75 Photographs of Modernist Buildings

(Brazil) (Architecture) 75 Photographs of Modernist Buildings, ca. 1954-60. Gelatin silver prints, 71 approx. 9.8 x 6.5 cm, four larger, 24 x 18 cm., mounted, most on a single side or with corners, to 20 paper sheets. A few with manuscript numerical captions on the page, some with similar annotations verso. With two postcards tipped-in, one of Rio, the other of the planned campus at Pontifícia Universidade Católica. Most near fine, a few with small discolorations.

Collection of 75 images of Brazilian modern architecture, from the “first” modernist building in Rio de Janeiro, Oscar Niemeyer’s Palácio Gustavo Capanema, to the famed period of massive urban expansion under President Juscelino Kubitschek, including two Niemeyer projects in Belo Horizonte—the Auditorium of Colégio Estadual Central (1954) and the BEGME tower—as well as a number of examples under construction or recently completed, e.g. four photographs of Hospital Sul América da Instituição Larragoiti, by Niemeyer and Hélio Uchôa (1959), approx. 10 of the new Gavea campus of Pontifícia Universidade Católica (1955), and approx. five of of Jorge Machado Moreira’s Faculdade Nacional de Arquitetura Building at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (ca. 1957), both largely unfinished projects based on Le Corbusier’s ideas about functional zoning. Includes four prints of architectural drawings, and at least three of architectural models on display, seemingly of Pontifícia Universidade Católica (PUC-RIO) and the proposed campus of Federal University of Rio De Janeiro, including grounds by Roberto Burle Marx. Another thirteen photographs of residential homes provide a fascinating look at the adaptation of these architectural vocabularies to vernacular buildings in Brazil, an architectural heritage now at risk as low-rise neighborhoods give way to high-rise development.

The photographs were taken over the course of 5 or 6 years of deliberate inquiry by an unknown researcher or professional. The sometimes informal compositions reveal glimpses of the unbuilt environments in which many of the projects arose: savannas, forests, and manmade islands; the architectural designs of PUC-RIO by Edgar de Oliveira da Fonseca (architect of Rio’s Metropolitan Cathedral) raise questions about a plan that is largely absent from conversations about Brazilian modernism in the 1950s, despite the fact that they strongly echo Niemeyer and Affonso Riedy designs.

A few photographs as yet unidentified.

$2750

Collection of National Shortwave Radio Station QSL Cards

(Graphic Design) (International Typographic Style) (Radio) Collection of National Shortwave Radio Station QSL Cards, 1950-1965.

A broad collection of state-sponsored graphic design spanning the golden-age of post-WWII advertising. The postcards incorporate elements of international typographic style and consumer advertising with local and national iconography. Together the collection demonstrates the adaptability and diffusion of mid-century modern design, and its importance to the progress of postwar international trade.

QSL cards can acknowledge either two-way radio communications or one-way radio transmissions; most of those in the present group acknowledge a reception report sent by the collection’s compiler, an amateur radio operator living in Lockport, NY.

Sent and traded since at least the 1920s, QSL postcards have developed into an expressive format for individual operators and larger stations. The current group is distinctive because it focuses on national radio stations; their designs reflect elements of state-level propaganda programs and design. Represented nations include: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Belgian Congo, Brazil, Bulgaria, Republic of Congo, Denmark, Egypt, Germany, Israel, Italy, India, Jamaica, Japan, Lebanon, Monte Carlo, Morocco, Mozambique, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Senegal, South Africa, Switzerland, Tahiti, and Turkey. A few cities or territories are also included: Antilles, Brazzaville, Dakar, Guadalupe, Tangier, Prague (CSSR)

74 postcards, most around 15 x 10.5 cm, two much larger, all in color except six b/w real photo postcards and two with orig. photographic prints tipped in. Most with text in at least two languages (country of origin and English). Housed in plastic sleeves. Together with a folder including another 20+ examples and a small group of correspondence with national radio stations (1950-1960) for additional context.

$1250

Skema. Mensile fotografico d’attualità. (All published).

Skema. Mensile fotografico d’attualità. Anno I, No. 1 (November 1969) through Anno VI, No. 12 (December 1974) (all published). Bologna: [ALFA Farmaceutici], 1969-1974.

