L’Art Décoratif pour Tous.

Ruffe, Léon, ed. L’Art Décoratif pour Tous. Nos. 1-17, 19-42; Nos. 2-12 (Nouvelle Série). Paris: Samuel Sigismond Schwarz, 1902-1903 [First and Second Series]; Hostingue & Blum, 1903-1904 [“Nouvelle Série”]. Together with L’Art Décoratif pour Tous. Nos. 1-41; Nos. 1-12 (Nouvelle Série). Paris: Samuel Sigismond Schwarz, 1902-1903 [First and Second Series]; Hostingue & Blum, 1903-1904 [“Nouvelle Série”].

Two fine and near complete runs (together containing every issue and plate) of the rare Art Nouveau decorative arts journal, illustrated with more than 130 full-page chromolithographic and pochoir plates. The publisher, Samuel Sigismund Schwarz, was best known for the anarchist-leaning satirical weekly L’Assiette au Beurre. As the title L’Art Decoratif pour Tous suggests, the magazine was sympathetic to the same political philosophies of social transformation, in this case through art and design.

A stylish example of Art Nouveau printing, L’Art Decoratif was part of a larger movement to synthesize the fine and applied arts; encourage the craftsmanship of French artisans while embracing industrial arts and modern technologies; and revolutionize society through popular access to culture. “[L]e devoir esthétique se confond avec l’ordre moral, qui est de propager la vie, puisque la Beauté en exalte les forces et les perpétue.”

The editor, Léon Ruffe, was an engraver whose artistic direction of the deluxe woodblock monthly, L’image (1896-97), was recognized with a medal at the Paris 1900 Exposition Universelle. Ruffe brought this fine press sensibility to L’Art Decoratif and its documentation of Art Nouveau tendencies in everyday objects (“objets usuels”) of middle- and working-class life: architecture, wallpaper, textiles, glass, metalwork, typography, book design, lighting, furniture, leather, ceramics, tiles, menus, and more. Emphasizing the democratization of art and beautiful design, the serial offered special editions of furniture and lighting, and provided designs and instructions for amateur crafters and householders in a section called “L’Atelier de l’amateur.” The eye-catching color plates were proposed to subscribers as a series of collectible posters for the popular print album format or for home decoration.

When Schwarz went bankrupt in 1903 the magazines were sold; L’Art Decoratif and L’image resumed publication under the imprint of René Blum (co-editor of the satirical Gil Blas and brother of Léon Blum, the first Socialist Prime Minister of France).

Well-known names from the Art Nouveau and Jugendstil movements and Les Maîtres de l’Affiche were frequent contributors, including Roger Marx, Paul Follot, Peter Behrens, Jules Rais, Pierre Selmersheim, Armand van Waesberghe, Henri Bellery-Desfontainer, Georges de Feure, and Edouard Beneditus. Typography, graphics, and plates attributed to Adolphe Cossard, Emile Jammes, Henry de Waroquier, and the Mucha student, printmaker Vojtěch Preissig (later a famed Czech Resistance publisher murdered by Nazis at Dachau).

Scarce. One near complete run held by the Met, three incomplete sets identified at Bard, Northwestern, and the BNF. The present examples, loose and bound, satisfy needs for both exhibition and research.

$7500

1) Folio (varies, approx. 35 cm), 52 of 54 issues, 12-24 pp., most 16 pp.; profusely illustrated with b/w reproductions of original artwork, photography, and designs, and 130+ large color plates. Weekly with intermittent supplements until no. 22, then biweekly with 4 color plates in each issue (including wrappers). Lacking no. 18 (1902) and no. 1 (1903); no. 4 (1903) front wrapper present only. Color pictorial stapled wrappers, rear wrap with adverts for Bing, L’Assiette au Beurre, etc. Housed in three custom-made cloth-and-decorative board folders, the trio housed together in a matching clamshell case.

2) 2 vols., 53 of 54 issues, profusely illustrated with b/w reproductions of original artwork, photography, and designs, and 130+ large color plates. Weekly with intermittent supplements until no. 22, then biweekly with 4 color plates in each issue (including wrappers). Lacking no. 42 (1903) and supplemental pl. no. 8 from Nouvelle Serie, No. 8. Orig. color pictorial wrappers bound in to contemporary half calf and marbled paper boards, gilt title to spine with ex-libris initials “J.M.” Boards rubbed, a few supplemental plates from the Nouvelle Serie loose and worn at edges.

Musterbuch 3 Abteilung Hohlglas and Preisliste

(Trade Catalogue - Glass) Werkstätten Richard Süssmuth-Glaskunst. Musterbuch 3 Abteilung Hohlglas. Penzig in Schlesien [Pieńsk]: n.d. [1935]. Oblong 29 cm; [1], 18 b/w pls., reproducing photographs of glass tableware, the first pl. lightly soiled, the rest very good; in stab bound decorative portfolio, edgeworn with small closed tears. Together with: Werkstätten Richard Süssmuth-Glaskunst. Preisliste. Penzig in Schlesien: n.d. [1935]. Oblong 23 cm; [1], 20 pp. dampstain affecting first 2 leaves; stapled half-wrapper, heavily creased, starting near top staple.

Glass artist Richard Süssmuth (1900-1974) studied at Dresdner Akademie für Kunsthandwerk and set up his own workshop in Penzig in Schlesien in 1924. Influenced by Neue Sachlichkeit, Deutsche Werkbund, and Bauhaus, he designed simple, stylized glass tablewares. His workshop was destroyed during WWII and he left Silesia during the mass evacuation and expulsion of ethnic Germans from Polish territories after 1945. He settled in Immenhausen and started a new glassworks; today it is a glass museum.

Süssmuth’s work is included in the collections of The Met, MoMA, Victoria & Albert, Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, etc., and yet no documentation of his workshop’s production prior to the war seems to be recorded in any OCLC institutions. The present example includes pull quotes from international arts reviews praising Süssmuth, including Kunst und Kunstgewerbe, La Revue-Moderne, and The Studio London. He won a Gold Medal at the Milan Triennale of 1954.

$500

Direcções Telefonicas

(Advertising - Socks - Spanish Civil War) Bosch & Baylina. Direcções Telefonicas. [Porto, Portugal]: [1938]. 30 cm. Unused. Decorative hanging telephone directory with color lithographic printing across fourteen heavy index cards mounted to board, the first further reinforced. Lightly abraded at center of design, affecting three leaves.

Lovely directory, each index page with a peppy promotional suggestion for Bosch & Baylina’s socks or expressing support for national industry and economy. The Portuguese factory was owned by Ramon Baylina, a supporter of the fascist Spanish Falange during the Civil War. As the president of Casa de España de Porto, he organized fundraisers for Spanish fascist causes and used his factories to host volunteer workshops to fabricate clothing for Spanish Falange soldiers. Curiously, Baylina also donated socks throughout the war to the Spanish Republican side.

“Calce a meia EGARA e não se arrependerá.”

No Bosch & Baylina materials recorded in OCLC.

$500

Selling Beauty

Helena Rubinstein. Selling Beauty. [New York]: 1941-1942. 3 issues: each 22 cm; 16, 20, and 16 pp.; b/w illustrations from orig. publicity artwork, reproductions of newspaper articles, and photographs; in red pictorial stapled wrappers, a few creases, VG.

Three otherwise unrecorded issues of Rubinstein’s internal sales magazine, introducing new products and pricing, updating ad campaigns, offering prizes for display case design, and distributing sales advice for Rubinstein sales girls. Helena Rubinstein’s marketing savvy is widely acknowledged, but we find no reference to these point-of-sale training manuals for selling during the war. “Make Beauty a Patriotic Duty!”

One full color reproduction of a Vogue ad laid in.

$145

The Secrets of Beauty

Helena Rubinstein. The Secrets of Beauty [cover title]. Paris; London; New York: Np, nd. (ca. 1927). Oblong 12.4 cm; 40 pp.; three b/w illustrations: one of Mme. Rubinstein and 2 of her NYC salons; in stapled purple and silver textured pictorial wrappers, rubbed, small area of loss to color on rear wrapper, filled in.

Rare descriptive trade catalogue for Helena Rubinstein’s Valaze line, with images of two of her NYC salons before they were remodeled and relocated in 1928. Numerous objects from her African, American, and Oceanic art collections are visible. A price index and table of contents at the end. The business address and product line lead us to suggest a date of 1927 with some confidence.

Rubinstein was a Jewish refugee who became one of the world’s richest women through her pioneering work in cosmetics and marketing.

Not recorded in OCLC.

SOLD

The Secrets of Beauty

Helena Rubinstein. The Secrets of Beauty [cover title]. Paris; London; New York: Np, nd. (ca. 1927). Oblong 12.5 cm; 40 pp.; three b/w illustrations: one of Mme. Rubinstein and 2 of her NYC salons; in stapled cream and gold pictorial wrappers, rubbed, small area of loss to color on rear wrapper, top forecorner creased.

Rare descriptive trade catalogue for Helena Rubinstein’s Valaze line, with images of two of her NYC salons before they were remodeled and relocated in 1928. Numerous objects from her African, American, and Oceanic art collections are visible. A price index and table of contents at the end. The business address and product line lead us to suggest a date of 1927 with some confidence.

Rubinstein was a Jewish refugee who became one of the world’s richest women through her pioneering work in cosmetics and marketing.

Not recorded in OCLC.

SOLD

Preparatory Material for the Exhibition: Art, A Weapon for Total War

(Arts Propaganda) (WII) (Communism) Victory Workshop, Artists League of America. Preparatory Material for the Exhibition: Art, A Weapon for Total War. [New York]: [1943] 8-½ x 11 in., 5 pp. typescript on tan paper, fragile and splitting, with losses.

The present typescript outlines an otherwise unrecorded exhibition (unrealized?) titled “Art, A Weapon for Total War.” Its “aims, topics, subject-matter, media, and forms” are described in the strident language of popular front propaganda, proposing that the artist is “a specialist well suited for the task” of total war.

The Artists League of America (ALA) was one of several arts propaganda groups founded in 1942 when the US Communist Party’s popular front organization, The American Artists’ Congress (AAC), collapsed after the US entered WWII. Members of the AAC merged with the Artists Union to become the Artists League of America. The “Victory Workshop” was similar in nature to the better known Artists for Victory coalition which sponsored the national graphic exhibition “America in War.”

Suggestions are made for artist contributions in many media: painting (including murals and documentary painting), silkscreens, sculpture displays, floats, masks, puppets, window displays, comics, photography and stickers. Special attention given to the possible fate of “women, religion, minorities, labor” and “Negroes” under the fascist order.

$75

Société Anonyme, Inc. (Museum of Modern Art). Report 1920-1921

Dreier, Katherine; Marcel Duchamp, et al. Société Anonyme, Inc. (Museum of Modern Art). Report 1920-1921. New York: 1921. Tall 8vo (25.5 cm), 50 pp.; 24 b/w illus. reproducing artworks by Archipenko, Brancusi, Man Ray, Villon, etc., interior near fine; in paper boards with title label, a bit rubbed with small losses to paper at board edges, crown of rear joint loosened, otherwise very good.

A document of real museological significance for modern art in the US: the first annual report of New York’s first Museum of Modern Art, founded by artist and activist Katherine Dreier, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray in 1920 (nine years before MoMA) to showcase and promote “a better understanding” of international modernism “throughout the country, as well as in New York City.” The report documents the first year of exhibitions, lectures, and publications of the Society, which “acted as a leaven in the art world of America.”

Descriptions of the exhibitions include fascinating notes on display and gallery design. Lists of the included artists offer hints at the internationalism of modern schools and lesser-known names while lecture notes conjure wonderful evenings, including The First Birthday Party: An Evening with Gertrude Stein. Concludes with a catalogue of the Reference LIbrary, some entries with annotations the author considered important, e.g. “very rare, out of print” and “entered into the Library because it shows the break of the earlier Renaissance from the Byzantine.”

The Société Anonyme was the first permanent collection of modern art in the United States.

SOLD

Typescript Letter (Jacob Lawrence)

(Lawrence, Jacob) Artist’s Committee for Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Two-Page Typescript Letter. New York: 1963. Stapled, 8-½ x 11 in.; bottom corners torn away. Fair.

Jacob Lawrence was the Chairman of the artist’s fundraising committee for the iconic civil rights organization, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Here is a form letter from Lawrence to other artists on behalf of SNCC’s artist committee, describing a forthcoming exhibition and sale in support of the SNCC’s southern voter registration drive. “Artists, too, yearn for an end to racial injustice and the birth of equality for all men. Inspired by the students, we pledge ourselves to use our art to help guarantee support for this vital effort in which we deeply believe and upon which all our futures hinge.”

