Á las Señoras Católicas

[Lazos León, Florinda]. Á las Señoras Católicas. San Cristóbal [de las Casas], Mexico: np, 1926. Broadside. 46.5 x 33 cm. Thin colored paper, creased where folded, a few v minor defects at edges, otherwise very good condition.

Revolutionary soldadera, suffragist, journalist, and labor organizer, Florinda Lazos León (1898-1973) advanced feminist and labor causes throughout Mexico, but particularly in her home state of Chiapas. During the Revolution she was a nurse in the Carrancista Liberating Army of the South and participated in organizing both the first Congress of Women Workers and Peasants of Chiapas (1919) and the first National Congress of Women Workers and Peasants (1931).

Scholarship on Mexican suffrage often omits the fact that Chiapas was the first Mexican state to grant women full rights of citizenship (“just” the fourth to give them the right to vote). In 1926, Lazos León became the first woman elected to the Chiapas legislature, more than a quarter century before women won the right to vote nationally. Though a few women had been elected in the Yucatan in 1924, they were not allowed to serve, making Lazos León the first woman ever to serve in a state-level elected office in Mexico.

This broadside was published after Lazos León announced her candidacy in a July issue of the worker’s party newspaper that she edited, La Gleba, and shortly before her November election. It is addressed to the women of her hometown, San Cristóbal de las Casas. The text is a finessed position on the Cristeros Rebellion–a violent conflict between the Mexican state and the Catholic Church in the 1920s. The seeds of the rebellion began with the 1917 Mexican Constitution. It restricted the political and economic power of the Church through several measures: requiring primary schools to be secular, nationalizing their property, and banning public ceremonies; the Church’s power was further reduced by additional statues and enforcement beginning in 1924 during the Calles presidency. Following increased anticlerical persecution, the Catholic hierarchy refused to conduct public mass and closed their churches in 1926. This led to an unusual role for women, who became the leading lay ministers of their communities.

In the present document, Lazos Leon implores women not to be drawn into the conflict, or as she wrote, used as “cannon fodder” by powerful government and religious interests. Instead, she asks that they stay true to the roots of their Christianity and protect poor and working people (including the rights of indigenous peoples).

Truly a rare surviving primary document authored by Lazos León who has no author record in WorldCat.

(HOLD)

Eight numbers of Calaveras and Calacas

Taller de Gráfica Popular. Eight numbers of Calaveras and Calacas, 1982-1992. Mexico: Taller de Gráfica Popular, 1982-84; 1986; 1988; 1990; 1992. Eight issues, varying from 33-40 cm, 16 pp. each; profusely illustrated, some with color self-wrappers. Toned, with usual small defects at edges. Without signs of handling, never folded. VG+/NF. Together with El sismo maldito terror en la capirucha horror el TGP sin casa. Mexico: Taller de Gráfica Popular, 1985. 35 cm. 16 pp.

From its founding in 1937, the Taller Gráfica Popular (TGP) print collective intermittently released satirical Calaveras and Calacas during the festival of Día de los muertos. These publications were strongly influenced by José Guadeloupe Posada’s (1852-1913) classic penny broadsides. Posada’s renowned political calaveras became indelibly linked to Día de los muertos celebrations.

In contrast, TGP calaveras, including those in the present collection, are not single sheets like Posadas. Instead they resemble large format serials with many pages of skeletal satire and verse. Like all TGP printmaking, these holiday specials were designed to be affordable and topical, with powerful graphic artwork by established artists.

Graphics in this collection cover many important national issues e.g. police corruption and violence, the indigenous movement in Chiapas, economic crises, etc., as well as international news, e.g. Cuban migration, US imperialism, Nelson Mandela, student movements, etc.etc.

Intentionally ephemeral, issues after 1956 are surprisingly scarce and not widely collected by museums or libraries. Not mentioned in Prignitz-Poda, but part of an exhibition at the MFAH in 2013.

Together with a one-off issue created in the aftermath of the 1985 earthquake, which destroyed the TGP workshops. El sismo maldito was printed in a provisional location (“TGP sin casa”).

$1250

Short titles:

Calaveras 82- Banqueras, amparadas … , 1982.