Comprising a complete run of a rare Italian photographic serial with poster-sized color inserts designed and distributed in association with ALFA Farmaceutici. Monographic issues cover social, cultural, or political themes relevant to this tumultuous period in world history; each introduced by famous Italian public intellectuals, journalists, politicians, scientists, artists, and writers. Including Umberto Eco, Federico Fellini, Gianni Agnelli, and Gillo Dorfles.

Skema was a forum for unmediated photographic storytelling loosely modeled on the anti-realist movement Gruppo 63. In the first issue the editors state “ideas will be directly and freely provided by images: a medium that suffers from fewer alterations.” Echoing some of the experimentalist manifestos of Il Verri, Skema’s editors criticized the perceived transparency of language, freeing meaning to be made instead in the mind of the “viewer.” “Words will remain at the bottom,” with captions and textual interpretation only where world events “most deeply dug a furrow, or a wound, on the crust of common beliefs.”

The eye-catching covers, unusual photographic spreads, and striking color inserts were the responsibility of designer Marco Caroli. Together with editor Franco Vanni, they created a unique visual language juxtaposing international photojournalism, modern infographics, and quotable short form essays in a section called “di parere.”

Topical issues included protest movements, drugs, feminism, avantgarde theater, and Vietnam. But many were also dedicated to scientific and economic aspects of the difficult period that followed Italy’s “economic miracle”: hunger, prisons, agriculture, space, housing, the elderly, divorce, computers, mafia, circus, ecology, China, Latin America, propaganda, anthropology, and a few on single artists or philosophers: Irinia Ionesco, Ghitta Carell, Pablo Picasso, Diderot, and Galileo; among the photojournalism are press photos of installation art, Pop, and assemblage by artists including Wolf Vostell, Andy Warhol, and Ed Kienholz.

The scarcity of complete runs and bibliographic study has led to confusion about Skema’s origins. It is not, as it is often described, a progressive publication with independent social criticism. Instead, it is a deft work of appropriation: produced by Alfa as a promotional tool for its medical and biotech clientele. Skema’s inventive design and forward-looking reporting were a creative and subtle advertisement that was discontinued when production became too expensive. We speculate that Skema was the brainchild of Alfa’s founder, Marino Golinelli, listed in early issues as a member of the editorial board. Later Golinelli became an important collector of contemporary art and a celebrated philanthropist supporting projects in education, arts, and the sciences.

These experimental artistic attitudes were brought to bear on the cataclysmic socio-economic changes affecting lived realities in Italy and abroad. In the case of Skema, they reflect an increased demand for cultural consumption from a new Italian middle class, and the growing sophistication of bourgeois taste.

Scarce. OCLC finds one complete run at the University of Rome. A few scattered issues recorded in British, European, and North American holdings (UCSD and UCLA).

$4500

62 numbers in 58 fascicules, plus two supplements (to Anno III, no. 2 and Anno V, no. 10), Issues range from 60-74 pp., early issues almost exclusively illustrated, reproducing b/w photographs from Italian and international press agencies, including ANSA, Farabola, Publifoto, Keystone, Liverani, Lehtikuva, UPI, and AP among many. Later issues with up to 20 pp. of text on orange newsprint. About 30 issues with color inserts or advertisements offered as a “manifesto” or “regalo una stampa a colori,” some in poster format (unfolded: 22 ½ x 15 ¾ in.), others small bound-in half-page pamphlets, or full-page vintage Fiat ads. Some toning as expected, illustrated wrappers somewhat rubbed, scattered creasing and rounding at corners. Many stamped internally “Omaggi ALFA Farmaceutici [...]” Small loss to front wrap of Anno. I, No. 1. Lacking five inserts or advertisements as follows: Anno II, Nos. 4 and 13; Anno III, No. 7; Anno IV, No. 3; and Anno V, no. 12.

Rays of Sunlight from South America

Gardner, Alexander [and Henry De Witt Moulton]. Rays of Sunlight from South America. Washington, D.C.: Philp and Solomons, 1865. Oblong folio with 68 of the 70 original plates. Each with albumen print mounted recto, image approx. 17.2 x 22.5 cm, with letterpress caption and credits (Gardener for the “positive”; Moulton for the “negative”) on mount. Some mounts with minor soiling or damp stain to edges, not affecting images. Lacking front album cover, title page, preface and 2 plates (nos. [1] and [2]).

