Prints & Multiples auction in New York October 23-25. The work is titled Portrait of Edmond de Belamy (estimate: $7,000-10,000), created by artificial intelligence and conceived by the Paris-based collective Obvious.

The portrait depicts a gentleman, possibly French and — to judge by his dark frockcoat and plain white collar — a man of the church. The work appears unfinished: the facial features are somewhat indistinct and there are blank areas of canvas. The portrait, however, is not the product of a human mind. It is one of a group of 11 unique portraits of the fictional Belamy family conceived by Obvious, a Paris-based collective consisting of Hugo Caselles-Dupré, Pierre Fautrel and Gauthier Vernier.

Hugo Caselles-Dupré, representative of Obvious, describes the process: “This new technology allows us to experiment on the notion of creativity for a machine, and the parallel with the role of the artist in the creation process. The approach invites the observer to consider and evaluate the similarities and distinctions between the mechanics within the human brain, such as the creative process, and the ones of an algorithm. We wish to emphasize the parallel between the input parameters used for training an algorithm, and the expertise and influences that craft the style of an artist. Most of all, we want the viewer to focus on the creative process: an algorithm usually functions by replicating human behavior, but it learns by using a path of its own.”

Richard Lloyd, International Head of Prints & Multiples, comments: “Christie’s continually stays attuned to changes in the art market and how technology can impact the creation and consumption of art. AI has already been incorporated as a tool by contemporary artists and as this technology further develops, we are excited to participate in these continued conversations. To best engage in the dialogue, we are offering a public platform to exhibit an artwork that has entirely been realized by an algorithm.”

In July 2018, Christie’s London staged a symposium on the profound implications of blockchain for artists and collectors. The inaugural technology conference will be an annual event, and AI will very likely be one of the next topics explored. This October, when the Portrait of Edmond de Belamy goes under the hammer in the Prints & Multiples sale it will signal the arrival of AI art on the world auction stage. Proceeds from the sale of this lot will be used to further the collective’s research into training its algorithm and to finance the computation power needed to produce this type of artwork.

About the process:

Obvious is engaged in exploring the interface between art and artificial intelligence, using a method known as a ‘generative adversarial network’ or the acronym GAN. This series is referred to as “La Famille de Belamy,” was named as a tribute to the inventor of GANs, Ian Goodfellow (“Goodfellow” is roughly translated to “Bel ami” in French). Created by an algorithm composed of two parts, The Generator and the Discriminator, the system was fed a data set of 15,000 portraits. The Generator made new images based on the set and the Discriminator reviewed all outputs until it deemed the result imperceptible whether done from a human-hand or attributed to the algorithm. The work included in the October sale is Edmond de Belamy, the ‘youngest’ documented member of the family or the ‘newest’ born creation of the algorithm. For additional information visit the Christie’s online feature: Is artificial intelligence set to become art’s next medium?

Image: Generative Adversarial Network print, on canvas, 2018, 70x70 cm (60x60 cm unframed) signed with GAN model loss function in ink by the publisher, from a series of eleven unique images, published by Obvious Art, Paris, with original gilded wood frame. Estimate: $7,000-10,000

Book Fairs | August 20, 2018

The second weekend of June 2019 promises to be unmissable for book lovers as a major new fair will open every day between Thursday 6 and Sunday 9 June. For the first time the flagship summer book fairs of the ABA and PBFA will coincide with the annual London Map Fair and Etc Fairs' Bloomsbury Book Fair. 

For many years the fairs have been days or even weeks apart. 2019 will mark a return to traditional June dates which will not clash with Bank or School Holidays. Collectors, dealers and curators from around the world will not have to make tough decisions about which fairs to attend.

Book, map and print lovers can start this special weekend with an extravaganza of books at the PBFA London Antiquarian Book Fair. Opening at noon on Thursday June 6, and running through Friday June 7, the IBIS hotel in Lille Road will welcome over 100 dealers from all around the world.  This guarantees a wide range of material to suite every interest and pocket.

Opening on Friday June 7 and running through to Sunday June 9: Firsts - London’s Rare Book Fair, the ABA’s annual flagship event and one of the most prestigious rare books fairs in the world, will be staged in beautiful Battersea Park and will welcome over 170 international exhibitors.

Opening at noon on Saturday June 8: The London Map Fair. Held annually at the Royal Geographical Society, SW7, with over 40 leading international exhibitors, this is the largest as well as the oldest specialist antique map fair in the world. 

The Bloomsbury Book Fair, organised by Etc Fairs will be held on Sunday June 9 from 10am - 3.30pm. With over 120 dealers from the UK, Europe and further afield, the summer fair is a key event in their fairs calendar, always drawing an excellently diverse selection of buyers and booksellers.

Auctions | August 20, 2018

Dallas, TX - America’s rarest, rabble-rousing poke-in-the-eye to British Parliament - a seldom-seen political cartoon celebrating the 1773 Boston Tea Party - is expected to sell for more than $20,000 after surfacing in Heritage Auctions’ Aug. 25 Americana auction. It was published mere months after the Sons of Liberty, disguised as Mohawk Indians, took to Boston Harbor and destroyed more than 92,000 pounds of tea. Just six copies of the copper engraved cartoon are known in institutional holdings.