Scarce surviving documentation of Lawrence’s involvement with the committee in 1963, one other related letter held at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art in the Philip Evergood papers.

$50

Topak Ev

(Artist’s Book - Handmade) Yalter, Nil. Topak Ev [cover title]. N.p. (Paris?): 1973. Oblong 8vo (27.5 cm); materials in five vinyl sleeves clamp-mounted in a Lilliput-brand document binder with the artist’s handwritten cover title: “Topak Ev” / 1973 / Nil Yalter 2/50”. Holograph postcard in airmail envelope addressed to Güngor & Ilhan Mimaroglu laid in, postmarked Paris 1976. Very Good.

Rare and otherwise unrecorded document of the Turkish feminist’s ground-breaking installation at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1973 about nomadic architecture (yurts/tents), the lives of the yurt’s female inhabitants, and shamanism in Turkey and other Central Asian nations. Born in Egypt in 1938, Yalter grew up in Istanbul and moved to Paris in 1965 to study art. Her work came of age alongside the Mai ‘68 movement; trips back to Turkey where nomadic people were being forcibly settled further radicalized her. Much of her work, which she describes as “ethno-critical,” relates to women, immigrants, prisoners, and displaced peoples.

According to Yalter in an interview with Esther Ferrer, “My first important exhibition took place in 1973 at ARC, the Museum of Contemporary Art at the Ville de Paris. I called it Topak EV I. The central theme of the show was the yourte. In 1971 I had gone back to Turkey, which was suffering severe repression at the time due to several recent political events. I became interested in the tents of the nomads and nomadic life in general. The nomads could no longer roam freely because the lands that formerly belonged to the community were now privately owned. The yourte symbolizes their freedom. Curiously enough, however, the women who build these round tents in the shape of a womb practically spend their whole lives inside of them, sheltered from the real world outside. From the time she’s a teenager, the woman spends her time decorating the tent and making it as beautiful as possible, this being considered an important attribute in a wife. A lot of prestige is given to the parents of a girl who gets married. The yourte is in fact symbolic of the relation of the father’s world to the husband’s.”

Around the same time she became friends with ethnologist Bernard Dupaigne, the director of the Le musée de l’Homme. The present work includes a typescript essay attributed to Dupaigne on the yourte: “Maison des femmes ou prison des femmes.”

$2000

Materials assembled by Yalter in the album include: a photograph of the eponymous installation at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris mounted in resin, a Xerox showing photographs of Central Asian yurts with Russian captions and holograph French translations, two samples of goat and sheep fur mounted on board with holoraph annotations, a photographic contact sheet bearing 18 images and holographic identifications of yurts in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, and a two-page stapled typescript attributed to Bernard Dupaigne.

Three Modern Turkish Architecture Catalogues

(Architecture) (Turkey) Güngör, I Hulusi. Şehirler Nasıl Imar Edilir. Istanbul: Çeltüt Marbaacılık, 1969. Tall 4to, 160 pp.; primarily b/w illustrations, in pictorial wrappers, edge wear and a creased corner. VG. WITH: Gerçek, Cemil. Şevki Vanlı: Mimarlık Calışmaları. The works of Şevki Vanlı. Ankara: Yaprak Kitabevi, 1977. Square 4to, 142, [20] pp.; primarily b/w illustrations reproducing floorplans, elevations, sketches, and photographs, text in Turkish and English; in pictorial wrappers, binding tight, wrappers rubbed and toned, light bookstore stamp to front cover. AND: Gerçek, Cemil. Sedad Hakkı Eldem: Büyük Konutlar. Ankara: Yaprak Kitabevi, 1982. Square 4to, 160 pp.; primarily illustrations, reproducing elevations, floorplans, sketches, etc.; in pictorial french wrappers, worn and bumped, owner’s name in ink on half-title.

Three books on modern Turkish architecture. Two monographs celebrate the work of architects Sedad Hakkı Eldem and Şevki Vanlı, the third considers urban planning of outdoor space, mostly parks, playgrounds, public art, zoos, and street-level infrastructure including train stations, and garbage receptacles.

Two of the books were published by Yaprak Kitabevi for their nationalistic Proje Uygulama series (nos. 1 and 4 of 4), publicizing modern Turkish architecture.

We find no North American OCLC holdings of the first title, the second only at MIT.

$225

Cyklonette

(Trade Catalogue - Automobiles) Cyklon Maschinenfabrik LMD. Cyklonette [cover title]. Lista de Precios [half-title]. [Berlin]: 1910. Oblong 8vo (23.5 cm), 31 pp.; b/w illustrations throughout; color stapled pictorial wrappers, small closed puncture affecting entire text block and wrappers, two small tape repairs to verso of front wrap.

Rare Cyklonette tricycle catalogue, published for the Spanish market, including family and commercial models. Popular in Europe, the three-wheelers never caught on in the United States. Cyklon-Maschinenfabrik stuck with the design for almost twenty years, much longer than other carmakers, and they were used by the German and Polish Armies during WWI.

Only a single example of Cykon promotional materials is located in OCLC records, in Sweden.

$275

El Arte del Embellecimiento

(Trade Catalogue - Beauty) Tangee. El Arte del Embellecimiento [cover title]. [New York]: [George Luft], 1929. Oblong (10 cm), [16] pp.; profusely illustrated in color; stapled self-wrappers, very good.

American pharmacist George Luft built Tangee cosmetics and its “color-changing” lipstick formula into one of the most popular brands in the US before WWII. It excelled with colorful, modern branding and testimonials from many theater and film stars of the day (here Anita Page, Sue Carol, Ann Pennington, et al.). The present pamphlet designed for the Spanish market.

Scarce, no examples of Tangee trade materials are recorded in OCLC.

$250

Catálogo de Peletería

(Trade Catalogue - Fashion) Peletería Bertrán y Compania. Catálogo de Peletería. Barcelona: [Seix & Barral Herms.], [1915]. 4to (26.5 cm), [12] pp.; one page printed recto only, followed by [8] pp. of full-page plates with color graphics; in stapled french-fold wrapper with tipped-in pictorial illustration.

Fine example of exuberant graphics and luxury commercial activities at the beginning of WWI. Published by Barcelona graphics specialist, Seix & Barral.

Not found in OCLC.

$225

Catálogo de Peletería

(Trade Catalogue - Fashion) Peletería H. Solsona. Catálogo de Peletería. Barcelona: [Seix & Barral Herms.], [1917]. Tall 8vo (25 cm), [16] pp.; one page intro. followed by full-page illus. plates, each embellished with a unique b/w headpiece; in stapled color pictorial wrappers by “Porta”, fore-edge lightly foxed and chipped, not affecting illustration.

Eye-catching Orientalist pochoir(?) cover illustration followed by 15 furrier fashion plates, each with an amusing vignette (many with the specific animals used in the coat depicted in the plate, others of fashionable women out and about). Published by Barcelona graphics specialist, Seix & Barral.

Not found in OCLC.

$225

1ere Communion 1933

(Fashion) Printemps. 1ere Communion 1933. [Paris]: Herbert, 1933. Tall 8vo (23 cm), [16] pp.; mostly illustrations, in stapled pictorial wraps. WITH: Au Bon Marché. Première Communion. [Paris]: Desfossés, 1936. Oblong 8vo (19 cm), [24] pp.; illustrated in stapled color wraps, with laid in advertisement for printed communion souvenirs.

Two leading Parisian department stores advertise their photographic studios and large lines of communion clothes and accessories, mostly for girls.

$75

Publicité Chaumet. SEP/ETE/REM.

(Advertising) (Transportation) Chaumet, J. Publicité Chaumet. SEP/ETE/REM. [Paris]: [S.P.G.E. Hachard & Cie.], n.d. (1943?). 4to (28.3 cm), [12] pp., [2] pp. typed list of advertisements placed through Chaumet, and a TLS laid in, from Chaumet, dated Feb. 16, 1944; trade catalogue with b/w illus. throughout, near fine, in embossed stab-bound wrappers, front wrap with minor damp stain at top edge not affecting contents.

In his cover letter the Monsieur Chaumet lyrically describes exterior signs on autobuses as “moving poster[s] that circle through the major arteries of the cities.” The profusely illustrated catalogue details other opportunities for advertising on public transportation, station kiosks and walls, trolley stops, and other sites visible to commuters. Issued in 1944 when the French Resistance was targeting road signs to confuse German troop movements.

Not in OCLC.

$250

Promotional Album for Art-Deco Advertising Vehicles

(Graphic Design) (Automobiles) (Bicycling) Publicité Automobile Routière Lumineuse Animée Sonore [PARLAS]. Promotional Album for Art-Deco Advertising Vehicles. Bagneaux [Paris]: [1932-1939].

Unusual photographic documentation of “light-and-sound” advertising vehicles, including trucks, a limo, and a very futuristic art-deco van, all with ad panels and large loud-speakers mounted to the roof, some with additional modifications, including a truck whose panels drop to reveal a glass vitrine—a moving shop window. The vehicles (“camion publicitaire”) promote department stores and theaters, including the Folies Bergere; Theatre des Gobelins; and Theatre Montparnasse. Shown attracting attention in crowded Parisian streets, many photographs also depict the vehicles during hugely popular road cycling events, including the Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix Cyliste, and the Circuit de l’Ouest.

A delightful example of vernacular Art-Deco design, with unexpected views of Paris street life just before WWII.

SOLD

41 photographs, most approx. 11 x 7 cm, mounted on 29 cardboard mounts, each 11.5 x 17.5 cm with a year written in white ink, a few with additional captions (e.g. Paris-Roubaix Cyliste; Tour de France), together with two large business cards (one photographic). Cards laid in a worn cloth folder, one mounted to the inside cover. Photos and mounts VG, a few areas of light discoloration from orig. adhesive, one hand-colored.

La Dattilografa: Canzone a ballo

(Women; Typists) (Operetta) Rocchi-Burlamacchi, G. La Dattilografa: Canzone a ballo. Florence: Mignani, 1939 [XVII].

Sheet music, 27 x 18.2 cm, [4] pp.; pictorial color self-wrapper. Cover sl. toned, very good.

A bit of social satire from fascist Italy in this suggestive song (for dancing!) about typists and their machines.

Not found in OCLC.

$95

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

Untitled Lithograph from Pel & Ploma

(Modernisme) Casas, Ramon. Untitled Lithograph from Pel & Ploma. Barcelona: Obrador Gràfic Thomas, n.d. [1903 or 1904]. Color lithograph. Sheet: 29.3 x 20 cm. Blind-stamped “Pel & Ploma” and “Thomas.” Two corners with very minor creases, not affecting image. Very good.

A plate, loose as issued, from the famed Catalan arts journal, Pel & Ploma (1899-1903), associated with Utrillo, Picasso, and Rodin. Ramon Casas was the primary illustrator and marketed the magazine through posters, special editions, and supplements such as this one. His frequent subject was the “new” woman—modern, bourgeois, educated, urban—engaged in intellectual activity and sport.

Pel & Ploma ceased publication in December 1903; Casas and Utrillo started Forma in Jan. 1904. This plate presumably celebrates the New Year.

$150

Bougies de l’Etoile

(Art Nouveau) (Candles) (Social Programs) L. Felix Fournier & Cie. Bougies de l’Etoile. Paris, Marseille. [Marseille]: [Maison Fournier], n.d. [ca. 1900]. Oblong 22 cm., [32] pp.; profusely illus. catalogue, 2-3 b/w photogravures per page from images by Marseille photographer F. Giuglard; in stapled pictorial wrappers.

Delightful catalogue advertising the “deluxe” manufacturing process of Fournier’s Etoile candle with a “visit to the factory,” where men and women are shown producing as many as 120,000 packets of candles a day. Photographic reproductions and descriptions of the process surrounded by various Art Nouveau graphics and typography.

Curious final section “Oeuvres” dedicated to health and philanthropic services provided by the company to the workers, including a pharmacy and infant care, as well as primary schools for boys and girls.

Printed for an exhibition, presumed to be the Exposition Universelle 1900, which is referred to explicitly in the introduction citing the Exposition’s official classification numbers [“groupe XIV (industrie chimique)”]. Not found in OCLC.

$175

“Femme éternellement belle”...

(Pochoir) (Perfume) (Orientalism) Mary Blanc.“Femme éternellement belle”... [Paris: Les Papeterie Glandières, ca. 192-.] 16 x 11 cm., [8] pp.; descriptive text and price list of beauty products influenced by “Hindu” recipes and secrets passed from Marco Polo to the Italian Renaissance and to France; wrappers with color pochoir print on front cover, slight discoloration on blank edge of cover otherwise very good.