Monumental photographic album printed by famed Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner from negatives by an itinerant American photographer, Henry De Witt Moulton. Moulton’s photos of Lima and the Chincha Islands were taken while he was living in Peru, sometime between 1860 and mid-1863, when he returned to the US. The size of the edition is unknown, though it was printed around the same time as Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War (and advertised with it in early 1866), copies are exceedingly rare.

The album’s significance has been chronically underestimated. It provides fascinating transnational and bibliographic context for the better known Photographic Sketch Book, and comprises the most comprehensive photographic evidence of the historic guano deposits and the laborers who worked them. Gardener’s selection of 38 (36 in the present copy) views of Lima and Callao for the opening section of Rays of Sunlight largely follow other contemporary images of the capital’s major monuments. The extraordinary nature of the album lies instead in Gardner’s addition of 32 of Moulton’s unique “views of those celebrated Islands situated within the rainless region of the Peruvian Coast, and which furnish the richest fertilizing material known to agriculture.”*

In the early 1860s the Chincha Islands’ guano heaps were the world’s most important source of fertilizer. Revenues from the nationalized deposits paid for much of Peru’s public works from 1840-1870, including construction of the railways that crossed the Andes. Even more importantly, guano income was used by the state to free its black slaves and to abolish poll taxes on indigenous citizens.

Despite these progressive measures, the Chincha Islands’ guano piles were worked by prisoners and indentured Chinese laborers who were brought to Peru in large numbers under a policy known as Ley China to replace freed slaves in all aspects of industry and agriculture. Nearly half died from ill-treatment and overwork in one of the lesser-known and grim episodes of British Imperial human trafficking. Moulton’s “most interesting images concerned the soon to be depleted guano itself and the process used to exploit it.” His dramatic photos are the primary source for nearly all the existing photographic evidence of the Islands and the people who worked there, including scenes of the “Great Heap” with workmen loading rail cars, others of craft transporting the cargo to ships and piers, and poignant images of the laborers who Moulton seems to have seen as victims of exploitation. A small church for the workers appears three times; in one the prisoner-laborers are surrounded by armed soldiers while they kneel outside during Sunday services. Gardner’s rich contact prints preserve these minute details and the subtle value transitions captured in Moulton’s negatives.

In April 1864, just before Gardner assembled the album, the Chincha Islands became an object of great concern for the US when Spain seized them “as part of European efforts to re-establish colonial rule in South America while the United States was preoccupied with its Civil War.” He foresaw the historical value of the work when he wrote in his preface “In after times, these sketches of the Chincha Islands will have a peculiar interest [...] The original estimate of the length of time—one thousand years—that this deposit of the Chincha Islands would suffice for the wants of the world, is destined to prove fallacious. So great has become the demand for it that half the deposit of the largest island has been removed already; and the probabilities are, that in twenty years the supply will be exhausted.”

Four copies are recorded in three public collections: the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and the Public Library of Cincinnati. Two other copies have come to auction in the last 30 years. The most recent, a complete copy offered at Swann, sold for $35,000 in 2012.

$18,000

Isabelle Lausent-Herrera (2009). Tusans (tusheng) and the Changing Chinese Community in Peru. Journal of Chinese Overseas 5: 116.

Keith McElroy (1984). Henry De Witt Moulton: Rays of sunlight from South America. History of Photography, 8:1, 7-21.

Nineteen Press Photographs of Havana Riots, President Céspedes, and La Pentarquía

(Cuba) Nineteen Press Photographs of Havana Riots, President Céspedes, and La Pentarquía, 1933. Vintage silver prints, trimmed to various sizes, most close to 16.5 x 11.5 cm. Sixteen with typed English captions pasted verso, all with Vidal (Madrid) stamps, some with editing pencil marks, also verso. Lightly worn, three groups of prints (4, 2, and 2) taped together by a contemporary newspaper editor for layout. Overall VG.

