Davenport, WA – To millions of movie fans, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) host Robert Osborne (1932-2017) was not just the ultimate authority on Hollywood’s entertainment industry, he was also very much a part of it. His urbane demeanor and calmly authoritative voice made him a compelling presence on television. At the Academy Awards® and other red carpet events, Osborne was a bona-fide A-lister, right alongside the stars he chronicled in his lifelong career as a movie historian.

Osborne’s passion for motion pictures was part of his DNA. “It was both his work and his hobby,” said Grant Zahajko, owner of Grant Zahajko Auctions, the Davenport, Washington, company commissioned to sell Osborne’s personal collection of Hollywood memorabilia. The October 10 auction is “a living representation of Mr Osborne’s distinguished career,” Zahajko said, and includes prized memorabilia and photographs amassed over 50+ years. The archive is owned by Osborne’s three nieces, who felt their uncle would have wanted it sold through an auction house in the family’s native Washington state. Remote bidding will be available worldwide via phone or Internet.

The collection’s headliner is the 1936 Oscar® statuette awarded to acclaimed art director Richard Day for his work on the 1935 film The Dark Angel, starring Fredric March and Merle Oberon. Day was nominated for 20 Academy Awards® between the years 1930 and 1970, and won seven, including Best Art Direction for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and On the Waterfront (1954).

“The sale and purchase of Oscar® statuettes is strictly controlled by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts (AMPAS®), however there are rare instances when they can be made available in the marketplace, as is the case with the Oscar® from Mr Osborne’s archive, it’s very exciting for collectors,” Zahajko said. Last year Gregory Peck’s Oscar for the 1947 film Gentleman’s Agreement sold for nearly $500,000, and in 1999, Michael Jackson paid $1.5 million for David O. Selznick’s 1940 Gone With The Wind Oscar®. Richard Day’s Oscar® will be offered with a $70,000-$100,000 pre-auction estimate.

Another premier item in the auction is Robert Osborne’s personal copy of the 1979 book he authored titled 50 Golden Years of Oscar®: The Official History of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. For decades, Osborne sought and secured the autographs of Oscar®-winning stars – Best Actor and Actress, and Best Supporting Actor and Actress – on pages pertaining to the films in which they had appeared and for which they had won their awards. Additional pages feature the signatures of other category winners and nominees. The book contains no fewer than 383 signatures, including those of Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman James Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Bette Davis, Lord Laurence Olivier, Lana Turner, Carrie Fisher, Christopher Reeve, and many other screen legends. A unique compilation of signatures, the 294-page book is expected to sell for $20,000-$30,000.

The Robert Osborne Movie Memorabilia Collection is vast and comprehensive, with a timeline that documents the motion picture industry from the 1930s through present day. Its holdings include thousands of stars’ photographs and signed letters; publicity, still and wire-service photos; press kits, early movie magazines, lobby cards and more. An original three-sheet movie poster from the 1949 Gary Cooper film The Pride of the Yankees, in unused, like-new condition, is entered in the auction with a $4,000-$6,000 estimate. A signed photo of Babe Ruth in Yankee pinstripes, swinging a bat, has a $7,000-$9,000 estimate.

The Robert Osborne Movie Memorabilia Collection featuring a 1936 Oscar® statuette will be auctioned on Thursday, October 10, 2019, in a live event at Grant Zahajko Auctions’ gallery located at 510 Morgan St., Davenport (suburban Spokane), WA 99122. Start time is 3 p.m. PT / 6 p.m. ET. All forms of remote bidding will be available, including absentee, phone, and live via the Internet through Grant Zahajko Auctions’ bidding platform: https://bid.gzauctions.com . For additional information on any items in the auction, call 509-725-5600 or email info@gzauctions.com. Online: www.gzauctions.com.

Boston — A Stephen Hawking signed letter on the hunt for gravitational waves and the birth of his daughter will be auctioned by Boston-based RR Auction.

The exceedingly rare one page typed letter signed “Stephen,” on University of Cambridge, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics letterhead, dated November 10, 1970. Letter to physicist Charles W. Misner, a professor at the University of Maryland, in full: "A student of mine, Gary Gibbons, will be attending the A.P.S. meeting in New Orleans from November 23rd to 25th, where he will report on the British work on the design and construction of gravitational wave detectors. We think that, without the use of liquid helium, we can improve the sensitivity by a factor of 100. The first of these detectors should be operating before the end of the year, and the second one at Reading should follow soon after.