Attractive pochoir design reminiscent of Léon Bakst’s orientalist costume designs for the Ballet Russes. The small printing house, Les Papeterie Glandières, had a specialty in pochoir printing.

Not located in OCLC.

$95

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.

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

​(Middle East) (Tourism) Sammelband of Twenty-One Egyptian and Syrian Tourist Guides, Pamphlets, and Ephemera, ca. 1958. 24.5 cm. Materials primarily printed in Cairo and Damascus, a few from Madrid, Brussels, et al. Most illustrated in color, with texts in Arabic, English, French, German, and Spanish. Various sizes with orig. wrappers bound in red cloth with gilt title to spine, boards rubbed and bumped, endpapers brittle and worn. Two guides with losses or closed tears, rest good.

In addition to guides to the obvious touristic destinations, many items promoting modern life and industry in the Middle East, including a copy of Abdel Nasser’s Philosophy of the Revolution, and a 40 pp. promotional booklet for the Sadd-El-Aali dam.

$300

Group of Black LGBTQ+ Club Ephemera, San Francisco

Group of Black LGBTQ+ Club Ephemera, San Francisco, ca. 1970-1973. Seven broadsides and handbills: four 215 x 280 mm, two half-sheet handbills approx. 215 x 115 mm, one smaller, approx. 77 x 109 mm.; four black and white, three on colored papers, one broadside pierced at corners from orig. staples, else VG+.

Scarce documentation of social spaces for transgender people of color in the 1970s. Bo Jangles, a.k.a. Bojangles, was a black-owned club at Larkin and Ellis in “Polk Gulch,” the center of San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ bar scene in the 1960s and 1970s. It is described by trans activist Red Jordan Arobateau in his semi-autobiographical novel “Autumn Changes,” as an “all black [Soul] club full of sissies, dikes, studs and a few straight customers. Transsexual queens black as Cleopatra reign in full face, form & fashion. And small drag butches congregate; a few are ex prison inmates; and two of the most successful black lesbian pimps come down with their string of ladies for a night out on the town.” Weekly “taped” soul nights are advertised here along with live latin fusion music from bands Christian Black and Black Magic.

In the mid-1970s Bojangles relocated to the Tenderloin(?), where it continued to cater to a “black and brown queer crowd.”

$550

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.

$1500

75 Photographs of the Aftermath of the Mexico City Earthquake

75 Photographs of the Aftermath of the Mexico City Earthquake, 1985. Black and white gelatin prints, each 8.5 cm x 12 cm, a few over or under exposed, one duplicate. Uniform mild curling, VG. Sleeved.

Amateur photography of Mexico’s era-defining event, the 8.0 earthquake which struck the city in the early morning of September 19, 1985. Three to four minutes of shaking leveled much of the historic center, causing a still unknown number of deaths in addition to devastating losses to infrastructure and housing. The response of the PRI government was to create a media blackout; their denial of the seriousness of the damage led to riots, looting, and delays in search and rescue as well as emergency aid. Some historians believe the corruption exposed by the PRI’s mismanagement contributed to the end of their single-party rule fifteen years later.

Despite the fact that the international press had access to early photos of the destruction, many Mexicans did not see the extent of the damage for weeks or months. The unknown photographer of the current group appears to have taken some of the photos of police and armed guards surreptitiously, focusing their lens downward in the street to capture the activities of cleaning crews, people carrying water, and broken sidewalks. From buildings that may be identified, the photographer covered quite a bit of distance, including outer zones of the city and slums whose damage is not otherwise well documented.

Although most of the images are informally composed, some include the photographer’s shadow or demonstrate a more self-conscious presentation of the dramatic ruins.

SOLD

Six Photographs of Prostitution, Mexico City

Hermanos Mayo, Los. Six Photographs of Prostitution, Mexico City, 195[0]. Gelatin prints, each 17 x 13 cm with studio stamp verso and editorial marks, including one typed caption “Prostitucion”. Date stamped 18 Enero 195[0], possibly 195[3]. Two with red editorial pencil marks recto, some minor wear to surfaces, overall VG.

The Hermanos Mayo photographic collective adopted their nom de guerre in reference to May Day labor protests in Madrid in the early 1930s. Comprising five brothers from two families, the group’s pseudonym “Mayo” affirmed their individual commitments to the struggle of the working class and the Spanish Second Republic. The early influence of Republican anarcho-syndicalism set the tone for the extraordinary body of work they produced in Spain, as war photographers, and in exile in Mexico, where Foto Hermanos Mayo was a successful agency for fifty years.

Together, they pioneered the use of Leica street photography in Mexican photojournalism, producing more than 5 million negatives working for periodicals including El popular, La prensa, Hoy, Mañana, Siempre!, Tiempo, Time and Life. They were unflinching chroniclers of labor and and the lower classes, as evidenced in this unusual series of female sex workers on the streets of Mexico City. The women are seen in day and night, interacting with police (as clients?) and other passersby. In a few images they seem to be aware of the photographer, hiding their faces; in others they smile broadly outside the hotels where they work.

The work bears some resemblance to the photographs of sex workers taken by Weegee in New York City during the same time period. They reflect the commitment of the Mayos to using the press photo format to advance a social message. Compared, for example, to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Calle Cuauhtemoctzin, Mexico City (1934), which shows two sex workers from close range looking out of windows, the images place the women in their environment, shown as part of the landscape with their clientele. Current scholarship has suggested that between 15-30% of young Mexican women were employed as sex workers in the beginning of the century, with many impoverished women working as sex workers in the post-Revolution decades that followed.*

Rare. Vintage prints from Hermanos Mayo’s influential career documenting Mexico City’s dramatic postwar expansion and social crises are largely absent from US institutional and museum holdings. Most contemporary prints would have been produced solely for distribution to the press and remain scarce. The Hermanos Mayo archive was purchased by the state and is now housed at the Mexico National Archives in CDMX.

*Bliss, Katherine Elaine (24 February 2004). “A Right to Live as Gente Decente: Sex Work, Family Life, and Collective Identity in Early-Twentieth-Century Mexico”. Journal of Women’s History. 15 (4): 164–169.

$1800

Offered in collaboration with Auger Down Books.

Agro: La Mejor Revista del Campo. Año I, No. 5.

Agro: La Mejor Revista del Campo. Año I, No. 5. (June 1955). Mexico, D.F.: Imp. Cal-Yu-Mex. 4to, 30 pp., pictorial illus. wrapper, chipped with small closed tears. Toned.

One issue of a government sponsored(?) agricultural serial distributed for free to “campesinos, agricultores, miembros de las Sociedades de Crédito Ejidal.” Sections on farming, labor organizing, health, and religion.

OCLC listed only at BNM (partial).

$50

Mitos y Leyendas de Teotihuacan [...]

[Dominguez, Francisco; Gonzalez, Carlos; and Efren Orozco Rosales] Departamento del Distrito Federal [México], Dirección General de Acción Cívica. Mitos y Leyendas de Teotihuacan. Creación del Quinto Sol; Sacrificio Gladiatorio: Escenificaciones Musicadas // Myths and Legends of Teotihuacan. Creation of the Fifth Sun; Gladiatory Sacrifices: Musically Arranged Scenes. Mexico, D.F.:, Imp. “Cosmos”, 1935. Tabloid, 29 pp.; program with illus. head- and tail-pieces, mostly repeating from Spanish to English sections, and map; stapled stiff card wrapper, with color illus. recto and verso. Damage to wrapper at lower forecorner, causing small area of loss through the text block (not affecting text or images). Rear wrapper chipped with earlier tape repair. Only fair.

Souvenir program for a musical event held at the Teotihuacan archeological zone for the international Lion’s Club convention in 1935 (the first time the annual convention was held in a non-English speaking country). Includes a map of the zone indicating where the performance took place and how visits were directed. More than 6,000 members attended the convention, where they were greeted by President Cárdenas.

$50

Primer Salon Nacional de la Estampa

[Guati Rojo, Alfredo]. Primer Salon Nacional de la Estampa. Exh. cat. [Mexico, D.F]: [Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes], 1972. Square 8vo, [36] pp.; profusely illus. checklist with reproductions of artists’ works. Stapled wrapper toned but tight, pinholes affecting second half of text block and rear wrapper.

A new salon for contemporary Mexican printmaking, bypassing the established “Salones Anuales de Grabado.” Including many important Mexican modernists and a wide array of styles.

Unrecorded in OCLC.

$50

Para las Madres ...

(Maternal Health and Child Care) (Eugenics) Departamento de Salubridad, México. Para las Madres …. México, D.F.: D.A.P.P., 1939. 8vo, 64 pp.; 8 b/w pls., in pictorial stapled wrappers, rubbed and sunned. Good.

Propagandistic public health booklet promoting the connection between healthful, clean mothers and children and a strong society and nation. Including a section on the “certificado pre-nupcial,” a required premarital medical exam that was a part of the post-Revolutionary regulation of the national (“la gran familia mexicana’‘) family. The Mexican Eugenics Society was actively involved in the creation and implementation of these laws. Focusing on hygiene and care before marriage, during pregnancy, birth, and infancy, with sections on STDS, labor, early schooling, and the prevention of common infant diseases.

$95

Boletín de Artes Visuales. Nos. 1 and 4.

Unión Panamericana, Sección de Artes Visuales. Boletín de Artes Visuales. Nos. 1 and 4. [Washington, D.C.]: [Unión Panamericana], [1956/1957; 1958/1959]. Two vols.: 80, 61 pp.; illus. throughout; in pictorial color wraps, lightly worn.

Uncommon early issues of a comprehensive Latin American visual art digest reporting on exhibitions, conferences, publications and other activities in the Americas and beyond.

$100

Five Programs from the Inaugural Season of Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires: Amlet, Aurora; et al.

(Opera) (Art Nouveau) Five Programs from the Inaugural Season of Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires: Amlet; Aurora; Don Giovanni; Otello; and Pagliacci / Tristano e Isotta. [Buenos Aires, Argentina]: [Imprenta Tragant], [1908]. Trimmed sizes vary slightly, each approx. 26.5 x 14.3 cm, 23 pp.; illus. throughout from b/w photos of conductors, singers, and composers, and advertisements, some toning throughout, a few small closed tears or chipping, Otello with more substantial wear and losses; stapled color pictorial wrappers illus. by “Benesch,” four with small ink inscriptions on cover identifying the opera. Aurora staples removed.

The original Teatro Colón was closed in 1888 to make way for a modern national opera. The new building took twenty years to complete, and it opened in May, 1908, with a performance of Aida. The highlight of the inaugural season was the world premiere of Hector Panizza’s Aurora, the first “Argentinian” opera, commissioned by the theater. Beloved by Buenos Aires’s audiences, the tenor aria “Alta en el cielo” became the hymn for the Argentine national flag. The present group includes the program for this premiere, conducted by Panizza. It also includes a program for Pagliacci; the featured soprano, Emilia Reussi, was the first Argentine woman to sing at the Colón.

The programs are each printed in 2-4 colors. They include plot synopsis and Art Nouveau advertisements for liquors, interior furnishings, fashions, soaps, perfumes, opera glasses, pianos, Pathé records and phonographs, and modern appliances, including an early domestic vacuum.

Not recorded in OCLC.

$1500

Venus: Las Estrellas en Exclusiva! Nos. 73, 75-77, 79-82, 84-85, 88, 91-92, 95-104.

(Cinema) (Mexploitation) (Prensa Rojo) Samayoa Lizárraga, Carlos, Ed. Venus: Las Estrellas en Exclusiva! Nos. 73, 75-77, 79-82, 84-85, 88, 91-92, 95-104. México: D.F.: [Publicaciones Llergo], 1966. Small folio, 23 issues, each 31 pp., bound with orig. illustrated wrappers in contemporary cloth with orig. covers. Newsprint fragile and lightly toned, some minor chipping, creases.

A broken but substantial run of an otherwise unrecorded chiefly photographic tabloid featuring the major and minor actresses of Mexican cinema. Each issue with full-page centerfolds. The editor, Carlos Samayoa founded the iconic tabloid weekly Alarma! in 1963. As the original prensa rojo, Alarma! revolutionized the Mexican popular press and Samayoa (together with right wing publisher Regino Hernandez Llegro) led the era-defining transition to sensationalist journalism.

Venus follows Samayoa’s successful graphic formula at Alarma!, with a skillful combination of photography, eye-catching headlines, and gossipy industry columns. Issues are dedicated to well-regarded actresses and singers of the 1960s including Lilia Prado, Maria Victoria, Angélica María, Ana Bertha Lepe, Sonia Infante, Ana Martín Yolanda Montes (Tongolele), and Gina Romand. Retrospectively Venus documents a generation of women whose work on Mexploitation films has largely been forgotten. These include Mary Esquivel, Rossy Mendoza, Mayte Carol, Angelita Castany, Grace Polit, Marga Lopez, Ana María Fernández Pomar, Elsa Cárdenas, Eva Norvind, Jeanine Acosta, Fanny Cano, Maria Fuensanta, Malu Reyes, Vianey Lárraga, Olga Guillot, et al.