Dramatic photographs taken during the first “Cuban crisis” of August-September 1933, including the Havana strikes and riots that led to the resignation and exile of President Gerardo Machado, the formation of a provisional government under President Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, and the subsequent coup d’etat that led to the latter’s removal and the establishment of the Pentarchy coalition.

The majority are focused on looting and violence in front of the Presidential Palace and the offices of El Heraldo newspaper in August 1933. Two captions identify members of the ABC resistance and other student organizations that fought against Machado and “El Porra,” the regime’s secret police.

Several other images show the Céspedes cabinet and moments from during the Sergeant’s Revolt in which it was overthrown. The constitutional crisis began decades of political instability and US interference, leading directly to the Batista dictatorship and eventually, to the Cuban Revolution.

No photographer identified but the captions were supplied by a US news organization. Stamps identify a Spanish agency founded by José Vidal.

$1000

Atlas de las Nubes para el Servicio meteorológico de la República Mexicana

Pastrana, Manuel E. Atlas de las Nubes para el Servicio meteorológico de la República Mexicana formado por Manuel E. Pastrana i del Observatorio Meteorológico Central de México [...]. Boston, MA: Heliotype Co., 1906. Oblong 4to, [9] leaves, 61, [4] pls.; introduction by Pastrana followed by plates, nos. 1-20, 22, 29, 31-34, 41-58, and 60 in color, very good; stamped publisher’s cloth with marbled endpapers; boards rubbed, corners bumped. Numbered 135 in ink on title, from stated edition of 1000.

The first cloud atlas produced for use by the Mexican meteorological service; most images reproduced from photographs taken at La Escuela Industrial Militar Porfirio Diaz in Morelia, Mexico. At the time of printing, the national meteorological service was comprised of 49 observatories, including one in each state. Each reported by telegraph to the central observatory in Tacubaya. The atlas’s classification and captions follow the recommendations of the 1891 International Meteorological Conference, Munich, and the first International Cloud Atlas (Hildebrandsson, Riggenbach, and Teisserenc de Bort, 1896).

Four US holdings listed in OCLC: UT, UNM, SDSU, and Stanford.

$1500

Sous la jupe: illustré

Maindouce, G. Sous la jupe: illustré. Paris: Les Éditions du Couvre-Feu, n.d. [ca. 1933-1935]. 8vo, 115 pp.; erotic fiction illustrated with 28 b/w pls., most printed recto, some also verso; in orig. wrapper with color d.j., d.j. beginning to split at spine, edges worn, else very good. D.j. with misprint “Nombreuses illustrations sujestives” [sic] described by Pia.

Éditions Couvre-Feu was one of a number of imprints founded by Léon [a.k.a. Victor?] Vidal under the larger umbrella of his erotic publishing and fashion group, Société des Éditions Gauloises. Couvre-Feu specialized in pseudonymous fetish, sadomasochist, and bondage literature; illustrated with fetish photography by Studio Biederer and from the archives of Vidal’s other business, the lingerie company Diana-Slip, whose catalogue included anonymous fetish images by Brassaï, Kertesz, and Roger Schall.

Several editions bearing the title “Sous la jupe” were issued by Couvre-Feu between 1933-1935. They differ considerably from this rather avant-garde example and priority has not been convincingly established: one was unillustrated, another included extracts of several erotic stories with only scattered illustrations, a third was a promotional list of erotic publications, and an English variation was issued by Éditions Richepanse in 1935. Nevertheless, it is possible to match some of the “detourned” images in this artistic edition to others by the Studio Biederer and from the Diana-Slip catalogues.

Though recorded in Pia, P., Livres de l’Enfer, this version and d.j. seemingly uncommon, OCLC locates no holdings of this edition in North America.

$450

Rauschenberg: Selections

Rauschenberg, Robert. Rauschenberg: Selections. Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Fort Worth Art Center Museum, January 5 – February 2, 1969. Fort Worth, TX: Fort Worth Art Center Museum, [1968]. 4to, [46] leaves, incl. intro, descriptive and critical “collage,” [12] plates with b/w reproductions of artworks from the exhibition, exh. checklist, and bio; in orig. pictorial wraps, spine reinforced with tape, splitting at foot; ex-library with shelf mark sticker to front cover.