As he is getting his fare paid to New Orleans I thought that Gary might as well stay on and attend the relativistic astrophysics meeting Austin. I asked Howard Laster to write to Weber to try and arrange for Gary to visit Maryland for a few days after the New Orleans meeting. Weber replied that he was very busy and would not be able to devote more than a very short time to showing Gary round. However, although Gary has devoted quite a time to the design of gravitational wave detectors, he is primarily a theoretician and is interested in the problem of how much gravitational radiation would be emitted by a collapsing object. He would very much like to have an opportunity to discuss this with you and Brill. I wonder, therefore, if you could possibly arrange for Gary to spend several days at Maryland and reassure Weber that he will not have to devote all his time to him.

We have now got a little girl who was born last Monday. Her name is registered as Catherine Lucy, though we will probably call her Lucy. She looks quite like Robert did when he was born but she is a bit plumper. She is very well behaved and causes very little trouble. Give my regards to Susanne and the children. Hope to see you in Austin." In fine condition, with some light creasing.

A remarkable letter in which Hawking writes about the hunt for gravitational waves (finally detected in 2016), asks his correspondent to aid his doctoral student Gary Gibbons (today an accomplished theoretical physicist), and announces the birth of his daughter (Catherine Lucy, who indeed goes by Lucy today).

One hundred years after Albert Einstein first predicted the existence of gravitational waves, scientists finally received proof of these disturbances in the curvature of spacetime: the ‘ringdown’ following the collision of two black holes was detected at the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and announced on February 11, 2016. When asked for comment, Stephen Hawking said that the discovery would ‘revolutionize’ astronomy, noting also that proved his calculations made in 1970—the same year he wrote this letter—to be correct: ‘The observed properties of this system are consistent with predictions about black holes that I made in 1970 here in Cambridge.’

He goes on to ask Dr. Misner to aid his doctoral student, Gary Gibbons, during his trip to America. Hawking and Gibbons would go on to collaborate in their research, lending their names to the ‘Gibbons-Hawking effect,’ ‘Gibbons-Hawking space,’ ‘Gibbons-Hawking ansatz,’ and ‘Gibbons-Hawking-York boundary term.’ For his contributions to General Relativity and the Quantum Theory of Gravity, Gibbons was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1999.

Hawking also mentions his one-year old daughter, Lucy, his second child, who had been born on November 2, 1969. Today, she is a science educator and writer, and co-author of five cosmos-related children’s books with her famous father.

Diagnosed with early-onset motor neurone disease in 1963, Hawking’s physical capabilities deteriorated over time—his shaky hand evinced in this signature of seven years later—making authentic autographs exceedingly scarce. Confined to a wheelchair by the end of the 1970s, he opted to sign with just a thumbprint later in life. As an incredibly rare autograph from one of the towering scientific figures of the 20th century, with profound scientific and personal content, this is a truly spectacular letter.

Among other items to be featured:

Bonnie Parker's handwritten poem book entitled "Poetry from Life's Other Side." Thirty-two handwritten pages inside of a black leatherette bank book, stamped on the front cover, "The First National Bank, Burkburnett, Texas." Featuring a mix of Parker's original creative compositions and renditions of popular folk ballads, these poems were written by Parker while she was held in Kaufman County Jail, Texas, in 1932, after being arrested for the botched armed robbery of a hardware store with Clyde Barrow, Ralph Fults, and Raymond Hamilton; while Barrow and Hamilton managed to escape on foot, Parker and Fults were apprehended. This was Parker's first and only arrest, and she stewed in jail for about two months before being released on June 17, after the jury failed to indict her. In Emma Parker's 1934 biography of Bonnie and Clyde, she made note of several particulars of her daughter's stay in prison: that this was when she first drafted 'Suicide Sal'; that it was when Bonnie began to use hard slang and gangster jargon; and that she befriended the jailer and his wife, who would let her sit out on the lawn. With little to do other than pine for Clyde and chat with her jailer, it is no surprise that Bonnie's fertile imagination turned to poetry: of the ten poems in this book, five appear to be original compositions, largely drawn from her adventurous life on the road with the Barrow Gang.