Articles written under pseudonyms report on social issues of the 1960s, including “skirts vs. pants,” and actresses exploited in border towns of Cd. Juarez and Tijuana by Northamerican tourists. Privilege given to actresses of Mexican origin, frequent accusations of malinchismo to those descriminating against Mexican beauties.

$900

Two programs celebrating the inauguration of Mexico’s Supreme Court buildings in 1904 and 1964

(Architecture) (Law) Santacruz y Olivier. Inauguración del Ala Poniente del Palacio de Justicia Civil [cover title]. [Mexico, D.F.]: Tip. de la Oficina Impresora del Timbre, 1904. Small folio, 36 pp.; 18 full page b/w reproductions of photographs and elevations with captions, texts facing, first leaf chipped with small losses, closed tear to fore-edge affecting all leaves, repaired with tape recto. Decorative wrapper, orig. stab bound, stained and rubbed, in recent protective mylar sleeve. Together with: Carvajal Herrera, Fernando, Ed. Palacio de Justicia del Distrito Federal Ad Perpetuam Rei Memoriam. Mexico, D.F.: Imprenta Ayuntamiento, 1964. 4to, 131 pp.; first 60 pp. a history of the courts and their organization, Mexican legal code, and the orig. courthouses on calle Donceles, the remainder a profusely illus. account of the new building by Juan Sordo Madaleno and Assoc., its construction and inauguration, some in color. Cloth, gilt title on front board. Edition of 1000.

The first a large, privately printed program celebrating the inauguration of the new national and federal district courthouses on calle Cordobanes (now Donceles). Produced by the engineers who directed the renovation of the buildings, the large plates are accompanied by text detailing the contracts, costs, and results of the work. The government requested the renovation to bring a “more adequate character to the important” offices whose “gloomy appearances” made a “poor impression on foreigners.” Approved in 1900, the work was not completed until 1904 due to engineering challenges discussed here at length. The physical separation of the federal and district courts was accompanied by their legal separation.

The buildings on Donceles remained the primary courts in Mexico City until the subject of the second volume, the new Palacio de Justicia del Distrito Federal, was completed in 1964. This edition was produced to commemorate Juan Sordo Madaleno’s modernist design, whose streamlined spatial organization was intended to reflect a similar rationalization of Mexico’s federal legal code. Exemplar of Latin American modernism as both a corporatist and nationalist aesthetic.

Both quite scarce, OCLC finding only one holding apiece, the former at UT-Austin, the latter at LA Law Library.

$550

Museos: Realizaciones y Proyectos

[Rivera, Ruth Marín]. Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. Museos: Realizaciones y Proyectos. UNESCO/INBA [cover title]. Catalogue for an exhibition held at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Departamento de Arquitectura, September-October, 1962. [Mexico, D.F.]: [Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes], [1962]. Oblong 4to, [88] pp.; mostly illustrations; illus. wrappers very worn, spine starting, crease affecting upper corner continues throughout text block.

Terrific catalogue of realized and unrealized museums in Mexico, curated by the director of the Department of Architecture at INBA, Ruth Rivera (Diego Rivera’s daughter). It introduces lesser known projects that were part of a huge surge in national modernist architecture during the 1950 and 1960s. These include three planned border museums in Matamoros; Tijuana; and Ciudad Juarez, all designed by Pedro Ramirez Vazquez under the auspices of the Programa Nacional Fronterizo.

Ruth Rivera’s key role as a promoter and archivist of Mexican modernist architecture is often overlooked. Her design for the Galerias Salon de la Plastica Mexicana is included here.

OCLC finds three holdings in North American institutions: Univ. of Arizona, UC Santa Barbara, and the CCA, Montreal.

$250

Acción Plástica Popular: Educación y Aprendizaje a Escala Nacional. Con ciento cinco reproducciones

(Arts Education) (Socialism) García Maroto, Gabriel. Acción Plástica Popular: Educación y Aprendizaje a Escala Nacional. Con ciento cinco reproducciones. México, D.F.: Editorial Plastica Americana, 1945. 8vo, 220 pp.; profuse b/w illus. from woodcuts by Mexican students and the author, plus [32] b/w pls. reproducing artworks from Mexico and Spain, as well as infographics and other designs by the author. In yellow pictorial publisher’s cloth, worn and darkened, corner’s bumped, spine with small losses to cloth at foot. Ink marks on ffep and rear pastedown.

Well-illustrated book about a short-lived experimental children’s art program, the Escuelas de Acción Artística (EAA). Iterations in both Mexico and Cuba built on the revolutionary educational ideals of the Escuelas de Pintura al Aire Libre, founded a decade earlier in Mexico City. The EAA incorporated these ideals with indigenous methods and styles, and prioritized free expression. These were important aspects of Indigenismo in Mexican arts in the early twentieth century, but the schools were later criticized for paternalistic assumptions about the “authenticity” of “naive” native arts.

The author, Gabriel García Maroto, was an exiled Spanish printer, artist, and critic who trained in one of Cuba’s Escuelas de Acción Artística in the late 1920s. He brought the EAA philosophy to Michoacan, founding several programs there with the support of governor (and future President) Lazaro Cárdenas. The schools taught print-making, drawing, and painting to predominantly indigenous and working-class women and children. Aligned with Cárdenas’s work on agrarian and land reform, García Maroto believed that his schools could teach the people to “possess” their land through art.

García Maroto was a member of avant-garde Spanish artistic circles in the 1920s and 30s. As a printer, he was an active member of the Republican Asociación de Intelectuales Antifascistas para la Defensa de la Cultura and had the distinction of publishing Frederico García Lorca’s first book. He began “Editorial Plastica Americana’’ with the intention of issuing a “Colección Plástica Mexicana” series but this appears to be the only title ever published under either imprint. After settling in Mexico, he also promoted art education for children with hearing problems. The book is dedicated to his son, the deaf painter Jose García Narezo.

See: Jolly, Jennifer. Creating Pátzcuaro, Creating Mexico: Art, Tourism, and Nation Building under Lázaro Cárdenas. Austin, TX: University of Texas, 2018, pp. 47-51.

$550

Arquitectura de la Ciudad de México: Guía

International Union of Architects. World Congress; Trueblood, Beatrice. Arquitectura de la Ciudad de México: Guía / Architectura [sic] du Mexico: Guide / Mexico City Arquitecture [sic]: Guide. México, D.F.: [International Union of Architects], [1978]. Tall 8vo, 199 pp.; b/w illus. of 74 sites, with 11 folding maps locating each building, pp. 167-173 misbound. In pictorial wraps, with 1 in. loss at spine, adhesive failing, one signature semi-detached. Fair onlyt. Previous owner inscription on half-title.

Fascinating and thorough guide to the historical and modern architecture of Mexico City, prepared for the IUA’s 1978 World Congress. Many unexpected buildings featured among the more obvious highlights. All text given in Spanish, French, and English. Design by Beatrice Trueblood, co-designer of the ‘68 Olympiad graphics.

Scarce, OCLC finds four copies in the Americas: Harvard, Dumbarton Oaks, Library of Congress, Pratt.

$175

Plastica Bajacaliforniana: Selección Bienal 1977

Plastica Bajacaliforniana: Selección Bienal 1977. Exh. cat. [México, D.F.]: [Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes], [1977]. Square 8vo, [24] pp.; intro by critic Raquel Tibol, reproductions of artists’ works followed by bios and checklist. Stapled wrapper tight, a few small dents.

Catalogue of the second Baja artist biennial, held at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. One OCLC holding: LACMA.

$45

Centro Deportivo Chapultepec: Recuerdo de la Inauguración de los Nuevos Edificios

(Architecture) (Muralism) [Almanza, Gaspar Octavio]. [Romo, Ramiro]. Centro Deportivo Chapultepec: Recuerdo de la Inauguración de los Nuevos Edificios [cover title]. México, D.F.: [Junta Directiva del Centro Deportivo Chapultepec], 1950. 8vo, [32] pp.; chiefly illus. b/w reproductions of photos of the ceremony, building, and murals. Stapled pictorial wraps printed in blue recto and verso, edges chipped front and rear.

Souvenir program celebrating the inauguration of a new sports complex in Chapultepec Park, a collaboration between the Bank of Mexico and the government of President Alemán. Designed by architects Gonzalo Garita and Carlos Romo. The majority of the booklet is given over to a text by Almanza interpreting the building’s commissioned murals by Ramiro Romo Estada, a student of José Clemente Orozco. Concludes with excerpts of press coverage praising the government, etc.

$150

10 Mujeres y Textil en 3D / 10 Women and Textile into 3D

Galleria Universitaria Aristos. 10 Mujeres y Textil en 3D / 10 Women and Textile into 3D. México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1975. Square 8vo, [16] pp.; intro, checklist and 11 b/w pls.; stapled pictorial wraps, sunned. Printed by Imprenta Madero.

Exh. cat. in Spanish and English, exploring contemporary fiber arts in Mexico, including Marta Palau, Leticia Arroyo, et al., and paying “homage to the creative weaver during the Women’s International Year.” Introduced by anthropologist and curator Marta Turok.

$60

El Paraíso de los Dulces Mexicanos

Galeria Universitaria Aristos. El Paraíso de los Dulces Mexicanos. México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, n.d. [1968]. Square 8vo, [16] pp.; primarily visual, some reproductions in color, with [2] pp. wove paper insert. Stapled color pictorial wraps, extremities worn.

Exh. cat. exploring the sculptural artistry of Mexican confectionaries. Surrealist and Pop overtones. With text and images by artists associated with UNAM in the late 1960s including Olga Costa and Victor Fosado.

OCLC finds one US holding: UCSD.

$75

Inauguración de su Nuevo Edificio

Secretaria de Recursos Hidráulicos. Inauguración de su Nuevo Edificio. México, D.F.: N.p., n.d. [1950]. Oblong 11-½ x 7-¾ in., [16] pp.; illus. throughout, with a white inauguration ribbon stapled to the first leaf. Pictorial wraps with orig. clear plastic DJ. Front wrap creased. Good.

Souvenir of the inauguration of the politically important ministry’s new building, commissioned in 1946 by President Alemán. Reviews history of water works in Mexico, including dams and irrigation. Several leaves with highlights of the new building, designed by architects Del Moral y Pani with later assistance by Gustavo Saavedra.

Not found in OCLC.

SOLD

La Lotta Contro La Prostitutzione

Pannain, Remo. La Lotta Contro La Prostitutzione. Benevenuto: Borelli, n.d., ca. 1929. 8vo, 28 pp.; a few pencil marks in margin; in printed stapled wrapper.

Unusual legal treatise published in Southern Italy about the struggle there against prostitution.

No North American holdings recorded in OCLC.

$95

Ultra: Wrestling Gals, Bizarre Fads, Exotic Fashions. Vol. 1, No. 3.

[Zucker, Hal]. Zucca, H. Ultra: Wrestling Gals, Bizarre Fads, Exotic Fashions. Vol. 1, No. 3. New York, NY: Ultra Sports Co., 1958. 8-¼ x 5-½ in., 61, [3] pp.; b/w illus. from artwork by Gene Bilbrew and Eric Stanton among many others, uncredited; in orig. color stapled wrappers, with remnants of red privacy tape at edges and a handwritten price in upper corner, small loss to bottom of rear wrap.

One of four total numbers of this domination and sports fetish digest. Single OCLC holding at Yale, of the first issue.

$95

(Sexual Health) Aux Victimes de L’Amour

(Sexual Health) Bertray, A. Aux Victimes de L’Amour by Doctor Bertray Professor ... of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris . Paris: [Dupont], nd [ca. 1900]. 4-3/4 x 3-1/8 in., 8 pp.; stapled self-wraps, 1 mm closed tear front wrap fore-edge, else very good. Dr. Bertray will “relieve and heal what he bonhomie called the little miseries of Parisians.” A related edition held at BNF only, otherwise unrecorded.

$ 45

(Sexual Health) (Soldiers) Keeping Fit to Fight; Sex Hygiene and Venereal Disease

(Sexual Health) (Soldiers) (WWI) (WWII) War Department and American Social Hygiene Association. Keeping Fit to Fight. [New York?], n.d. [1918?]. 16 pp.; with medical illus.; ex-library, withdrawn stamp on front wrap. Together with: War Department. Sex Hygiene and Venereal Disease. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1942. Small oblong pamphlet, 8 pp.; tape at spine, front wrap heavily marked in contemporary pen. “A copy will be furnished to each recruit upon enlistment.”