In a short intro, the museum’s director, Henry T. Hopkins, writes that he wanted to bring a substantial exhibition of the artist’s work to the state where he was born (and where it had rarely been seen). After meeting the artist to discuss the catalogue and face the “vexing problem of more words on art,” they decided to create a kind of collage of previously published writing. “Ideally the mild frustration produced by reading it will be a reminder of the interplay between art and life and as such, a reflection of Rauschenberg’s chosen realm.”

Rauschenberg put similar ideas to work in his well-known Abrams monograph, published the following year.

OCLC locates 6 copies: Amon Carter, College of Idaho, Lake Forest, LACMA, Menil, and Southern Methodist.

$750

Aire. No. 1 (Junio 1937) through No. 4 (Primavera 1938) (all published)

Aire. No. 1 (Junio 1937) through No. 4 (Primavera 1938) (all published). Barcelona: N.p., 1937-1938. 4to, 12-1/2 x 9-3/8 in., four issues: [48], [72], [74], [76] pp.; full-page illustrations throughout, incl. b/w reproductions, experimental typography and design, numerous multicolored printing techniques, with overlays and varied papers, corners bumped with a few creases and scattered toning to interior, No. 1 with horizontal edge loss on two leaves not affecting text or images, No. 4 with small dampstain to forecorner on a few central leaves, not affecting text or images; spiral-bound color pictorial wraps, Nos. 2 and 4 a bit foxed and worn at the edges and wire, No. 1 with small closed tear at foot of front wrap.

A complete run of “one of the most luxurious and visually dynamic publications of the [Spanish Civil] war.” This short-lived avant-garde aviation serial was published during the war under the direction of the Republican Air Force. The contents are antifascist and literary, promoting solidarity with the Popular Front, the USSR, and Mexico. Wartime aviation news is interspersed with articles on artistic and cultural topics, poetry, photo essays, and advertisements. The first issue’s somber and poetic epigraph belies the exuberant graphics: “Al hombre le nacieron alas … Cuando conquisto el cielo, quiso destruir la tierra.”

Artist Salvador Ortiga, known for his political graphics, was responsible for the dramatic covers and probably much of the design. Ortiga was arrested at the end of the war and died in a notorious Nationalist prison camp in 1939.

An oft-cited highlight of Guerra Civil print culture, rare complete. OCLC lists three North American holdings: UI-UC, UPenn, and Princeton.

See Jordan Mendelson, Revistas y Guerra, 1936-1939, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2007.

$2800

Collection of 31 photographs of Chilean modern dance pioneer Andrée Haas

[Modern Dance] [Chile]. Collection of 31 photographs of Chilean modern dance pioneer Andrée Haas. Comprised of 21 medium format prints: each trimmed to approx. 9 x 6-1/2 in.; and nine other prints: seven approx. 5 x 7 in. and two smaller; together with an undated playbill for a Andrée Haas performance at the Teatro Municipal, Santiago de Chile: 12-3/4 x 9-1/8 in. Fourteen of the photographs by Ignacio Hochhäusler, identified by recto ink signatures and/or studio stamps verso; six by Georges [Jorge] Sauré, signed in ink recto. Most good with light rubbing or toning, some with adhesive or adhered paper verso, a few edge worn, two with small losses at edge. Santiago de Chile: ca. 1930-1940.

Early modern dance in Chile was influenced greatly by the Swiss dancer Andrée Haas (1908-1981), a student of Émile-Jaques Dalcroze and founder of the first modern dance program at the University of Chile in 1928. Along with her colleague Elsa Martin, who studied with Mary Wigman, Haas taught new approaches to dance influenced by modern music, psychoanalysis, and personal expression.

Haas included coursework in gymnastics, eurhythmics, free dancing, choreography, pantomime, and other techniques drawn from Dalcroze, Wigman, and Rudolf Laban. As the only modern dance teacher in Chile until the late 1930s, her classes were the principal origin for most of the first generation of Chilean modern ballet dancers, including Malucha Solarí. Her program and many well-reviewed performances in Santiago during the 1930s have been described as a critical element of the explosion in public appetite for avantgarde arts in Chile during this period. These performances came well before Kurt Joos’s South American tour in 1940, often described, perhaps unjustly, as the seminal moment in Chilean modern dance history.