Henry David Thoreau manuscript where Thoreau ponders the wonders of the natural world. The sought-after one-page handwritten manuscript contained within the first volume of the 1906 'manuscript edition' of Thoreau's works, apparently being his journal entry from August 24, 1854. In part: "They appeared to suffer more than any trees, except the white ash. Their leaves (and also those of the alders, hickories and grapes, and even oaks more or less) were so curled on the upper 3/4 of the trees, that their foliage had a singularly glaucous hue. Seen at a distance in rows along the river, they had somewhat of the same effect with the silvered tip of the swamp white oak. The sight suggested a strong wind constantly blowing and turning up their leaves. I went ashore & felt of them. They were more or less crisped & curled permanently. It suggested that, to a slight extent, occurs every year. On the Cliffs, so many young trees & bushes were withered, that from the river, it looked as if a fire had run over them." The sheet is professionally inlaid into a larger sheet, which was subsequently bound into the first volume of the twenty-volume set The Writings of Henry David Thoreau. Manuscript edition, limited issue, numbered 555/600. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1906. Hardcover, 6.25 x 9, 435 pages. The other volumes of the set are not included. Book condition: G+/None, with ex-library labels and markings.

The Remarkable Rarities live auction event from RR Auction will be held on Saturday, September 21 in Boston, MA at 1:30 pm ET. For more information, go to www.rrauction.com. 

Southampton, PA — Stephenson’s Auctions, the Philadelphia area’s estate specialists, will close out the summer season with a 484-lot auction of antiques, decorative art and historical memorabilia on Friday, September 20. All forms of bidding will be available, including live via the Internet.

“We never know what we’ll find when we visit a residence in our region,” said Stephenson’s owner, Cindy Stephenson. “In Philadelphia houses we sometimes find collections of items that go back many generations, even to colonial days; and quite often local estates can produce items whose value is far more than what their owners might have thought. It still happens quite often, even in these days where everyone is familiar with Antiques Roadshow discoveries. Every closet, box, attic and basement has the potential of revealing something wonderful, which is why we always enjoy the house-call process.”

The first of several estates featured in the September 20 sale is that of a Philadelphia couple, both physicians and collectors of a variety of things, including silver. “The wife is British, and she and her late husband acquired a sizable amount of English silver, including George III flatware and a large Indo-Persian silver jardinière,” said Stephenson. The array of silver to be auctioned, almost 80 lots in all, includes additional consignments, such as a highly desirable Cristofle ‘Ma Maison’ silverplate flatware service for 12, estimate $2,000-$4,000; and a platter and large handled bowl, both of fine Mexican silver.

“The doctors also collected important historical documents,” Stephenson said. “The top lot of the group is a 1681 land grant on vellum signed by William Penn, John Thomas and Edward Jones.” Estimate: $3,000-$6,000. Another indenture represents a 1796 Luzerne County land transaction between sellers Benjamin and Julia Rush, and buyer Charles Hall, estimate $750-$1,500.

An attorney’s referral led to a house in Trenton, New Jersey, where some amazing family treasures were unearthed during a two-hour sort-through. “The homeowners had a distant relative in Ohio whom they never knew who obviously saved memorabilia that was important to him, including a grouping of 1920s ephemera pertaining to Notre Dame,” Stephenson said. Within the mini archive is a photograph of the Four Horsemen, the powerhouse backfield of the 1924 team coached by the legendary Knute Rockne. The 9 by 7-inch (mounted to board) photo is autographed by all four of the “Horsemen,” and the signatures have been JSA-authenticated. A game ticket and program from the 1927 Notre Dame vs USC game will be offered as one lot, while another lot contains a photograph and large assortment of memorabilia about Rockne, whose death in a 1931 airplane crash threw the nation into mourning.

From the same basement in Trenton came an unexpected quartet of jugates promoting FDR and John Nance Garner, who served as president and VP, respectively, from 1933-1941. The buttons in all four jugates are identical and say “Prosperity With Roosevelt Garner,” but there are two types of decorative ribbons: an American Flag, and red, white and blue bunting. The jugates are in outstanding condition and will be offered as one lot with a $1,000-$2,500 estimate.

Stephenson’s will also present family artworks passed down to the estate of sci-fi illustrator Davis Paul Meltzer (1929-2017). The son of acclaimed Philadelphia artists Arthur Meltzer (1893-1989) and Paulette van Roekens, Davis Meltzer inherited art and furniture from his parents. An excellent selection from those family holdings is entered in the September 20 sale. There are nine Arthur Meltzer oil paintings, including Time and Tide, a 1944 work that was displayed in Davis’ dining room. Estimate: $4,000-$6,000. Additionally, there are many pieces of Danish teak and other midcentury modern furniture.