Calacas. 1983.

Calacas, 1984.

Calaveras. Calacas del Destape. 1986.

Calacas, 1988.

Calaveras del premio nobel, 1990.

V Centenario de calaveras, 1992.

Calaveras complotistas del Taller de Grafica Popular, que bailan sus quebraditas, 1992.

Cocktail

Guerrico, Silvia. Cocktail (Para el atardecer de un sábado inglés): Cuentos Breves. Buenos Aires: Editorial Tor, 1932. First edition. 18.5 cm, 157 pp.; textblock toned with foxing, stories followed by five pages of publicity and press blurbs about Guerrico and an index. Color wrapper with illustration by Luis Macaya (1888-1953), older glue repairs to spine. With signed manuscript dedication from the author to Mané Bernardo on half-title, and a newspaper clipping with a photograph of the author, accompanied by a second handwritten note from Guerrico to Bernardo, both laid in. Note reads “A Mane Bernardo, amiga muy querida, en el atardecer de este sábado inglés en que la alegría de todas hizo editar un segundo cocktail. Cariñosamente. Silvia.” Together with a signed copy of: Guerrico, Silvia. Los príncipes azules. Montevideo: Rossi, 1927. First edition. 20 cm, 139, [5] pp.; in color illus. glued wrapper, illustration by Mario Castellanos. Losses to wrappers, spine, and interior chipped and toned. Reading copy only. Signed dedication by the author on half-title to the poet Fermín Estrella Gutiérrez.

Important association copies of early short stories by radio star Silvia Guerrico (Uruguay, 1905-1983), whose daily program in Buenos Aires became one of the most popular primetime shows in Rio Plata during the medium’s golden-age. Guerrico began her career as a theater critic in Montevideo, where she published Los príncipes azules (Prince charmings) when she was just 22. The collection was well-received by her contemporaries, including Juana de Ibarborou and Blanca Luz Brum. Brum wrote that “since she lives her life touching the painful and burning things, she could very well be a ‘little Russian’ in our literature [otherwise] prostituted by pornography and gauchismo.” (From publicity blurb in Cocktail, p. 157.)

Guerrico moved to Buenos Aires in 1928, where she shifted back and forth between print (incl. a regular newspaper column) and the radio, starting her own “magazine” program in late 1930. This quickly evolved into a daily broadcast called Cartel sonoro featuring many of her own poems and radio plays. Cartel sonoro was part of a wider effort to attract female audiences and consumers to variety shows and narrative programming. By the age of twenty-seven, Guerrico’s program had become a primetime success and an important platform for other women journalists and writers.

Despite her popularity, she was regularly criticized for the “vulgarity” and “femininity” of her on-air persona. Her rise corresponded to a new era of celebrity in Argentinian radio, and the government was just catching up to conservative concerns about the immorality of radio programming and modern music (particularly tango). It was during this period that she wrote the stories in Cocktail, which, like Los Principes Azules, depict modern women drinking and dancing and men who exploit and violate them. In Guerrico’s telling, the only exceptions to this dynamic are men and women of strong moral character brave enough to stand up for themselves. Guerrico’s playful dedication of Cocktail to her “dear friend” the lesbian puppeteer Mané Bernando conjures an intimate world of artist party-going on the “English Saturday”, i.e. the newly created legal right to a half-day off on Saturdays.

The cover illustration of Cocktail reflects the place tango had come to occupy in the Argentinian popular imagination. Associated in the 1930s with violence, the lower classes, and urban areas where prostitution was legal, the racist components of the image were part of the public association of tango with Afro-Argentinian traditions (“tango” and “tambo” were probably initially used to refer to musical gatherings of enslaved people in the Rio Plata).

Rare despite Guerrico’s fame: two copies listed by WorldCat for Cocktail; approx. 6 for Los príncipes. None in modern sales records.