This group of photographs documents the expressive and gestural movement that Haas popularized in Chile. Many of the prints are by Georges [Jorge] Sauré and Ignacio Hochhäusler, both well-known portraitists of Chilean artists and intelligentsia.

Most of the images are identifiable as Haas, ca. 1930, from a similar image in the catalogue of the Salon des Independientes, 1931. A few photos somewhat later, two group photographs, and two headshots of other performers, probably Elsa Martin.

See María José Cifuentes, Historia Social de la Danza en Chile (Santiago: LOM Ediciones, 2007); Andrée Haas, “La Escuela de Danza del Instituto de Extension Musical,” Revista Musical Chilena, Año I, No. 7-8 (1945): 19-26; Eduardo Lira Espejo, “La Danza Sintesis Expresiva,” Revista de Arte Vol. 3, No. 13 (1937): 22-26; and Yolanda Montecino de Aguirre, “El ballet nacional chileno: perspectiva histórica y humana,” Revista Musical Chilena, Año 16, No. 80 (1962): 9-30.

$2250

COLLECTION OF PROPAGANDA PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE SECCIÓN FEMENINA

40 silver gelatin prints: 36 approx. 5 x 7”, near fine, all stamped verso identifying two SS-PK photographers, [Bruno] Wisniewski and Ege, some with a “Sachregister” stamp and numbered pencil annotations verso; 3 smaller, approx. 3 x 4”, good; one 4 x 6” mounted to toned card, rubbed with a few scratches.

The Sección Femenina [SF] was officially recognized by General Franco following the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. Its mandate was to organize and educate women to be full participants in the reconstruction of the nation according to Falangist/fascist principles. To this end the SF had to reconcile politically conservative and religious (Catholic) doctrine with the modern social realities of the 1940s. It found itself in the awkward position of arguing strongly for the higher education of women and girls while rejecting “feminist intellectualism”. Similarly, it had to promote the ideal woman at home while providing a model for women whose membership in the workforce was an economic necessity.

The model of ideal femininity central to this mission had to be flexible enough to contain these contradictions. The photos in this collection exemplify this elastic image of womanhood, depicting SF leaders and members engaged in the wide variety of activities promoted by the organization. These include history and music classes, field hockey, cooking, sewing, childcare, and patriotic events. As a group they reflect the inherent ambivalence of the SF: an independent and powerful network of educated women that offered its members “an unusual level of public activism, both professionally and politically”, while preaching traditional ideology.

The Nazi Waffen-SS Propagandakopanien (SS-PK) was formed in 1938 to provide wartime propaganda to domestic German audiences. SS-PK photographers were embedded in armed divisions and diplomatic corps; these photos of the Sección Femenina were probably taken between October 1940 (when Hitler and Franco met in southern Spain) and late 1941, when relations between the two countries deteriorated as it became clear Spain would not officially enter the war. The names of the two photographers appear in other SS-PK records.

$2250

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GRAPH BOOKS: PRINTED MATTER FROM RADICAL ART AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS.
FEMINIST HISTORIANS OF MATERIAL CULTURE.

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GRAPH BOOKS: PRINTED MATTER FROM RADICAL ART AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS. FEMINIST HISTORIANS OF MATERIAL CULTURE.

75 Photographs of Modernist Buildings

Nine Photographs

La Dattilografa: Canzone a ballo

Collection of National Shortwave Radio Station QSL Cards

(Graphic Design) (International Typographic Style) (Radio) Collection of National Shortwave Radio Station QSL Cards, 1950-1965.

Skema. Mensile fotografico d’attualità. (All published).

Twenty-One Egyptian and Syrian Tourist Guides, Pamphlets, and Ephemera

Rays of Sunlight from South America

Nineteen Press Photographs of Havana Riots, President Céspedes, and La Pentarquía

Para las Madres ...

El Paraíso de los Dulces Mexicanos

Atlas de las Nubes para el Servicio meteorológico de la República Mexicana

El Ĉina fotografia arto: kompilita de la redakcio de “Ĉina Fotografio.”

Grand Torneo Internazionale di Lotte Feminili al Salone Margherita