Two pamphlets written for newly enlisted soldiers in both World Wars, describing sex and venereal disease in American vernacular. Sections on wet dreams, masturbation, and including contemporary slang, e.g. “Lues” for syphilis.

$50

(Sexual Health) (Government) Six Booklets, Reports, and Pamphlets

(Sexual Health) (Government) United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board, Washington, D.C. Six Booklets, Reports, and Pamphlets. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1920. All 8vo, varying from 11-272 pp.; one with folding maps and organizational chart; all in paper wraps with stab holes from previous binding, one front wrap separated, else good.

Scarce documentation of the federal effort to coordinate research and prevention against social disease, within the armed forces and through federal funding to the States. Together a rich document of federal operations and organization in relation to private and state-funded efforts. Including “a study of the records of six thousand delinquent women …” Titles all from 1920, including:

Scientific Researches (January 1920); Program of Protective Social Measures Showing a Type of Federal aid available to States in connection with Venereal Disease Control (February 1920); Scientific Researches: Second Announcement. Section I, Section II (April 1920); Manual for the Various Agents of the United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board with appendices containing the federal law creating the Board, amendments thereto, regulations regarding funds administered by this Board, financial statements, a study of the records of six thousand delinquent women [...]; and Report of the United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1920.

Our research indicates most with only scattered US institutional physical holdings, despite labyrinthine OCLC records indicating otherwise.

$250

(Sexual Health) (Education) Seven Booklets and Pamphlets

(Sexual Health) (Education) (New York) New York Social Hygiene Society; American Social Hygiene Association. Seven Booklets and Pamphlets, 1914-1924. 8vo, each 4-171 pp., most approx. 12 pp.; two with b/w illus. throughout, in various printed wrappers, most ex-library with accession stamps and pencil shelf labels. Overall Good.

Based in New York, the founders of the American Social Hygiene Association (ASHA) included reformers and philanthropists such as Jane Addams and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. At least through the early 1920s ASHA shared an address with the New York Social Hygiene Society, formerly the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, the earliest of the American “voluntary social hygiene associations,” and a member of ASHA. The New York Society and ASHA cooperated with medical organizations, law enforcement, and social welfare groups to develop public information campaigns: mainly in the form of lectures, pamphlets, and journals.

This group includes two well-illustrated examples: Frank J. Osborne. A Health Exhibit for Men. New York, NY: New York Social Hygiene Society, 1917, with a few closed tears; and The New York Social Hygiene Society, Inc., 1916-1917 [title from cover]. New York, NY. Both booklets document public exhibits and lectures given in the state of New York.

Also: American Social Hygiene Association. First Annual Report, 1913-1914. New York, NY: The American Society Hygiene Association, 1914. Frank J. Osborne. The Control of Venereal Disease from the Public Health Standpoint. New York, NY: The New York Social Hygiene Society, 1917. Will Irwin. Conquering an Old Enemy. New York, NY: The American Society Hygiene Association, 1920. Publications of the American Social Hygiene Association, 1918. Bigelow, Maurice. The Established Points in Social Hygiene Education. New York, NY: American Social Hygiene Association, 1924.

$200

(Sexual Health) (Education) Circular Nos. 2-4

(Sexual Health) (Education) (Illinois) Chicago Society of Social Hygiene. Circular No. 2. Self-Protection: Sexual Hygiene For Young Men; Circular No. 3. Family Protection: For the Protection of Wives and Children from Venereal Contamination; Circular No. 4. Community Protection: Education against Venereal Disease a Need of the State. Chicago, IL: Chicago Society of Social Hygiene, n.d. [ca. 1911-1920]. 8vo, each pamphlet [4] pp.; no. 2 somewhat toned, else good.

Public health pamphlets issued by the Chicago member organization of the American Social Hygiene Association. Scarce in the market and institutionally, OCLC seemingly records less than 5 physical copies of each circular, possibly fewer?

$100

(Sexual Health) (Education) (Illinois) Manpower

(Sexual Health) (Education) (Illinois) Public Health Service, United States. Manpower. Venereal Disease Pamphlet No. 6. [Springfield IL?]: Social Hygiene Press; State Department of Public Health, Illinois, n.d. [ca. 1919]. 16 pp. pamphlet, stapled pictorial color wrapper, 1mm closed tear, recto, else very good.

“Sex—uncontrolled is disaster and wreck. Sex in control for men means Power.” Original emphasis.

A few pamphlets from this series held at Harvard and Oberlin, this one seemingly unrecorded in OCLC.

$45

(Sexual Health) (Education) (California) A Plain Explanation of the Greatest Social Evil

(Sexual Health) (Education) (California) Howard, Wm. Lee. A Plain Explanation of the Greatest Social Evil. San Francisco, CA: Purity Educational League of North America, 1910; and California Social Hygiene Society. 16 pp.; stapled printed wraps, ex-library with stamps and shelf-marks. Circular No. 8: The Need for Education in Sex Hygiene. San Francisco, CA: n.d. [ca. 1913]. 9 pp.; stapled self-wrapper, very good.

Early sex hygiene pamphlets. Although its name suggests otherwise, the Purity Educational League of North America was committed to a “wholesome discussion of sex life” featuring “pure and healthful knowledge,” in contrast to the “silence and secrecy” of past policy. “By secrecy we encourage mental perversion.” Sex education is patriotic.

$30

(Sex Work) Group of Sex Work Ephemera from Brazil, England, and the US

(Sex Work) Group of Sex Work Ephemera from Brazil, England, and the US, 1975-2001.

Comprised of: Hustlers’ Rights Project, We Are the Target [San Francisco, CA: 1975], (10) stapled fliers from the Bay Area Gay Liberation organizing against antiprositution activities, verso printed with mailing list? of California organizations; Coyote and Project AWARE, Sex in the Age of Aids: A forum for women who work in the sex industry, [San Francisco, CA: 1985], small pink flier, printed recto and verso, corner with loss, advertising AIDS antibody testing and a public panel conversation; King’s Cross Women’s Centre, Centrepiece 5: The Hooker & The Beak, London, 1987; W.H.I.S.P.E.R.: Women Hurt in Systems of Prostitution Engaged in Revolt, Vol. I, No. 3 (Winter 1986-87) and Vol. II, No. 1 (Spring 1987), New York: NY. Together with Maria José Bacelar Guimarães, “Empresário procura mulher jovem, morena, bonita, liberal…”: Explorando os anúncios de estrangeiros, Salvador, Brasil: Centro Humanitário de Apoio à Mulher, 2002, 106 pp. with bibliography.

$150

(Sex Education) (Antisemitism) Collection of Anti-Sex Education and Moral Decency Literature

(Sex Education) (Christian) (Antisemitism) Collection of Anti-Sex Education and Moral Decency Literature, 1956-1970.

Comprising 11 booklets and pamphlets from both Christian and conservative morality campaigns, including Christian Crusade, The John Birch Society, The Movement to Restore Decency (MOTOREDE), and the National Organization for Decent Literature. Most examples are argued from Christian perspectives, some with explicit racist, sexist, anticommunist, and antisemitic content corresponding to far-right panic over the cultural impact of school integration and sexuality education. Frequent references to counterculture and the “sexual indoctrination” espoused by the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS; founded by Dr. Mary Calderone, medical director for Planned Parenthood Federation of America). Some illustrated. Scattered holdings in OCLC, some unrecorded. Overall condition very good.

$400

In chronological order: Publications Disapproved for Youth by the National Organization for Decent Literature: June 1956. Chicago, IL: NODL, 1956. [12] pp. pamphlet with book list by genre; 20th Century Reformation Hour. The Shame of the National Council of Churches … Collingswood, NJ: [1961]. 7 pp. illus. pamphlet; The problem of teen-age purity: The teachings of Pope Pius XII. New Rochelle, NY: Salesiana Publishers and Distributors, [1961]; Cross, John. A Fearful Crime to Offend God in Order to Please Men. Kenosha: WI: Cross Publications, 1961. 32 pp. stapled booklet; How the ‘Levelers’ Are Destroying America. N.p., n.d. [ca. 1968]. [4] pp. pamphlet; Sex Education in the Schools: Some Thoughts from Eminent Doctors and From MOTOREDE. Belmont, MA: MOTOREDE, n.d. [ca. 1969]. [4] pp. pamphlet; Manion Forum: Weekly Broadcast No. 791. South Bend, IN: 1969. [4] pp. newsletter; Hargis, Billy James. Sex Replaces Prayer in Public Schools. [Christian Crusade], 1969. [4] pp. newsletter; The Fact Finder. Must Our Schools Teach our Children Sex without Morality? Phoenix, AZ: 1969. [8] pp. pamphlet, illus.; American Education Lobby. Sex Education: Assault on American Youth. Washington, D.C.: American Education Lobby, n.d. [ca. 1969]. [4] pp. folio newsletter; Drake, Dr. Gordon V. SIECUS: Corrupter of Youth. Tulsa, OK: Christian Crusade, 1969. 63 pp. stapled booklet with bibliography; Hargis, Billy James. Sex Revolution in the United States. Tulsa, OK: Christian Crusade, 1970. First Edition. 53 pp. booklet, some b/w illus.

(Sexual Health) (Prostitution) (California) Transactions of the Commonwealth Club of California ...

(Sexual Health) (Prostitution) (California) Commonwealth Club of California. Transactions of the Commonwealth Club of California. Vol. VI, No. 1: The Red Plague (May 1911) and Vol. VIII, No. 7 (August 1913): The Red Plague—Second Report. San Francisco, CA: Commonwealth Club, 1911; 1913. 2 vols., 8vo, 83; [99] pp.; in printed wrappers, tight, sunned at edges, vol. VI spine just starting to split at foot. Good.

The first issue documents the groundbreaking proceedings of a “sane, healthful” public discussion of sex hygiene in prostitution to undo a “conspiracy of silence” on this means of spreading venereal disease. Following this first conference, the Club’s committee made recommendations to the state Board of Health, but hesitated on one controversial recommendation regarding whether or not “registration and compulsory examination” of prostitutes could result in diminished venereal disease. The second issue provides a number of opinionated analyses of the results of such a program from 1911-1912 at a municipal clinic in San Francisco, the only one of its kind in the US. These later reports offer conflicting opinions on state-sanctioned health care for prostitutes and its effects on the health of the general population, including the innocent women and children who are victims of men’s immorality. Impassioned arguments for and against legalized prostitution.

The only physical holdings definitively recorded in OCLC outside of California are at Harvard Law.

$125

Press Photo of Billy Graham in Times Square Sex Shop

Graham, Billy. Press Photo. N.d. [1957 or 1960]. Sheet: 9 x 7 in. Stamped verso: Cleveland Press Reference Dept; also inscribed in pencil verso: Billy Graham in a W42d St dirty bookstore. Some small discoloration top center. Good.

Vintage print of an image of the famous preacher during one of his New York City campaigns, probably his first, in 1957. During his 16-week crusade at Madison Square Garden, Graham did a publicity tour in Times Square that included a stop at one of the area’s infamous sex shops. Here he gazes intently at a bookrack of seemingly gay magazines, next to the “all new male films” section.

$45

(Dating) (Internet - Social Aspects) Collection of 13 Zines, 1999-2014

(Dating) (Internet - Social Aspects) Collection of 13 Zines, 1999-2014?.

Overall offering a broad perspective of contemporary dating culture, self-presentation, and sexuality. Most with fewer than 2 OCLC holdings, many others unrecorded.

Most 8-½ x 5-½ in., with illus. stapled wrappers, two single vol. octavo fold format, one sewn, most 8-40 pp.; profusely illustrated zines with anecdotes on internet dating including apps, Craigslist, social media, and sexual encounters. A few overtly feminist and/or queer, many compiling real classifieds. One mostly in haiku. Very Good.

Includes: B&D Press, Naked on the 6 Train: M4M, n.d.; Lizz Carlton and Mollie Underwood, Eds., Garbage Never Looked So Good, Irrelevant Press, n.d.; Alexandra Montclair, Classified Casanova, n.d.; Nicky Rodriguez, How (Not) to get a woman, n.d., and How (Not) to get a woman, Vol. 2, n.d.; Aaron Mew, Aaron’s Guide to Getting Girls, n.d. [California? ca. 1999?], Up Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 5: Modern Dating, St. Paul, MN: 2000; Awkward Ladies Club, Never date dudes from the internet: responses to a Craigslist ad, 2005; Andy Yates, Celebrity Blind Date! Starring Mel Gibson & Sarah Palin, 2010; Carrie Colpitts, My aim is true #6: You are not alone, [Chicago, IL]: n.d. [2011?]; Mission Mini Comix, Quincy’s Terrible, Horrible, Worst-ever Blind Date, San Francisco, CA: [2011]; Teppei Ando, I miss you already, Stranger - m4w - 52 …, [2012?]; Red Velvet, Things men have told me about my body, [2014]; Red Velvet and How are Your Insides, Have you had sex with this person, [2014].