$950

Further historical notes on Guerrico and censorship against women:

In 1933, shortly after Cocktail’s publication, Argentina passed laws to limit political speech on the radio and censor tango lyrics. In the spring of 1934, Guerrico interviewed Mexican film star Ramon Navarro for the evening news. Apologizing for recent poor reviews of his local performances, she offered him an impassioned defense that was the start of what became known as the “Guerrico affair”:

“I am going to say to you [...] what women would [say] if nobody was listening, if the mocking gaze of men did not weigh upon them, injuring and humiliating them. . . . Women love you, and there isn’t one who would not [like to say] thank you [...]. For an hour, from whatever movie screen in the world, you have …. erased all realities . . . there were no women who worked like dogs and had to marry some pimple-faced guy; there were no women who waited for the rough kiss of a dirty husband; there were no women overloaded with sadness and children. . . . Men have made life very difficult for women. And day-by-day, they make it uglier.”

Despite the seemingly low-stakes context of a radio interview, the speech’s implications about women’s desire, fantasy, and social silence surrounding their ordinary suffering was incendiary. The radio press called for government investigations. They questioned Guerrico’s qualifications, and women’s more generally, to speak. When she was not immediately fired they criticized her for having dared to “speak for Argentinian women” and described her as a “true threat to the tranquility of the radio listener.” One aggrieved reviewer wrote that Guerrico had proved “women and a microphone are incompatible.” Later that year, there was an executive degree with strict radio regulations to curb offensive content, a move that mirrored the new Hollywood industry guidelines known as the Hays Code. Eventually Guerrico was fired.

She found her way again with a more conservative radio program in the mid-1940s but went into exile after Perón’s election in 1946. After a number of years in Mexico, she eventually settled back in Uruguay.

Cited:

Ehrick, Christine. Radio and the Gendered Soundscape: Women and Broadcasting in Argentina and Uruguay, 1930-1950. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 33-69.

Collection of 140 Argentinian Women Artists’ Exhibition Announcements and Catalogs

Collection of 140 Argentinian Women Artists’ Exhibition Announcements and Catalogs, 1946-2008.

Substantial collection of illustrated ephemera documenting women artist exhibitions in Argentina (artists primarily identifying as Argentinian, with a few expatriates or Central and South American artists showing in Argentina). Spanning a period of more than 50 years and various stylistic movements, the bulk of the exhibitions date from 1965-1985, an era of increasing participation by women artists in the Buenos Aires art world.

The collection includes numerous examples from vanguard Argentinian gallery programs, including Arthea, Peuser, Rubbers, and Witcomb. With a few notable exceptions (e.g. Julia Codesido, Diana Dowek, Ana Eckell, Magda Frank, Raquel Forner, María Martorell, etc.) the majority of the 100+ artists are relatively unknown to North American collections and institutions; most of the catalogues are seemingly unrecorded in relevant databases. Almost all of the items provide biographical detail with a list of works, many have essays by well-known critics and historians. Taken together they offer a wealth of new information about women artists in Argentina: their art education (often listed as autodidacta); their careers; their artistic processes.

Short-title list provided on request.

$3200

Four Mexican Fanzines

Four Mexican Fanzines, 1989-1999.

Four appealing examples of Mexican self-publishing, documenting aspects of the thriving hardcore/metal scene in Mexico; its international scope (especially as related to the Mexican diaspora); and the overlap of the musical and countercultural movements in the 1980s and 1990s.

Comprised of:

Mutilador Zine. No. 5 (First Anniversary issue). Mexico, D.F.: np, 1989. 27.5 cm, 22 pp.; b/w illustrations mostly reproducing photographs and band art; in stapled pictorial wrappers. VG.

Definitive and ambitious bilingual Mexican metal/thrash and counterculture fanzine with contributing authors in Mexico, USA, and Panama. Many interviews with Mexican bands and international bands playing in Mexico. “If there is a fanzine that defines the metal spirit of the 80s, it is ‘Mutilador’. .. it was made with rudimentary elements: paper intervened with a typewriter, markers, scissors, Pritt adhesive pencil and, that yes, a lot of creativity. Announcements of gigs, letters, boxes and more boxes, memories…” Eight issues were published between 1987 and 1989.

Tumba Vacia Zine. No. 12. Mexico, D.F.: np, 1999. 28 cm, 19 pp.; profusely illus. with b/w reproductions of orig. graphic art, and many examples of 1990s PC clipart and fonts; stapled pictorial wrappers. Bilingual. VG-.