Also entered in the fine art section are an Aaron Zook (Pa. German, 1921-2003, twin brother of Abner Zook) 3D mixed-media painting, $3,000-$5,000; a Harry Rosin (New Hope school, 1897-1973) female nude bronze, $2,000-$4,000; and paintings from a Manhattan collector, including several Irish landscapes. “The collector always bought what he like, and as a result, there are some artworks estimated as high as $5,000, but others in the hundreds. At every price point, they’re very nice paintings,” Stephenson said.

Other estate highlights in the sale include a Rolex Datejust Oyster Perpetual stainless steel women’s wristwatch, $1,200-$2,500; and a Schirmer player grand piano with ebony finish in excellent, fully functional condition with bench.

Stephenson’s Sept. 20, 2019 Late Summer Antiques & Decorative Arts Auction will begin at 2 p.m. Eastern time. The inspection will be held on Thursday, Sept. 19 from 3-6 p.m., and on auction day from 12 noon till the start of the sale. For additional information on any lot in the sale, call Cindy Stephenson at 215-322-6182 or e-mail info@stephensonsauction.com. Internet live bidding will be available through LiveAuctioneers, Invaluable or AuctionZip. Visit Stephenson’s Auctioneers online at www.stephensonsauction.com.

Dallas – A dramatic image of African elephants and baboons could bring $70,000 or more when it crosses the block in Heritage Auctions’ Photographs Auction Oct. 4 in New York. Peter Beard Untitled (Elephants and Baboons under Kilimanjaro), 1984 (estimate: $30,000-50,000) is a spectacular and massive (80 inches wide by 29 inches high) black and white image by the American photographer whose photographs of Africa and African animals have been widely exhibited and admired for more than half a century. While working at Tsavo National Park in Kenya after he graduated from Yale University, Beard photographed and documented the demise of 35,000 elephants and other wildlife, which became the inspiration for and subject of his first book, The End of the Game. He became so invested in the journey of African wildlife that he ended up acquiring property in Southern Kenya. Beard’s works have appeared in exhibits at prestigious venues like the International Center of Photography in New York and the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris, and in galleries and private collections around the world. The image is signed in ink mount verso.

“This is an extraordinary image by a man who really immersed himself and dedicated his life to studying these beautiful animals,” Heritage Auctions Rare Photographs Director Nigel Russell said. “It is a stunning image that can be a centerpiece in any collection.”

Lillian Bassman Across the Restaurant at Le Grand Vefour, Barbara Mullen, Harper's Bazaar, Paris, 1949 (estimate: $25,000-35,000) is a striking image which measures 33-3/4 by 29-1/4 inches, from the former fashion photographer. The daughter of immigrants from Ukraine (then Russia), Bassman studied under legendary Russian photographer Alexey Brodovitch, at which point she started shooting many of her images, including the one offered here, in black and white.

From one of the most celebrated landscape photographers of all time comes Ansel Adams Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941 ($20,000-30,000) a black-and-white image shot late in the afternoon Nov. 1, 1941, from the shoulder of Highway 84/US285 in Hernandez, New Mexico. The photo shows the moon rising in a dark sky over a collection of small homes, a church and a graveyard, with snow-covered mountains in the background. Of particular note is the way in which Adams captured the dark sky over a late moment of sunlight spotlighting the crosses in the graveyard and the buildings. The image is signed in pencil mount recto, and is titled in ink in the photographer’s stamp mount verso.

Thomas Ruff Substrate (suite of 4), 2001 ($20,000-30,000) includes a quartet of digital pigment prints – titled Substrat 1 III, Substrat 2 I, Substrat 2 II and Substrat 6 II – each of which is signed and editioned ‘4/45’ in ink in the photographer’s label adhered mount verso. The German photographer has been described as a “master of edited and reimagined images.”

Albert Watson Jack Nicholson, New York City, 1998 ($20,000-30,000) is a mash-up of 16 images of the Hollywood star blowing smoke rings. One of just 10 made, the digital pigment print, which measures 13-5/8 inches high by 38-3/4 inches wide, is signed, titled, dated and editioned ‘6/10’ in ink mount verso.