$350

(Dating) (Internet) A Girl’s Guide to Dating a Geek.

(Dating) (Internet - Culture) Inouye, Omi M. A Girl’s Guide to Dating a Geek. [London]: 2007. 8vo, 168 pp.; in pictorial wrapper, scratched and worn.

Guide with graphs, case studies, fieldwork reports, and exercises designed to help the “females identify geeks using a helpful Geek Test, categorize them into distinct subclasses, understand and cope with their foibles, and if necessary, acclimatize to their culture.” “[D]iscover how to plot revenge, diagnose common geek ailments, and find the perfect geek gift.”

Highly specific moment in the evolution of 2000s geek culture. OCLC: 2 North American holdings.

$60

(Dating) (Asian-American) Donahue Transcript 02244

(Dating) (Asian-American) Donahue, Phil. Donahue Transcript 02244. Cincinnati, OH: Multimedia Entertainment, Inc., 1984. 8vo, 23 pp.; stapled show transcript regarding Asian women and Asian mail-order bride services, with discussion of stereotypes, sexuality, religion.

A few scattered holdings of Donahue transcripts exist in OCLC, not of this show.

$200

(Courtship) (Theater) How to Choose a Wife: Ten Tips for Men Who are Threatened with Matrimony

(Courtship) (Theatre) (Women) [Fairfax, Marian]; [The Dorner Players]. How to Choose a Wife: Ten Tips for Men Who are Threatened with Matrimony. [Elmira, NY], n.d. [ca. 1913-1914]. Small handbill promoting a staging of Fairfax’s play, “The Talker,” in Elmira, New York, by a traveling actor’s troupe. Satirical text presumably by Fairfax.

Ephemera related to the screenwriter and playwright Marian Fairfax’s early Broadway hit, “The Talker” (1912). Fairfax broke ground for women on stage and in Hollywood, writing a number of theatrical hits and silent films. She formed her own Hollywood production company in 1921.

$50

(Courtship) (Christian) How to pick a wife [...]

(Courtship) (Christian) Orr, William. How to pick a wife for Christian fellows. Wheaton, IL: Scripture Press, 1953. 8vo, 32 pp.; color stapled wrapper, small area of discoloration on front wrap. Together with Lovasik, Lawrence. Clean love in courtship. St. Paul, MN: Fathers Rumble & Carty, Radio Replies Press, n.d. [ca. 1948]. 8vo, 73 pp.; pictorial stapled wrapper, lightly rubbed.

Advice for Protestants (Orr) and Catholics (Lovasik) looking for love, addressing both spiritual and practical questions, e.g. Where to Look for Her, How to Look for Her, Self-Denial, Practical Tips for Dates, and the pitfalls of Parked Cars and Dangerous Reading.

OCLC finds no North American holdings for Orr, a few for Lovasik.

$55

(Antiprostitution) Report and recommendations of the Wisconsin Legislative Committee [...]

(Antiprostitution) Wisconsin Vice Committee. Report and recommendations of the Wisconsin Legislative Committee to Investigate the White Slave Traffic and Kindred Subjects. Madison, WI: The Committee, 1914. 8vo, 246 pp.; printed wrapper, splitting at foot, ex-library with stamps and pencil shelf-mark.

$25

(Antiprostitution) (Socialism) The Social Evil: Its Cause Effect and Cure

(Antiprostitution) (Socialism) Greer, J.H. The Social Evil: Its Cause Effect and Cure. Chicago, IL: Self-published, 1913. Small 8vo, 64 pp.; in printed wrap, dampstain at foot affecting first few leaves. Together with two other editions of the same: Greer, J.H. The Social Evil and the Remedy. Chicago, IL: Charles H. Kerr & Co., n.d. Each: small 8vo, 64 pp.; in color patterned wraps, both with losses to rear wrap where ads for The International Socialist Review are given.

A history of prostitution is given by the author, as well as its cure, socialism. Three editions, including a self-published version, helping to establish a date for this text, otherwise undated in recorded sources.

$40

(Sexual Health) (Pennsylvania) Four Reports on Vice and Social Diseases

(Sexual Health) (Pennsylvania) (Antiprostitution) Four reports on vice and social diseases, 1911-1913.

Together revealing the competing contemporary methodologies for controlling disease and vice: 1) scientific/medical and 2) moral/legal. Philadelphia’s report includes police reports and detailed arrest notes, as well as an appendix on sex hygiene. The Pittsburgh commission’s “constructive program” recommends sterilization and censorship and includes an extremely harsh analysis of women in prostitution, “lured by the love of luxury and idleness [rather] than driven by the pangs of penury.” Includes a wage survey of prostitutes in the city.

*The Vice Commission of Philadelphia: a report on existing conditions with recommendations to the Honorable Rudolph Blankenburg, Mayor of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, PA: The Vice Commission of Philadelphia, 1913. 8vo, 163 pp.; in brown printed wrapper, lower forecorner damaged throughout textblock, not affecting text. Fair.

*Morals Efficiency Commission. Report and recommendations of Morals efficiency commission. Pittsburgh, PA: N.p., 1913. 8vo, 43 pp.; stapled gray printed wrapper, sunned, damaged forecorner affects all pages, not affecting legibility. Fair.

*Wilson, Robert. The Eradication of the Social Diseases in Large Cities. Offprint from Transactions of the Fifteenth International Congress on Hygiene and Demography, 1912. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1912. 8vo, 12 pp.; stapled printed wrapper, center fold and darkened.

*Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Social Disease. Report and Prospectus, 1911. [Philadelphia, PA]: N.p., 1911. Small 8vo, [16] pp.; printed self-wrapper, subscription card laid in, small closed tears at fore edge. Good.

$75

(Antiprostitution) (Mann White-Slave Act) Group of Instructive Literature

(Antiprostitution) (Mann White-Slave Act) Group of Instructive Literature Against Forced Prostitution, i.e. White Slavery, and Supporting Rescue Homes and Charities, 1871-1945.

Together six examples reflecting seventy years of popular hysteria over the plight of innocent young women forced into prostitution, tales that usually end in rescue and salvation or death. Two items of particular interest, one an evangelical biography of Evangeline Reams and her Ohio homes for wayward girls; the other an unusual pamphlet warning mothers and daughters about the devices used by “white slavers” on their victims.

$125

Including:

*Bingham, Theodore A. The Girl That Disappears: The Real Facts about White Slave Traffic. Boston: Gorham Press, 1911. 8vo, 87 pp.; illus. frontispiece; cloth, a bit rubbed. Very Good. Written by the former police commissioner for Greater New York.

*Clark, Harry. Evangeline Reams: A Brief Sketch of Her Life and Story of The Friends Rescue Home. [Damascus, OH]: Friends Rescue Home, n.d. [after 1940]. 8vo, 131 pp.; illus. from photos of Ms. Reams, the rescue homes, the rescued girls, etc. Printed wrapper, rubbed and lightly sunned. Very Good.

*Morse, Northrop. Peach Bloom: An Original Play in Four Acts. New York, NY: Medical Review of Reviews, 1913. 8vo, 184 pp.; publisher’s cloth, corners bumped, front board with small marks and stain.

*Muhlenberg, W. A. The Woman and Her Accusers: A Plea for the Midnight Mission …. New York: NY: Pliny F. Smith, 1871. 8vo, 72 pp.; cloth with gilt title, corners bumped. Good.

*Pratt, William H. God Amid the Shadows. Indianapolis, IN: N.p., n.d. 8vo, 153 pp.; blue pictorial wrapper, well worn.

*A Tragic End: A Timely Warning to Mothers and Daughters, Also on Exposure of Some of the Devices Used by ‘White Slavers’ for Catching Unwary Victims. Accordion pamphlet, illus. Los Angeles, CA: Free Tract Society, n.d. With rescue home directory, after 1945.

(Sexual Health) (Libraries) Two letters soliciting librarians’ help fighting venereal disease

(Sexual Health) (Librarians) Two letters expressing support for librarians’ help fighting venereal disease. Comprising: Office of the Surgeon General, US Public Health Service, 1918. Letter from Surgeon General Rupert Blue to Librarians of the United States, October 3, 1918. Single sheet, typed, with Blue’s duplicated signature, lower right hand corner folded, two creases from original mailing. Together with: American Library Association. Letter from Secretary George Utley to Librarians, October 3, 1918. Single sheet, typed, with Utley’s duplicated signature, creased, upper corner folded.

The first letter requests support of librarians in the civic fight against venereal disease. The Surgeon General’s office will be preparing “an accredited list of books of instruction [for young men and women]” to be distributed in libraries “in such a way that their interest will be aroused.” The second, from the American Library Association, expresses approval of the Surgeon General’s plan to ask librarians to aid their enterprise in the “judicious distribution of good books.”

Together with a TLS from the American Social Hygiene Association to a library in Maine requesting information on what social hygiene reading is available at their location.

$60

(Sexual Health) (Quackery) Letter promoting a new treatment for syphilis

(Sexual Health) (Quackery) (Oklahoma). [Cosden Oil & Gas Company?]. Letter promoting a new treatment for syphilis, October 26, 1918. TLS, on a single sheet of Cosden letterhead, reporting on the Fisher treatment, a permanent cure for syphilis. Signature illegible, initials BWG.

References patients treated in 1907, a year after Oklahoma became a state, and the formation of a company to place this remedy before the public. At the time, the single syphilis cure was an arsenic compound invented by German chemist, Paul Ehrlich. It is unclear whether the “Fisher treatment” was the Ehrlich arsenic compound or another quack treatment, or if it was associated with the famed Cosden Oil & Gas Company. However, it was expected by the author to show “large and substantial profits.” and was managed by “Mr. Edward A. Hill” who may have been a geologist for Cosden.

$25

(Sexual Health) (Soldiers) Evidence in the Case of the Unwary Returnee

(Sexual Health) (WWII) [War Department?; Third Air Force]. Evidence in the Case of the Unwary Returnee. Tampa, FL: [Third Air Force?], n.d. [ca. 1941-1944]. 8vo, [12] pp.; eleven sensational stories of sexual encounters between enlisted men and various promiscuous women (“the old acquaintance” “the weeping widow” “the trim trucker” ) or procurement opportunities (“the Gabby Cabby”), all ending in venereal disease; based on “actual case history reports” reports released by Commanding General, Third Air Force, each with a half-page b/w illus., pages toned; in stapled printed wrapper, wrinkled with losses, sheets sl. loosened.

Not found in OCLC.

$325

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

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

(Photography) (China) (Esperanto) El Ĉina fotografia arto: kompilita de la redakcio de “Ĉina Fotografio.” [Beijing], China: Ĉina Esperanto-Ligo, 1963. Square 8vo, 112 pp.; chiefly illus., a few in color, lightly toned with a few small internal marks; publisher’s boards in pictorial dust jacket, corners bumped, dust jacket worn with significant losses.

Anthology of Chinese photography, published by the Chinese Esperanto Association of Peking (Beijing). The Esperanto introduction describes the national character of the emerging Chinese photographic style, one in which art is always in service to the workers, and the communist cause. Photography may also be a “weapon against imperialism.” Full-page reproductions with captions in Esperanto, photographers identified. Various genres represented, including landscape.

Single North American holding in OCLC: UCSD.

$30

Five Illustrated Booklets Documenting the Fall and Death of Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci

Five Illustrated Booklets Documenting the Fall of Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci.

-Fugalli, Giovanni. The insurrection of Milan from 25 to 29 April 1945. Documentary. 16 photographic illustrations. [Milan, Italy]: Np, [1945]. 8vo, 16 pp.; forecorner bent. No North American holdings, OCLC. -The End of the Tyrants in Piazza Loreto. [Genoa, Italy]: Np, [1945]. 8vo, 14 pp.; illustrated wraps separated, loss at head, fair. not found in OCLC.

- Dongo! For the first time in the world; an impressive photographic documentation on the end of Mussolini and the hierarchs in Dongo. [Milan, Italy]: [New editions A.], [1951]. 8vo, 32 pp.; profuse b / w illus., reproducing photographs of the assassination, etc. Color illus. stapled wrappers, worn, splitting at spine, fair. Two copies.

- “The Retreat of Death”: Claretta Petacci. [Bologna, Italy]: Np, [1945]. 8vo, [15] pp.; toned, chipped edges, in illus. wrapper, soiled. This impression not in OCLC, a similar booklet, printed in Rome, held by Duke. OCLC finds one North American holding, NYPL.