Christian metal zine edited by Iram Gomez Torres, with contributions from authors/bands in Malaysia, Argentina, Cuba, and the USA. Focused on the Christian scene and its relationship to the larger metal world, but also on equity and racism. “Una vez más levantamos nuestra voz hacia un fin de siglo por los pueblos olvidados por la modernidad y el racismo. No terminando de entender porque unos billetes valen más que la propia vida humana, o como el color de nuestra piel puede cambiar el curso de una vida, siendo que Jesus derramo su sangre por todos nosotros como humanidad, dándonos así el valor de su sangre.”

Raza Viva: Fanzine Tampico – Madero. No. 7. Tampico, Tamaulipas: np, nd (ca. 1997-1998). 22 cm, (34) pp.; b/w illustrations throughout; in stapled pictorial wrappers.

Metal and goth fanzine. With reviews but also poems, articles, an homage to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and a note on the participation of women in the Mexican metal scene.

Cultura Callejera Colectivo. Fanzine. No. 2. Mexico, D.F.: np, nd (ca. 1996). 21 cm. 32 pp.; reproducing orig. comix and art; in stapled dual color pictorial wrappers with folding leaf, opening to reproduction of a photograph of El Tri frontman Alex Lora, wrappers worn and bumped.

Counterculture fanzine, focused on street culture and Mexican rock. Articles on various subjects: indigenous rights, music, feminism, child abuse, and other general anti-establishment topics.

Cited:

Israel Morales. ‘Mutilador’: libro que capta el espíritu del fanzine metalero de los años. 2022. https://www.milenio.com/cultura/literatura/fanzine-mutilador-resena-del-libro-sobre-metal

$500

Magdalena y Aurora Mira

Carvacho Herrera, Victor. Magdalena y Aurora Mira. Santiago de Chile: np, 1953. 26.5 cm, 22, [1], pp.; booklet toned, followed by 14 b/w plates from photographs by Rene Combeau mounted to card with captions identifying the location of the work, in addition to the normal data; plates loose, in orig. paper wrapper with portrait tipped-in, wrapper worn and splitting, old repair on verso not visible recto. Edition limited to 100 copies, this copy no. 95. Extra-illustrated?

The earliest monographic study of the Chilean painters Magdalena (1859-1930) and Aurora (1863-1939) Mira, published to coincide with a privately organized exhibition of their work in their family house in Santiago.

The sisters were from a socially prominent family; their father was an artist who helped them gain admittance to the Chilean Painting Academy. Magdalena and Aurora were two of the first women to study painting in Chile at the national academy, and their skill was recognized during their lifetimes with a number of medals at national salons in the 1880s and 1890s. Despite these early successes, both women ultimately prioritized domestic lives and rarely exhibited after 1895. Their story is emblematic of the changing opportunities and limits faced by upper class Chilean women in the late 19th century.

This midcentury study is an important object of the history of their reception in Chile. Now celebrated in Chile as “pioneering” women artists, the next major monograph of their work, Magdalena y Aurora Mira: Pioneras del Arte Femenino, was not published until 2013.

OCLC finds two copies of the portfolio, at UConn and Biblioteca Nacional de Chile, both local catalogs reference 10 plates. The present copy has 14.

$550

Flores en el desierto: Mujeres del Concejo Indígena de Gobierno

Muñoz Ramírez, Gloria. Flores en el desierto: Mujeres del Concejo Indígena de Gobierno. Mexico: Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung; Desinforémonos, 2018. Square, 22 cm, 175 pp.; profusely illustrated with color reproductions of photographs; color pictorial boards, extremities lightly rubbed, VG.

Interviews and photographs of ten women members of the Indigenous Government Council (Concejo Indígena de Gobierno [CIG]), a political body created in 2016 by the National Indigenous Congress (Council Congreso Nacional Indígena [CNI]) to be a collective indigenous voice united with the EZLN behind a single candidate for the Mexican presidency during the 2018 elections. The chosen candidate, María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, is a Nahua doctor, the CIG spokesperson, and the final interviewee in the present volume.