Joe Rosenthal Raising the Flag on Mt. Surbachi, Iwo Jima, 1945 ($15,000-25,000) is a print of the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of one of the most well-known images in American military history. The basis for the United States Marine Corps War Memorial (Iwo Jima Memorial) in Arlington, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., it is believed to be one of the originals from the first printing when Rosenthal sent his film back to the naval ship lying off Iwo Jima in 1944. It was acquired by Felix de Weldon, the sculptor who was commissioned to create the Iwo Jima Memorial near the end of World War II. de Weldon had the three survivors of the battle, John Bradley, Rene Gagnon and Ira Hayes, come to Washington to pose for him, so he could sketch their faces for the statue. While in D.C., they all signed his print, despite the fact that they didn’t get along with each other. It also is signed by Rosenthal, the photographer.

The auction also includes a dozen lots from an extremely rare reprinting of Edward Sheriff Curtis’s The North American Indian portfolios, a project Curtis started with the hope of completing 500 sets, each featuring 723 large-format photogravures in 20 portfolios and 20 text volumes. From 1900 until 1930, the project wore on Curtis, costing him his business, his family and finally his health. About 300 sets ultimately were printed, with only about 272 finished and sold. After he went bankrupt, the remaining photogravures and copper plates were sold in 1935 to Boston rare book dealer Charles Lauriat. Emiliano Sorini was approached in 1966 was approached about printing the first 12 portfolios from the original plates in Lauriat’s possession to complete the sets. This printing of the sets was done on a paper with a woven texture, earning the Tweedweave moniker among collectors. Some of the top Tweedweave portfolios in the sale include, but are not limited to:

·         Edward Sheriff Curtis The North American Indian, Portfolio 1 (Complete with 39 works), 1903-1907 (estimate: $5,000-7,000)
·         Edward Sheriff Curtis The North American Indian, Portfolio 3 (Complete with 36 works), 1905-1908 (estimate: $5,000-7,000)
·         Edward Sheriff Curtis The North American Indian, Portfolio 4 (Complete with 36 works), 1905-1908 (estimate: $5,000-7,000)

Also included in the sale is a group of four groups of photographs of boxers, including:
·         The Boxing Portfolio (Complete portfolio with 25 works), 1989-1996 (estimate: $8,000-12,000)
·         Various Artists (20th Century) A Group of Nine Daily News Boxing Press Photographs (9 works), 1950-1967 (estimate: $2,000-3,000)

Nine lots by legendary artist and photographer Andy Warhol are featured in the sale, including:
·         Andy Warhol Boy George (estimate: $3,000-5,000)
·         Andy Warhol Michael Douglas, Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, Jann Wenner, circa 1980 (estimate: $3,000-5,000)
·         Andy Warhol Wayne Gretzky, 1984 (estimate: $3,000-5,000)

Other top lots include, but are not limited to:
·         Alfred Eisenstaedt Children at a Puppet Theatre, Paris, 1963 (estimate: $15,000-25,000)
·         Ansel Adams Mount Williamson, East Side of the Sierra, California, 1944 (estimate: $15,000-25,000)
·         Peter Beard Gardeners of Eden (Baboons, impalas and elephants under Kilimanjaro), 1984
·         Peter Beard Ken's rock, Driftwood Cove (Sculptor Ken Hiratsuka creating drifted coral in the sea at Montauk), 2004 (estimate: $7,000-10,000)

Dallas – A collection of exceptionally rare documents from renowned scientists and artists led the results for Heritage Auctions’ The Maurice Car Collection of Arts and Sciences, Featuring Rare Books & Manuscripts to climb to $1,261,070 Sept. 4 in New York.

Car was an engineer and former scientist who was a dedicated collector of the arts, sciences and humanities. The lots offered in the sale included works by some of the most famous names in science, including Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Sir Isaac Newton and Louie Pasteur; and artists like Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Raymond Radiguet and Tristan Tzara.

“Maurice Car was a serious collector with an appreciation for excellence in each of the three disciplines,” Heritage Auctions Rare Books Director James Gannon said. “He moved his family from Paris to Washington, D.C., but even moving to a new country did not dissuade him from continuing his lifelong passion for collecting items from some of the biggest names in each area.”

Sir Isaac Newton’s Autograph Manuscript, Notes on Physics and Solid Geometry, with Two Diagrams soared to nearly eight times its pre-auction estimate when it sold for $399,000. Handwritten in Latin by one of the most influential scientists in history, the lot includes notes on physics and solid geometry. Apparently written at two different times, the notes are taken from a work on physics and discuss the weight and movement of water.