-Murra, G., and C. Persia. The truth about the twelve days of Mussolina in Ponza. Bologna, Italy: Np, nd, ca. 1945. 8vo, 16 pp.; good, closed tear wrapper front fore-edge. 2 OCLC holdings: Duke, NYPL.

$150

Attenzione! Si avvicinano i “liberatori” anglo-assassini…

(Propaganda - Fascist) Attenzione! Si avvicinano i “liberatori” anglo-assassini… [Milan?], nd., ca. 1943. Poster printed in black and red, approx. 22-¾ x 19-¼ in.; toned, creases from vertical and horizontal folds, splitting at center; edges a bit worn, some foxing verso.

Poster warning inhabitants in German-controlled northern Italy of the dangers of the advancing Allied forces. “Reds,” “Jews,” and “hyenas of the air,” are coming for Italian women and children, converting them to their side with sweets and cigarettes.

OCLC locates one holding, at the Hoover.

$225

Elezioni Politiche 1913. Noi Anarchici.

(Anarchism) Elezioni Politiche 1913. Noi Anarchici … Broadside, 13 x 18-½ in.; creased, bottom edge roughly trimmed, typographic irregularities. Np, nd [1912-1913].

Anarchist broadside protesting the quasi-universal male suffrage granted to Italian men over 30 by the “moderately progressive” government of Giovanni Giolitti in 1912. The enfranchisement extended the vote to the very poor and illiterate, with the dramatic impact of trebling the electorate (from 3 to almost 9 million voters) in advance of the 1913 elections. The far left parties (Estrema) did not support the franchise; here anarchists protest it as a bourgeois “swindle,” keeping intact economic tyranny and solidifying the power of the political elite.

Italian anarchists were influenced by Mikhail Bakunin, who wrote “the whole system of representative government is an immense fraud resting on this fiction [of political liberty in the popular vote] ... Political power means domination.” (In fact, the “democratized” 1913 elections resulted in no representative gains by the revolutionary or working class parties of Estrema.)

$175

Collection of Documents Regarding Post-Liberation Italian Governance and Elections

[Partito Liberale Italiano; Democrazia Cristiana; et al.]. Collection of Italian Political Pamphlets, Leaflets, and Documents Regarding Post-Liberation Governance, Elections, and the First Italian Republic, ca. 1945-1946.

Comprised of: three mimeographed documents issued in December 1945 in reference to a proclamation by Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi shortly after his election, one the proclamation, and two from members of the Allied Commission; three Democrazia Cristiana leaflets, ca. 1945, one printed the day of Mussolini’s death; eight issues (with five duplicates) of the Quadrini del Partito Liberale, by Luigi Einaudi, Paolo Serini, Benedetto Croce, and Marcello Soleri, and others, some reissued by the PLI Sezione Piemontese, with two PLI leaflets, one printing the lyrics to the patriotic anthem “Arise Piedmonte.” Turin. Most 1945, a few 1943-1948.

Quadrini del Partito Liberale not found in OCLC.

$350

Conseils et soins à donner à la chevelure. Traité théorique et pratique

(Cosmetics) (Quackery) Sœur Haydée. Conseils et soins à donner à la chevelure. Traité théorique et pratique [title from front wrap]. [Toulouse]: [Impr. de Berthoumieu], n.d. [1930s]. 10 4-⅜ in x 2-½ in., 64 pp.; some pen annotations, illus. stapled wraps a bit worn.

Lengthy promotional treatise concerning a baldness cure developed by “Sister Haydée” and her ersatz convent.

$45

Grand Torneo Internazionale di Lotte Feminili al Salone Margherita

(Women) (Sport) Grand Torneo Internazionale di Lotte Feminili al Salone Margherita. Rome, 1912. Concertina booklet, closed: 5-½ x 3-⅜ in., illus. with ten portraits of the fighters, from England, Europe, Russia, and the US; some usual wear, esp. at folds.

Promotional booklet for a women’s wrestling tournament held an evening variety show at a well-known Roman theater. Photographs of each contestant are reproduced with captions identifying their last name, nationality, and weight. The earnest, athletic presentation of the “national champions” in this booklet was unusual for a sport regarded largely as entertainment. This style of presentation may have been related to contemporary interest in the international competition of the V Summer Olympiad, which opened the same month

We could not locate any other record of the tournament or the participants. Women’s wrestling was not included as an Olympic sport until 2004.

$900

30 Years of Amalgamated Cooperative Housing, 1927-1957

(Cooperative Housing) (Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, AFL-CIO) Amalgamated Housing Corporation. 30 Years of Amalgamated Cooperative Housing, 1927-1957 [title from cover]. [New York]: [Amalgamated Housing Corporation], [1958]. 4to, [30] pp.; profusely illustrated, reproducing b/w photos and color charts; in stapled pictorial wraps, lightly worn, VG.

Sponsored in 1927 by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union, the Amalgamated Housing Corporation was the first limited equity housing cooperative in the United States. From its first site in the Bronx it eventually grew to encompass additional communities in Manhattan, including Amalgamated Dwellings and Hillman Houses on the Lower East Side.

The narration of Amalgamated’s success is accompanied by photos, maps, floor plans, and infographics that exemplify mid-century graphic design. Introductions by Jacob Potofsky and Abraham Kazan.

$150

Eight Jail and Prison Equipment Catalogues

(Trade Catalogues) (Prisons) Decatur Iron and Steel Co., Roanoke Iron and Bridge Works, Southern Steel Co., Van Dorn, and VANCO. Eight Jail and Prison Equipment Catalogues, ca. 1965-1975. All approx. 8-½ x 11 in., ranging from [4] to [12] pp.; profusely illus., each in orig. color wrappers with stab holes from earlier binding, rubbed at spine.

Modern marketing for prison cells and equipment depict the fantastical empty spaces of the architecture of control. Together the catalogues demonstrate the growing sophistication of marketing and design in the emergent prison-industrial complex.

Scarce. Some unrecorded in OCLC or held in fewer than 3 institutions.

$250

[O]n the illegality and inexpediency of segregating commercialized vice in St. Louis

(Antiprostitution) (Missouri) Committee of One-hundred for the Suppression of Commercialized Vice in St. Louis. Brief in support of citizens’ memorial to the Board of police commissioners of St. Louis, Missouri, on the illegality and inexpediency of segregating commercialized vice in St. Louis. St. Louis: n.p., 1914. 8vo, 32 pp.; stapled self-wrapper, sl. toned at edges, one small closed tear to front wrap, ex-library stamp and penciled shelf label, very good.

Report on the “fallacy of segregation” and in support of the red light abatement efforts of the St. Louis Police. With many reports from other cities nationwide.

$60

(Antiprostitution) Report of the Commission for the Investigation of the White Slave Traffic [...]

(Antiprostitution) (Sex Trafficking) Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Commission for Investigation of White Slave Traffic. House - No. 2281: Report of the Commission for the Investigation of the White Slave Traffic, So Called. Boston: Wright & Potter, 1914. 8vo, 86 pp.; numerous charts and tables; stapled wrapper with ex-library stamp and penciled shelf label, otherwise very good.

Report on extensive investigation “to determine, so far as is possible, by what means and to what extent women and girls are induced or compelled by others to lead an immoral life …” “to endeavor to devise plans for preventing the evils it finds …” and a draft of bills “as may be necessary to carry its recommendations into effects.”

At the center of the report is a significant amount of sociological research conducted by the commission during interviews with known prostitutes and johns. While refuting entirely the “vague rumors” and myths of “white slavery,” fascinating details emerge about the early life of prostitutes in Massachusetts, and the commercial and penal systems they entered when they began their “immoral life.” With proposals for laws to address the “social evils” of dance halls, street solicitation, hotels, “call houses,” sexually transmitted disease, etc.

Rare in physical format.

$125

La prostitution [...] et ses multiples aspects

(Sex Work) (Anarchism) Armand, E[mile]. La prostitution, son histoire, sa définition, les conditions de sa disparition et ses multiples aspects. Paris: L’en déhors, 1933. Deuxième tirage. 8vo, 24 pp.; uncut, stapled pictorial wrapper, edges toned and sl. worn.

A pamphlet in support of prostitution and a radical new sexual ethic, including free love and camaraderie amoureuse by individual anarchist Émile Armand. Advertisements on rear wrap and front wrap verso for additional anarchist publications on sexuality and libertinage.

We suspect that this is the first and only edition given that all recorded copies have the same stated “deuxième tirage.”

$150

Le Véritable Guide des Jeunes Amoureux: Nouveaux Recueil des Lettres

(Etiquette) (Love Letters) Le Véritable Guide des Jeunes Amoureux: Nouveaux Recueil des Lettres. Montréal: Librairie Beauchemin Limitée, n.d. (ca. 1902-1908). 5-¾ x 3-⅞ in., 83 pp.; stapled pictorial blue wrapper, chipped at spine, separated at front.

Enchanting guide to romantic letter writing for young men and women. Includes extensive templates for all the awkward circumstances of love from initial introductions to marriage proposals but also multiple examples for rebuffing inappropriate advances, confirming shared affections, requesting a portrait, flirtations, breakups, reconciliations, complaints about absences, favorable and negative responses to marriage proposals, etc.

The publisher Beauchemin was incorporated under the name “Beauchemin Limitée” in 1902, it moved from the title page’s listed premises in 1908. OCLC locates four examples in Canadian institutional holdings, none in the US; some may represent a much later printing (1950s).

$95

Thirteen Pamphlets, Offprints, and Reprints from the American Social Hygiene Association

(Antiprostitution) Thirteen Pamphlets, Offprints, and Reprints from the American Social Hygiene Association and the Journal of Social Hygiene, 1917-1942. New York, NY: American Social Hygiene Association, 1917-1942. Various sizes, most octavo, 2-40 pp. each, most 8-10 pp.; condition varies, good to near fine, some illus. wrappers, some with ex-library stamps from the Jewish Welfare Board, Gainesville, TX, a few penciled shelf labels.

In 1913 several national antiprostitution and public health organizations united to form the American Social Hygiene Association (ASHA). Based in New York, their founders included reformers and philanthropists such as Jane Addams and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The ASHA supported campaigns to end prostitution and redlight districts (and their attendant venereal diseases) through scientific inquiry, social reform, and community action. They cooperated with medical organizations, law enforcement, and social welfare groups to develop public information campaigns. The documents in the present collection represent the wide range of ASHA’s activities, with a particular focus on WWI and WWII when the health of enlisted men was used as political leverage against commercialized vice. Includes a pamphlet reprinting a speech by Fiorello LaGuardia that captures the somewhat comedic ambivalence of many politicians to “clean communities.”

They especially emphasize the turn during the 1920s at ASHA and nationally toward punitive, legal solutions to prostitution the demonized women and sidelined charitable or rehabilitation efforts.

$250

Includes:

American Social Hygiene Association. Does Prostitution Breed Crime? Law Enforcement Responsibility in Delinquency Prevention. New York, NY: American Social Hygiene Association, [1947?]. 8-1/2 x 11 in., [4] pp. leaflet, toned. Emphasizing law enforcement solutions.

American Social Hygiene Association. Why Let it Burn? [cover title]. New York, NY: American Social Hygiene Association, 1941. Stapled leaflet, 15 pp.; in illus. color self-wrapper, very good. “Prostitution must be recognized as a Fifth Columnist in our midst.” Although another pamphlet was issued by the ASHA under the same title in 1919, this edition appears updated with new research and arguments relating to America’s wartime concerns.

Six Offprints and Reprints from the Journal of Social Hygiene, 1918-1941. New York: The American Social Hygiene Association, 1918-1941. All octavo, 2-40 pp. each, most 8-10 pp.; some edgewear with small closed tears, ex-libris stamps, most from the Jewish Welfare board, Gainesville Texas, one with penciled shelf label. The longest articles, from 1919 and 1920, offer a history of the antiprostitution movements in New York City (the “Committee of Fourteen”) and California (Redlight Abatement Act). Another article, 1936, addresses the issue of legalized prostitution

American Social Hygiene Association. The Case Against Prostitution. New York, NY: American Social Hygiene Association, 1940. Pamphlet, unfolded approx. 16-½ x 10-¾ in., [12] panels, recto an informational broadside suitable for posting; sl. toned at edges, front panel with ex-library stamp, Jewish Welfare Board, Gainesville, TX. Rare ephemera intended to promote the “clean community environment in which prostitution cannot flourish.” Includes a “practical program” for community action.

Johnson, Bascom; LaGuardia, Fiorello; and Jean B. Pinney. Three American Social Hygiene Association Pamphlets, 1940-1942. 8vo, 8-24 pp. each; one illus., stapled wrappers, sl. toning and edgewear, good.