The book presents the striking stories of these women resistance leaders as they fight racism and the colonial legacy of dispossession to defend their history, language, natural resources, and sacred lands and ceremonies from “la hidra capitalista [que] avanza y avoraza todo lo que está a su alcance.”

The CIG/CNI’s governing principles are anticapitalist, autonomous, and horizontal: “Servir y no servirse, construir y no destruir, obedecer y no mandar, proponer y no imponer, convencer y no vencer, bajar y no subir, representar y no suplantar.”

A book produced intentionally in the public domain, unrecorded in OCLC either in physical or digital formats.

$450

Espejo en Sombra

Bertolé, Emilia. Espejo en Sombra. Buenos Aires: Mercatali, 1927. 16.5 cm, 78 pp.; textblock toned, foxed more noticeably in the first third, a few chips at fore edges; in color pictorial wrappers, with pochoir? illustration by Alfredo Guido, toned, spine chipped with a few small losses, reinforced at head and foot. With extensive manuscript dedication from the author. Limited edition, this copy numbered 606.

The only book published by the Argentinian poet and painter Emilia Bertolé (1896–1949), a member of the acclaimed Anaconda literary group and a close friend to its most famous members, Horacio Quiroga and Alfonsina Storni.

Though she is known more now for her painting, in the 1920s Bertolé’s name was mentioned by contemporary critics along with Storni and Juana de Ibarbourou as Rio de Plata’s greatest young poets. A lack of documentation of her role in this group provides an excellent opportunity for research into her poetry, which shares some of Storni’s emphasis on the modern women (e.g. Bertolé’s recurring image of a woman driving alone in this volume) and eroticism.

The pochoir illustration on the front wrapper is by Argentinian painter Alfredo Guido, who studied with Bertolé at the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes. It is possibly a stylized portrait of Bertolé: Guido’s painted portrait of the poet won the Gold Medal at the XI Salon de Otoño (1927). In the painting, Bertolé is depicted with a light blue veil similar to the one that surrounds the female nude on the cover.

The extensive dedication and some of the poems reference spiritualism and Yogi Ramacharaka: reflecting the prominence of these trends in the Argentinian avantgarde, and, for both Guido and Bertolé, in Ricardo Rojas’s cultural naturalism, which privileged indianismo as a kind of local exoticism/orientalism (Rojas, Eurindia, 1924).

OCLC identifies three holdings in North America: Stonybrook, LOC, and IU.

See: Josefina Delgado. Alfonsina Storni: Una Biografía Esencial. Buenos Aires: Debolsillo, 2011.

$650

Cuentos para Mari-Sol

Brunet, Marta. Maria Valencia, Illus. Cuentos para Mari-Sol. Santiago de Chile: Zig Zag, nd. (1938?). First edition. 25.2 cm, 49, [1], pp.; letterpress? with four-color halftone title page and five four-color halftone plates, additional in-text color halftone illus. throughout; each of the seven stories beginning with a historiated initial “R” (“Resulta que…”); the page numbers with changing ornamental surrounds corresponding to the different stories. Text block clean and uniformly toned, colors bright with some ghosting/bleedthrough from the inking of the color illustrations. Orig. stapled card stock boards, rebacked, with orig. color illustrated wrapper, stained and reinforced at edges and spine where there were small losses, Brunet/Valencia “ex-libris” design on the rear wrapper.

First edition of the beloved mid-century Chilean children’s book, Cuentos para Mari-Sol. Authored by the award-winning novelist Marta Brunet (1897-1967) and the only edition with exuberant color illustrations by Maria Valencia, one of four participants in the groundbreaking neocubist Exposición de Diciembre (often described as the first abstract art exhibition in Chile). Known from a single other copy, at the Biblioteca Nacional de Chile (BNC), the first edition seems to have been rarely consulted by most Brunet bibliographers, who do not fully differentiate it from all subsequent editions. One of the seven stories appearing in the first edition is missing from all others, and the second edition, published approximately 25-30 years later, was much enlarged, including an additional thirteen stories (Los Cuentos de Mama Tolita) written many years after the original Cuentos para Mari-Sol.