Tristan Tzara’s Autograph Manuscripts on Dada also climbed to more than three times its estimate when it realized $68,750. Housed in an album of 20 manuscripts, both handwritten and typed, bound in a custom Paul Bonet fine-art binding, the notes relate to Tzara’s activities in the Dada movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century. Tzara likely would have personally gathered the manuscripts, which he wrote, and given them to Bonet to place in the binding.

Raymond Radiguet’s Le diable au corps Typed Manuscript with Holograph corrections nearly tripled its estimate when it brought $40,000. An important archive pertaining to Radiguet’s first novel, the manuscript includes 122 leaves paginated 1-123 of typescript draft of Le diable au corps with holograph corrections throughout by Radiguet. The French novelist and poet wrote two novels – Le diable au corps (“The Devil in the Flesh”) and Le bal du Comte d’Orgel (“Count d’Orgel’s Ball”), both of which were noted for their explicit themes and unique style and tone.

A 13-page Paul Gauguin Autograph Manuscript sparked a frenzy of competition among 30 active bidders before drawing $37,500, more than 12 times its pre-auction estimate. Featuring drawings and lists of figures, the document includes 10 pages that appear to be a draft, much of which seems jumbled and contradictory. Written in 1890, the manuscript includes several drawings of Gauguin’s thoughts on an array of subjects, including sex, perceived losers in society, bas-relief and Impressionism.

Nearly two dozen collectors bid on [Francis Picabia] Marie de la Hire, FRANCIS PICABIA until it finished at $36,250, more than 24 times its pre-auction estimate. A first edition in paper covers, it is No. 4 of 50 printed on Lafuma pure yarn paper with wide margins. It was printed Dec. 9, 1920, by Maurice Darantière in Dijon. It includes a list of 53 of Picabia’s works exhibited in December 1920 at the La Cible Gallery in Paris, and includes a self-portrait line drawing of Picabia on the frontispiece, as well as 15 tipped-in illustrations of Picabia’s works, nine of which are in color. A biography of Picabia and a catalog of his works, it was presented at a 1920 exhibition at La Cible Gallery and is considered the first true study of the celebrated Dadaist who became involved with the surrealist group in Paris in the 1920s.

Other top lots included, but were not limited to:

Original Abstract Ink Drawing attributed to Pablo Picasso: $30,000
Paul Gauguin Tahitian or Polynesian-French Dictionary (four pages): $27,500
Paul Cezanne Autograph Letter Signed With Sketches: $21,250
Paul Gauguin Autograph Letter Signed: $18,750

London — Frieze Week in London offers wonderful opportunities to explore art from various eras and discover the links between them. At Frieze Masters (3-6 October 2019), Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books will present a thematic line-up on the concept of perspective, featuring 15 extremely rare books from the infancy of a ground-breaking discovery that has shaped the art world to the present day.  

Perspective is the art of representing the world in the way the human eye perceives it. The questions of visual perception and spatial arrangement have preoccupied artists for centuries and continue to be influential. Generations of artists have experimented with the art of deceiving the eye – which is apparent in epoch-making works by Renaissance artists like Albrecht Dürer, in Giorgio di Chirico’s surrealist paintings, as well as in Constructivism, which also influenced movements like Bauhaus, De Stijl, and more recently Concrete Art, and op art.

While little is known about the understanding of linear perspective in the ancient world, it seems more likely that the efforts to scientifically reconstruct human vision on two-dimensional surfaces are a genuine Renaissance phenomenon.

The centrepiece in Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books’ thematic line-up is a collection of Albrecht Dürer’s cutting-edge artists’ manuals. This extraordinarily rare Sammelband (a collection of texts) consists of the three ground-breaking books Dürer wrote toward the end of his life. These include: his treatise introducing Northern Europe to the techniques of perspective and mathematical proportion in drawing, painting, architecture, and letter forms that Dürer learned in Italy; a treatise on fortification, with an additional, famous, large woodcut of a fortress under siege; and his masterpiece on the proportions of the human body. These three works are seen as the foundation of accepted aesthetic dogma until the 19th century.

Along the same lines, a few years later, Erhard Schön published a small, but very interesting and extremely successful treatise on proportion which was intended as a guide to drawing for students. Schön was one of Dürer’s pupils and one of the most prolific woodcut designers in Nuremberg in the mid-16th century. Dürer’s above-mentioned artists’ manuals were too difficult to understand for most painters, the more so for young apprentices. Therefore, Schön’s treatise is a practical handbook with many examples and patterns of perspectival constructions, mainly of the human body and movements, without any complicated theories.