Reprinted from the Journal for Social Hygiene: How Fares the Battle Against Prostitution (Pinney); Prostitution and Quackery in Relation to Syphyilis Control (Johnson); and “An Address” (LaGuardia).

LaGuardia pamphlet reprints a speech including a jokey intro in which the Mayor seems confused about why he is speaking at a conference about Commercialized Vice and not at a leather or furniture convention.

Kneeland, George J. Commercialized Prostitution and the Use of Property. New York, NY: New York Social Hygiene Society, 1917. 8vo, 8 pp.; ½ in. closed tear on upper edge goes through entire pamphlet; stapled printed wrapper, edges worn, with ex-library stamp and penciled shelf label, fair. Excerpted from Social Hygiene, Vol. II, No. 4 (Oct. 1916).

Women’s Forum on Prostitution Rights: Program

(Sex Work) (Rights) Women’s Forum on Prostitution Rights. Program. San Francisco: Women’s Forum on Prostitution Rights, [1984]. Single pink sheet, 8-½ x 5-½ in., printed recto and verso, some wear, creases, good.

Verso supplies the four-day program for a conference on prostitution rights in July, 1984 (date from Hooker’s Ball advertisement). Speakers include many well-known advocates and activists for prostitutes’ rights, including Margaret Prescod, Margo St. James, Delores French, Gloria Lockett, et al. Recto advertises the infamous Hooker’s Ball and the Coyote Film Festival.

$30

Opal Correspondence Club Ephemera

(Courtship) (Correspondence) Reasoner, Walter E. [and Opal N. Reasoner]. Opal Correspondence Club Ephemera. Rosiere, New York: Opal Correspondence Club, [1919]. Six items: two personal ad directories, [16] and [8] pp., one dated membership offer, one blank “Gentleman’s Application,” an introductory letter, and a trade card. Overall very good, minor wear at directory spines.

Items presumed to constitute a man’s introductory package to the Opal Correspondence Club, a matrimonial agency. The Club was named after the wife of its president and manager, Walter; Opal Reasoner is also listed as the Manager of the Ladies Department.

The blank application and the personal ads capture the pragmatic aspect, for both men and women, of many lower-middle-class and middle-class marriages in the first quarter of the 20th-century. Emphasis is given to income, inheritance, real estate holdings, children, hereditary disease, and religion. Personal questions somewhat limited: “Are you of good morals?” “Do you prefer city, town, or country life?” The Reasoner’s club was strictly limited to white applicants. The “updated” directory includes the new rule “No Colored People Accepted.”

Walter and Opal were entrepreneurial in other fields. The directory includes advertisements for their “Minette” correspondence photo service and two different pocket multi-tools.

We are unable to locate other references to this agency.

$275

(Trade Card) McDonnell’s Matrimonial Association.

(Courtship) (Trade Card) (Correspondence Marriage) McDonnell’s Matrimonial Association. [Lady Member]. Chicago: n.p., n.d, ca. 1900. 5-⅛ x 3 in., printed recto and verso; soiled with creases, older cellophane holding top corner with small loss.

Advertising a free directory of 2000+ ladies in the US and Canada with a “view to amusement, mutual improvement [and] matrimony.” Including photographs. “Would you like a rich girl, a poor girl, a beautiful woman, a buxom widow, a pretty maiden, a well-educated young lady, a farmer’s daughter, or a good housekeeper? We have them all …”

We are unable to identify other references to Walter McDonnell’s Chicago service.

$125

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

Cine Cubano. Año 1, No. 3 and Año 2, No. 6.

Guevara, Alfredo, Ed. Cine Cubano. Año 1, No. 3 (Nov. 1960) and Año 2, No. 6 (February 1962). La Habana: n.p., 1962. 2 issues, each: 4to, 82 pp.; profusely illustrated review of Cuban and international cinema; some edgewear, creases, or nicks; former with ex-libris stamp on p. 3, latter with loss to top corner of front wrap.

Early issues of the classic revolutionary film journal.

$75

Radioactivo: Poderoso Fertilizador y Estimulante Para La Vegetación

Banco del Radium [Banque du Radium, Paris]. Radioactivo: Poderoso Fertilizador y Estimulante Para La Vegetación [title from wrapper]. Barcelona: [Banque du Radium] and [R. Cumellas], [1915]. 8vo, 8 pp.; in Spanish, some translated from French, printed in green, with historiated initials, near fine.

Attractive art nouveau promotional booklet for radium soil enrichment, from a period of explosive popular interest in radium. The text compares the “therapeutic” action of radium in agricultural applications to those in human medical treatments—combating unknown “infirmities” and cultivating new vigor.

Published by a Spanish representative for the radio-agricultural firm Banque du Radium, Paris. BDR was established by a friend and sponsor of Marie Curie, the French industrialist Emile Armet de Lisle. Armet de Lisle also published the journal Le Radium.

Uncommon, we locate no other examples of Banque du Radium or Banco del Radium promotional materials in OCLC or the trade.

$225

En La Ruta De La Amistad. México 68: Programa cultural de la XIX Olimpiada

Comité Organizador de los Juegos de la XIX Olimpiada. En La Ruta de La Amistad. México 68: Programa cultural de la XIX Olimpiada. México, D.F.: 1968. Spanish edition. Square 8vo, [44] pp.; each artist’s project illus. in b/w with route map and bios, sl. toned; in pictorial color wrappers with design attributed to Lance Wyman, extremities rubbed, fore-edge thumbed; good.

Catalogue of an ambitious public sculpture project designed to “bring contemporary art and the public together through total planning.” All the works were commissioned by an Olympic Committee and executed in concrete. Participants included: (in order of appearance) Ángela Gurría; Willi Gutmann; Miloslav Chlupáč; Kioshi Takahashi; Pierre Székely; Gonzalo Fonseca; Costantino Nivola; Jacques Moeschal; Todd Williams; Grzegorz Kowalski; Clement Meadmore; Herbert Bayer; Joop J Beljon; Itzhak Danziger; Olivier Seguin; Muhhammad Maliihi; Helen Escobedo; and Jorge Dubón. The monumental works lined the “Route of Friendship” leading to the Olympic Stadium. Most remain in their original sites, despite being abandoned by the government.

A scarce iteration of the iconic ‘68 Olympic graphics. New scholarship credits Beatrice Trueblood, director of Olympic publications, and the architect Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, for the design, in addition to Wyman.

$325

Cartilla Maya-Español para los monolingües Mayas de Yucatan, Campeche y Quintana Roo

[Beloff, Angelina. (Illustrator)]. Instituto de Alfabetización en Lenguas Indígenas, México. Cartilla Maya-Español para los monolingües Mayas de Yucatan, Campeche y Quintana Roo. México, D.F.: [Secretaría de Educación Pública], 1946. Small 4to, 102 pp.; illus. reader, unmarked, newsprint pages toned, fragile, and chipped, a few leaves unopened; in color pictorial wraps, with closed tears and losses, fair.

A Maya-Spanish children’s primer, part of the Secretary of Education’s campaign against illiteracy, particularly among indigenous, monolingual populations. These federal initiatives had mixed results and were largely unsuccessful at achieving larger social improvements in rural communities.

This edition illustrated by artists Angelina Beloff and Gabriel Fernández Ledesma, both associated with the muralist movement (Beloff through her marriage to Diego Rivera).

$150

Cuauhtemoc

[Valcárcel, Gustavo and Adolfo Mexiac (Illustrator)]. Cuauhtemoc. Serie Biografia, No. 1. México, D.F.: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1956. Small 8vo, 48 pp.; illus. throughout from linocuts and drawings by Mexiac, lightly toned; orig. stapled pictorial wrapper, sl. worn.

A condensed biography of the last Aztec Emperor with bold illustrations by Adolfo Mexiac. From an intended series of indigenous biographies of which only 2 vols. were seemingly published.

OCLC identifies only two copies in US libraries.

$150

Untitled

Yampolsky, Mariana. Untitled. ca. 1945-55. Linoleum cut, image: 7 x 3-1/2 in., sheet approx.: 9-1/4 x 7-7/8 in.; top edge sl. foxed, not affecting image. Signed in pencil, further inscribed by the artist in pen to Madam Hedwig Reducing Salon “Good for one facial [...] call for appointment before November 1, 1955.”

Yampolsky (1925-2002) immigrated to México from the US in 1945. That year she was hired by the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP)—the only woman working in the TGP studios at the time. She became a celebrated illustrator and photographer and, in 1958, a Mexican citizen.

This print is emblematic of her TGP-era style and was seemingly offered to a salon in exchange for a facial treatment. As “occasional art,” an emerging way of describing art either produced for special occasions, gifted, or bartered, it offers a disruptive context for understanding the production and distribution of art.

$225

¡Vean estos films!

Sovexportfilm. ¡Vean estos films! [cover title]. Moscow: Sovexportfilm (Asociacion URSS para la Exportatcion y La Importacion de Peliculas), ca. 1962. Oblong 4to, [26] leaves; profusely illus., [20] pp. with full-page color illus. advertising Soviet films, further [12] pp. with pockets for loose portrait photos of actors, two per page, approx. half present, heavy wear to edges.; in orig. comb binding, entirety worn with some dampstain at front.

One of many iterations promoting Soviet films to international theaters and audiences, this one a deluxe Spanish version, distributed in Mexico. Advertising a number of famous Soviet movies and stars from 1958-1961.

Not located under this title (or approximate translations) in OCLC.

$125

Mexico

Comité Organizador de la Participación en la Exposición Ibero-Americana de Sevilla, Luis Alberto de Herrera, and Francisco A. Sáenz. Mexico. [Mexico]: Talleres gráficos de la nación, 1929. Oblong 4to, 591 pp.; full-page b/w pls. throughout, paper toned, pls. very good; 3/4 green cloth, corners bumped, paper labels stained.

Large format, encyclopedic album commissioned by the government’s department of propaganda to present the modern political and social structures, and economic successes of post-revolutionary Mexico to an international audience. Lavishly illustrated with tipped-in plates reproducing photographs of government buildings, schools, public transportation, industrial and commercial sites, and public works. Most plates with decorative borders inspired by Aztec designs. The album culminates with images and descriptions of the Mexican pavilion in Sevilla.

An important piece of propaganda describing the massive reforms of the post-revolutionary period, it was published under President Calles’ direction in the year that he founded the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), a time in which the “social revolution” was very much still at risk.

Example 440 of 3000.

$450

U/topistas: Estudio para proyectos contemporaneous

[Art – Puerto Rico] Universidad Sagrado Corazón, Galería de Arte and Michelle Marxuach Galería. U/topistas: Estudio para proyectos contemporaneous. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Michelle Marxuach Galeria; M&M Art Projects, [2000]. 8vo, [78] pp.; color illus., wrappers sl. loosened with small markings on front cover.

Catalog documenting projects by 37 Puerto Rican artists for an exhibit that took place at the Galeria de Arte de Universidad Sagrado Corazon in conjunction with the PUERTO RICO ‘00 (PARENTESIS EN LA CIUDAD) exhibition. Includes early work by Puerto Rican artists Allora & Calzadilla, Ernesto Pujol, Pedro Velez, and others. OCLC locates a single holding (Getty).

$95

A ruptura da fotografia nos anos 50

Oiticica, José Filho. A ruptura da fotografia nos anos 50. Catalogue of an exhibition held at Galeria de Fotografia da Funarte, Rio de Janeiro, January 14 - February 25, 1983. Rio de Janeiro: Edição Funarte, 1983. 4to, 97 pp.; intro by Hélio Oiticica, illus. with 50+ full-page b/w reproductions of photographs; in paper wraps, scuffed, especially spine, else very good.

Uncommon Brazilian photo exhibition catalogue. José (1906-1964) was an entomologist, mathematician, and a photographer who experimented with microphotography, abstraction, and constructivism. He was also the father of renowned artist Hélio Oiticica. Hélio’s introduction in the catalogue was written c. 1967.

$150

Crónicas, documentos, y otros papeles.

(Art—Medicine) ​Slullitel, Isidoro. Crónicas, documentos, y otros papeles. [Rosario, Argentina]: Self-published, 1971. 8vo, 473 pp.; frontispiece b/w reproduction of a woodcut by Juan Grela; paper toned; pink card wraps, worn and splitting, top edge foxed. Gift inscription on half-title from author to the artist Gyula Kosice.

Slullitel was an orthopedist and art collector whose patronage in Rosario extended to both the visual arts and a literary salon. An uncommon volume of his thoughts about the relationship between medicine, art, and culture, with an important association.

Unrecorded in OCLC.

$175