Brunet was a feminist novelist, one of the earliest Latin American women writers who were not “simply displaying the ways in which women have been subordinated and excluded from the conventional social contract” but actually imagining “alternative social arrangements not based on fixed gender identities or conventional gender roles.” She was deeply involved in the Chilean suffrage movement, and her writing “violated in particular the limits of a rigidly class-based society, attacking ‘good customs’ (...) The demand for boldness in the behavior of women linked to the rise of the suffrage movement included above all the use of language.”

Both Brunet and Valencia had traveled to Europe in the 1910s and 1920s and were known for their participation in avant-garde intellectual circles there and in Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela. In addition to their involvement in the suffrage movement, they were also involved in Chilenidad and Americanismo, which prioritized local and indigenous references and expressions. Gabriela Mistral wrote of Brunet: “se ha amamantado de chilenidad. Chilenidad de paisaje, de acento, de costumbre, de carácter.” Cuentos de Mari-Sol is an example of Brunet’s early, rural chilenidad: familiar tropes of children’s folktales placed in a Chilean context (e.g. a protagonist condor; and the landscapes of Chile, rather than Europe). After Mistral, Brunet was the second woman to receive the National Prize for Literature, in 1961.

We offer the approximate date of 1938 for this edition because Valencia’s distinctive cover image is visible in a famous photograph taken of Brunet in that year (photograph in the collection of the BNC). Various bibliographies offer different dates, ranging from 1934 in Marting’s Spanish American Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographic Source Book, to 1941 by the BNC.

$3500

Works cited:

Mistral, Gabriela. “Sobre Marta Brunet.” El Mercurio. July 8, 1929.

Oyarzún, Kemy. “Género y canon: la escritura de Marta Brunet.” Revista de la facultad de filosofía y humanidades, Universidad de Chile. No. 14. 2000.

Pignatello Regenstreif, Ellen G. Power, sexuality and the new social contract: Five twentieth century Latin American novels. Diss., Stanford University, 1994.

La Hora de Queda: Novelas Cortas

[Echeverría Bello, Inés]. Iris. La Hora de Queda: Novelas Cortas. Santiago: Imprenta Universitaria, 1918. First edition. 19 cm, 223 pp.; signed manuscript dedication from the author to “mi amigo Mario …” on ffep, brittle paper chipped and toned, in pictorial wrapper with nouveau cover design by Laureano Guevara Romero, soiled, with small water stain verso, spine repaired with losses.

Inés Echeverría Bello (1868-1949) was a Chilean author who published under the pseudonym “Iris”. This collection of six short stories was her fifth book. Literary critic Elvira Santa Cruz Ossa (1886-1960) reviewed La Hora de Queda psuedoymously in Zig Zag. She praised the stories, deeply influenced by the spiritualist movement, for their description of the “repetitive and confined” life of the upper class woman, in which “neither ‘freedom of thought’ nor the ‘right to reason for themselves’ were present.” Santa Cruz Ossa also wrote that this monotony revealed the urgency of progressive (feminist) ideas: “[existía un] abismo entre aquel ambiente femenino de la ‘Hora de queda’ y el de la hora presente”, “abismo que comienza a llenarse con el sacrificio de algunas, con la valentía de muchas, con la rebelión callada y vibrante de todas… Abismo que va llenándole el heroísmo de las que enarbolan el estandarte de ideas progresistas en medio del escarnio de timoratos y retrógrados.”

Echeverría Bello is generally acknowledged as one of Chile’s early feminists, for her work founding the women’s intellectual salons, The Reading Club and The Ladies Club, and for her passionate advocacy against domestic violence following the murder of her daughter Rebeca by Rebeca’s husband, Roberto Barceló (1934).

Cited: [Santa Cruz Ossa, Elvira]. Roxane. “Al margen de la hora de queda”. Zig-Zag. Número 699, Santiago, 13 de julio de 1918.

$275

Por Entre Frivolidades

Mejía, Abigail. Por Entre Frivolidades. Barcelona: Hermenegildo Miralles, 1922. 19.2 cm, 232, [6] pp.; color half-title, numerous printer’s ornaments, and illus. reproducing artwork and images from other sources; in embossed pictorial cloth with Mejia’s portrait laid-in recto, marbled fore edges, decorative endpapers, rear FEP with small chip, hinges weakened, final signature tightly sewn but beginning to separate.