Some artists were less interested in teaching perspective to the next generation. Instead, they preferred to play with creating nearly unthinkable geometric forms. These masters worked in a more mannerist mode, investigating form, perspective, and ornament. For instance, Wenzel Jamnitzer, a leading goldsmith and instrument-maker from Nuremberg, invented a drawing tool that helped to create the illustrations for his book Perspectiva. This innovative work from 1568 shows an unbelievable variety of geometrical forms. He begins with the basic forms of these bodies and then builds up to increasingly elaborate variations. This treatise is regarded as a masterpiece of geometric design and Jamnitzer is today thought of as a forerunner of conceptual art.

Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books will release a new publication, titled Perspectives, this autumn, featuring the 15 works from this year’s Frieze Masters line-up. Perspectives will be available at the company’s stand at Frieze Masters (stand E3).

Leyburn, North Yorkshire — A volume of writings by the ‘Father of Parole’ sold almost twenty times it’s estimate in Tennants Auctioneers’ Books, Maps & Ephemera Sale on 11th September. The volume of collected works by Capt. Alexander Maconochie sold for £4,800 (plus buyer’s premium) after a protracted bidding battle.

Maconochie was a prison reformer in the mid nineteenth century, and rather ahead of his time; he was ridiculed and largely ignored during his lifetime. He wanted to focus on rewarding prisoners for rehabilitation and good behavior. Not unsurprisingly, this clashed with the punishment ethos of the time. He was rediscovered during the mid to late 20th century, and his ideas became the basis for our modern penal system. The most significant publication in the volume was Maconochie’s Thoughts on Convict Management, Hobart Town, published in 1838, which is a very scarce publication.

Amongst a strong selection of topographical lots was a copy of the earliest town plan of London by Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, first published in Civitates Orbis Terrarum (the first printed collection of town maps) circa 1580. The hand coloured Londinium feracissimi Angliae Regni metropolis uses a viewpoint perhaps unique to maps; the city is shown tilted at a strange angle, disregarding perspective, allowing the major buildings to be shown. The map, which sold for (£3,800 plus buyer’s premium) was produced by the Hanseatic League, perhaps to woo Mary Tudor and secure rights and privileges for the merchants; indeed, the Steelyard headquarters of the league is described to the lower right corner of the map and the Royal Barge is given prominence on the Thames. This is a hugely significant source on early modern London and its development.

Turning away from British shores, of interest to collectors of Polar Exploration was E.P. Bayliss and J.S. Cumpston’s Handbook and Index to Accompany a Map of Antarctica, alongside said map and both published in 1939, which sold for £1,300 plus buyer’s premium. The handbook is rarely found complete with the map. This map was purchased directly from the Commonwealth of Australia Department of External Affairs in London on 7th October 1940 and is sold with an accompanying letter apologising for the delay in sending the map and handbook as they were awaiting fresh stock from Australia.

Elsewhere in the sale good prices were seen for Capt. W. Vincent Legge’s A History of the Birds of Ceylon, published by the author in 1880 (sold for £3,900 plus buyer’s premium),  a copy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s collected works (23 volumes) published in 1930 by Doubleday, Doran & Co. Inc of New York (sold for £1,600 plus buyer’s premium), and a copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice illustrated by Hugh Thomson and published by George Allen in 1894 (sold for £1,200 plus buyer’s premium).

Full results are available on Tennants’ website.

Washington, D.C. — A new exhibition at the Library of Congress explores the fascinating evolution of visual storytelling styles in comic art – from panels in early newspapers to contemporary images of some of the most famous and funny characters in print. Comic Art: 120 Years of Panels and Pages opened Sept. 12 and will be on view for a year in the Graphic Arts Galleries of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building.

The exhibition draws from the Library’s extensive collection of comic art, which includes some of the earliest comics, including the first successful newspaper comic strip featuring Richard Outcault’s “The Yellow Kid,” early drawings of “Peanuts,” superheroes including Batman, Superman and the Incredible Hulk in modern comic books, and much more.

“The Yellow Kid,” first published in a panel in the New York World newspaper in 1895, is credited with sparking the rise of comics as a new American art form. By the middle of the 20th century, a growing number of diverse comic artists were examining their own life stories and commenting on culture and politics while expanding into graphic novels, fanzines and web comics. Comic art characters and narratives have also spread across film, television, books and marketing to reach even more people.