Titled: “Liberty Triumphant or the Downfall of Oppression,” the illustration shows the response of New Englanders to the British Tea Tax, enacted in 1773, drawn over a map of the northern and middle colonies. Probably published in Philadelphia or New York, the cartoon is attributed to Henry Dawkins, an engraver who was arrested in 1776 on suspicion of counterfeiting continental and provincial currency, which resulted in a $1,500 fine. 

“Revolutionary era cartoons are in exceedingly high demand, and this is an extremely rare print,” Heritage Auctions Americana Director Tom Slater said. “This is a very important cartoon that addresses one of the most successful acts of civil protest in the history of our country. We are aware of just six other copies, all of which are in institutional holdings, making the demand for this one even higher among serious collectors.”

The Boston-based Sons of Liberty, a secret society formed to protect the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government, targeted the Tea Act of 1773, which allowed the British India Company to sidestep some tax liability while selling tea from China in American colonies, thereby effectively undercutting local tea merchants. Protestors, some of whom were disguised as Native Americans, destroyed an entire shipment of tea on December 16, 1773, forcing the closing of Boston Harbor.

Published after December 23, 1773 and before April 1774, the image is decidedly busy, filled with captions and quote balloons from nearly all of the 30 characters. The left side of the cartoon shows British politicians and merchants with the devil, and American colonists - seven of whom are dressed as Native Americans representing those at the Boston Tea Party - on the right. 

Captions at the bottom of the cartoon serve as a key to explain the people and symbolic figures portrayed in it. Most of those on the left are representatives of the East India Company; those in the lower right are colonial merchants who opposed the Tea Party but deemed it better to acquiesce, since the deed was done. On the far right side of the cartoon is a British ship like those the protesters wanted to redirect back to England, prevented from discharging its cargo of tea.

The December 16, 1773 Boston Tea Party was the most dramatic act of civil disobedience to the Tea Act passed the previous spring. Mass protests in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Charleston effectively prevented the unloading of cargo, leading to the passage of the “Intolerable Acts” and the forced closing of Boston harbor.

News | August 17, 2018

In an effort to aid in the recovery of materials missing as a result of the Carnegie Library theft, the ABAA requests the assistance of the public in bringing its attention to the list of items believed stolen.

Should any member of the public identify having purchased or otherwise having knowledge of the disposition or current location of any items from the Carnegie Library—whether on this list or not—please contact one of the following detectives from Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office:

· Det. Fran Laquatra 

  (412) 388-5305 

  flaquatra@alleghenycountyda.us

· Det. Perann Tansmore                   

  (412) 388-5307                           

  ptansmore@alleghenycountyda.us         `

· Det. Lyle Graber                           

  (412) 388-5316                           

  lgraber@alleghenycountyda.us

Please note, the detectives do not have reason to believe that anyone who may have purchased any of these items was necessarily aware that the material had been reported stolen.

Book Fairs | August 17, 2018

It’s the largest known collection of artwork and photography produced by the leading Swedish and Scandinavian artists of the 1960s and 70s counterculture. The Swedish Underground Exhibition, one of the finest examples of the shift in post-war art in Sweden, is coming to the Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair, Sept. 8 & 9 at the Brooklyn Expo Center in Greenpoint. The exhibition will be on view both days of the Fair during show hours in the Center’s exhibit room.   

Organized and curated by Johan Kugelberg, founder of Boo-Hooray, the organization he formed to formalize his archival collections of hip hop, punk and counter culture art,  the exhibition features major artistic voices of the time. At the center of the movement is Carl Johan De Geer, the Swedish artist and photographer, who began taking photographs in the 1960s that captured the grit of everyday Swedish life. De Geer’s photographs serve as a visual record of the era’s societal and cultural upheaval in otherwise conservative Sweden.

Like many artists of the time, De Geer became associated with Galleri Karlsson, considered the epicenter of the countercultural movement. The gallery exhibited artists such as De Geer and his wife, Mari-Louise De Geer, an accomplished artist in her own right;  Lars Hillersberg, Lena Svedberg, and Oyvind Fahlstrom - all of whom are represented in the upcoming exhibition.

In the late 60’s, De Geer, along with Svedberg, Hillersberg, and two other Swedish artists were associated with the leading Swedish underground publication of the Time, Puss magazine, contributing to its satire-driven, progressive content. The work of Lars Hillersberg, often employed humor and caricature in his political cartoons. Oyvind Fahlstrome served as New York correspondent, covering the city’s underground art scene.

Lena Svedberg (1946-1972) is cited as the greatest political artist associated with Puss. A compulsive draftsman, she avoided gallery shows, making her work difficult to sell.  De Geer’s documentary, “ I Remember Lena Svedberg is a masterful tribute to the artist, who committed suicide at age 16. The Swedish Underground Exhibit contains several original Svedberg artworks, as well as reproductions in prints and publications such as Puss.