Highlights of the exhibition’s first rotation include:
    •    The first major recurring comic character in a newspaper, “The Yellow Kid;”
    •    An early drawing of Charles Schulz’ beloved comic strip “Peanuts” from 1952 with Charlie Brown, Lucy, Patty and Snoopy;
    •    A drawing of “Brenda Starr, Reporter” by Dale Messick, whose strip represents a milestone for female characters in comics by female cartoonists;
    •    An original Batman comic book illustration from 1967;
    •    A cover drawing of the Incredible Hulk by artist Marie Severin, one of the few women to advance to drawing major superhero titles for Marvel comics;
    •    Self-published minicomics that helped launch the career of Raina Telgemeier;
    •    An extremely rare first edition of “All-Negro Comics” created by black cartoonists in 1947.

Comic Art will feature 45 items in the first rotation and a second rotation in spring 2020. The exhibition is on view in the Graphic Arts Galleries of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C. The exhibition is free and open to the public Monday through Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.  

London — Chiswick Auctions is thrilled to offer an extremely rare and very early double-stroke, black paint Leica M3. This type of camera was used professionally by some of the best photojournalists of the 20th century and are extremely rare. The camera, which includes all of the features of these highly sought-after unofficial pre-series cameras, will go under the hammer in a sale of Photographica on Thursday 14th November, 2019.

This particular camera was delivered to the famous Magnum Photo Agency in Paris in 1958 as it was the chosen camera of top photojournalists at the time. Factory delivery records show that only 90 of these pre-series cameras were sent before the first official batch of black M3 rangefinders in 1959, of which this is a survivor. It is not known how many others are still in existence from such a small production number.  

The majority of them were delivered to Sweden and individual deliveries were also made to Paris, New York and Germany. The serial number on the camera in the sale, records it as the 15th black paint M3 camera to have been produced, which means that it’s the second earliest example of this model ever to be offered at auction. (The earliest example, the second of the batch, sold in 2014 for £320,000 in Hong Kong). This example has a conservative estimate of £60,000-£80,000 but due to its popularity and rarity, it is expected to achieve much more.

Magnum Photographic Agency is one of the first photographic cooperatives, owned and administered entirely by its photographers. It was founded in 1947 by famous Photographers such as Robert Capa, David "Chim" Seymour, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and William Vandivert. These were some of the most influential and pioneering photojournalists of the 20th century. Magnum has comprised photojournalists from around the world, who have covered many historical events of the 20th century and is renowned for its extensive archive.

To carry out their tasks photographers at Magnum required the very best, which is where the double-stroke, black paint Leica M3 came in. The camera enabled the photographer to keep their eye open due to its viewfinder, facilitating constant viewing of ‘the action’, which made it perfect for reportage photography and resulted in the capturing of some of the most historic moments of the time.

Leica is a German company founded by Ernst Leitz in 1914. Designer Oskar Barnack decided to build a fast, lightweight, portable camera to compete with the heavy camera equipment typical of the day, which became an icon of early photography and a favourite of the famous photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson.

But it was Leica’s M series (like the example in our sale), that helped consolidate the legendary status of the camera brand. Leica maintains its reputation as the world’s best lens-maker and its M series cameras are compared to Rolls Royce or Rolex status. Every photographer describes Leica as the ultimate in camera brands.

Another exciting highlight of the sale includes one of the earliest images of the Royal Exchange in London in circa 1850. The image is a rare and early architectural daguerreotype by an anonymous photographer.

Daguerreotypes are exceptionally rare as they were the first widely used photographic processes of the 1840s and 1850s. They were images created on a sheet of silver-plated copper and resulted in a mirror-like silver surface image, normally kept under glass.

The darkest areas of the image on the sheet would be the bare areas of silver, with lighter areas having a fine light-scattering texture. The surface is very delicate, and some tarnishing around the edges is normal, as in the case of our example.

The Royal Exchange in London has twice been destroyed by fire and rebuilt. The present building was designed by Sir William Tite in the 1840's. It was opened by Queen Victoria on 28 October 1844, though trading did not commence until 1 January 1845. Presumably this daguerreotype would have been taken around this time. It is therefore one of the earliest images of this historical building.

It is estimated to fetch £3,000-£5,000.