Johan Kugelberg, who teaches and hosts symposiums at Yale and Cornell Universities, as well as Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, will conduct a tour of the exhibit and give a talk, humorously titled, “Why is The Swedish Underground Important:  I Don’t Speak Swedish,” on Sunday September 9th at  2pm. The tour and talk is free with pre-registration on the Fair’s website - www.brooklynbookfair.com.  

Show hours are: Saturday noon-7pm; Sunday 11am-4pm.   Admission:  Weekend pass $15 for adults; Sunday admission $10. An opening “Bagels & Books,” preview is scheduled for Saturday, 10am on.  The preview benefits scholarships at the University of Virginia’s Rare Book School. Tickets are $30 and available online at a discounted price at brooklynbookfair.com

Book Fairs | August 15, 2018

Boston - The annual fall gathering for booklovers, the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair returns to the Hynes Convention Center in Boston’s beautiful Back Bay for its 42nd year, November 16-18, 2018. Featuring the collections and rare treasures of 130 booksellers from the U.S., England, Canada, Netherlands, France, Germany, Russia, Denmark, and Argentina, the Boston Book Fair gives visitors the opportunity to see, learn about, and purchase the finest in rare and valuable books, illuminated manuscripts, autographs, graphics, maps, atlases, photographs, fine and decorative prints, and much more.

One of the oldest and most respected antiquarian book shows in the country, the event offers a top selection of items available on the international literary market. Attendees have the unique chance to get a close look at rare and historic museum-quality items, offered by some of the most prestigious participants in the trade.  Whether just browsing or buying, the Fair offers something for every taste and budget—books on art, politics, travel, gastronomy, and science to sport, natural history, literature, music, and children’s books—all appealing to a range of bibliophiles and browsers.

“We’re seeing a marked increase in dealers participating in this year’s event, including many dealers who are participating for the first time, “ said show producer Betty Fulton. “We’re very excited to see the array of items they will be bringing with them to Boston.”

For attendees wanting to start a collection without breaking the bank, there will be dealers offering “Discovery” items priced at $100 or less, including a selection of children's books and decorative cloth bindings.  The Fair is an opportunity to learn tips on how to start a collection, and talk to dealers who are experts in their specialties.

Special events at the Fair will include The Ticknor Society’s annual Collectors’ Roundtable, free appraisals, and other talks and demonstrations to be announced early this fall.  Visit www.bostonbookfair for updated event listings.

Tickets are $20 for Friday night’s exclusive Opening Night preview event, an opportunity for the public to get a first look at items for sale at the Fair; admission is free on Saturday and Sunday.
 

Friday, November 16              5:00-9:00pm             Tickets: $20.00 - Opening Night (valid all weekend)   

Saturday, November 17          12:00-7:00pm          Free Admission 

Sunday, November 18             12:00-5:00pm         Free Admission

Hynes Convention Center
900 Boylston Street
Boston, MA
www.mccahome.com

The Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair is sponsored by the New England Chapter of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America. A portion of the ticket sales will benefit the Boston Public Library and the American Antiquarian Society. Tickets are for sale at www.bostonbookfair.com and at the show’s box office during Friday evening show hours. For more information, please visit www.bostonbookfair.com or call 617-266-6540.

Auctions | August 14, 2018

New York -  Christie's announces the sale of An American Journey: The Diann G and Thomas A Mann Collection of Photographic Masterworks. On public view in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York - the sale will take place at Christie’s Rockefeller Center the evening of October 4, followed by a morning session on October 5. The collection includes rare examples of works by major figures of the Photo-Secession—Edward Steichen, Gertrude Kasebier, Clarence White, and the quintessential patron and practitioner of American art photography, Alfred Stieglitz—along with numerous masterworks in early American Modernism by Edward Weston and Paul Strand.

Alfred Stieglitz was immensely influential in establishing and tirelessly promoting photography as an art form in the United States. He edited and published magazines, promoted photographers through exhibitions at his galleries, and produced his own rich body of creative photographic work. The photogravure printing process was his well-known favored method, and he promoted the technique as an original means of photographic printmaking. The Mann Collection contains his three most iconic works from the Photo-Secessionist period, printed as oversized photogravures; each example is signed and mounted including: The Terminal, New York, 1892; The Hand of Man, 1902; The Steerage, 1907.

The Mann collection also features works by socially conscious photographers associated with the Farm Security Administration which documented America during the Great Depression era, including Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, Arthur Rothstein and Walker Evans. Additionally, of particular note are two outstanding 19th century works, including El Capitan, Yosemite, 1878-1881 by Carleton Watkins, and a superb example of White House Ruins in Canyon de Chelley by Timothy O'Sullivan, from 1873. 

An American Journey forms a comprehensive visual record of a rich period of production before World War I, through the explosive and radical period between the two great wars, and into the heady post-War period. Assembled by an assiduous couple who were moved by the power of photography, and recognized how severely photographic masterworks were undervalued. The Manns were true connoisseurs before photography collecting took off and had been fully accepted as a legitimate art form.

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