Pioneering Dominican feminist Abigaíl Mejía (Abigaíl Mejia Soliere, 1895-1941) founded the country’s first political organization for women’s rights (Acción Feminista Dominicana). Trained as a teacher, she was a champion of girl’s education and job training for the poor. She was also an artist, photographer, and the founding director of the Dominican Republic’s National Museum.

Born in Santo Domingo, Mejía completed her schooling in Barcelona. She lived and worked there until her permanent return to Santo Domingo in 1925. She had already developed a reputation as a gifted writer while in Spain. From the age of seventeen she published in major Continental and Dominican newspapers, including essays on Hispano-America; literary criticism; prose; and other topics that reflected her many cultural and philosophical interests.

Her first book, Por Entre Frivolidades, is a collection of these early works. Mejía writes in her prologue that it is intended for “Dominican readers, to whom my articles are addressed almost exclusively.” Each is identified with its first published appearance (Santiago, Paris, Barcelona, San Juan de Puerto Rico, etc.). They are grouped into thematic sections (“De mi tierra” and “Alma femenina”, etc.) that foreshadow the diversity of her later feminist writing, known both for its wide-ranging literary references and its sympathy for aspects of the nation-state, Christianity, and motherhood.

Scarce, OCLC finds one holding, at Notre Dame. No appearance in modern auction records.

Elegantly printed and bound at the studio of Catalan lithographer and bookbinder Hermenegildo Miralles with many of his characteristic Modernisme ornaments and designs.

SOLD

Los misterios desvelados [sic]; tratados de quirognomia; el árbol del ocultismo [...]

Moraima Gelo, Zulema. Los misterios desvelados [sic]; tratados de quirognomia; el árbol del ocultismo; la luz en el sendero. Mexico, D.F.: np, 1929. 18.5 cm, 92 pp.; frontispiece portrait and 3 b/w pls., minor area of faded color pencil underlining on p. 34; in contemporary half calf, spine with gilt lettering, heavily rubbed, lacking orig. wrapper? Manuscript signature and dedication on verso of half-title by the author to Arthur Garcia (with his ex-libris stamp).

Zulema Moraima Gelo, born Maria Ciriaca Resendis, was a glamorous fortune teller and chirologist in Mexico City in the 1920s and 1930s. She claimed to be of “African Moorish” descent; her exoticized stage name, taken from a contemporary opera, reflects the popularity of Orientalism in literature and art of the period. Although divination and cartomancy would have been a common aspect of certain theatrical and public performances in Mexico in the 19th century, fortune tellers with fixed addresses and private rooms emerged only slowly in the early 20th. Initially they requested municipal authorization for their businesses, but by 1919, when Zulema applied for permission, the Mexico City had turned against fortune telling and created a policy not only to refuse new licenses, but to withdraw those which had been granted, and to prosecute fortune tellers and cartomancers as frauds.

Zulema therefore moved her studio frequently, and circulated in sympathetic artistic and intellectual circles where spiritualism was admired (she was praised by the poet Jose Emilio Pacheco as “our maximal visionary”). Unfortunately today she is mostly remembered for a series of public scandals involving her romantic life and deceptive business practices.

The present volume appeared during the height of her fame, when she toured to Havana as an “Arab clairvoyant” and correctly predicted political and global events (the Spanish Flu, the death of a local politician). It offers personal interpretation and instruction on familiar conventions of palmistry and divination. Seemingly issued in very limited numbers, OCLC identifying only one copy, at the Biblioteca Nacional de México.

$450

See: Avilés, M. M. (2017). La suerte está echada. Clarividentes, adivinadoras, palmistas y cartomancianas. Alquimia 61.

Cultura Doméstica; Cultura Femenina (all published)

(Feminism) [Karr, Carme, aka Carmen Karr] Cultura Doméstica: Revista Mensual de [...] las Diversas Ramas de la Vida Familiar. Año I, Núm 1-18; followed by Cultura Femenina: Revista Mensual Ilustrada de la Mujer y el Hogar. Año III, Núm 19-24 (all published). 26.8 cm, annual continuous pagination (122, 182, and 96 pp. respectively); illustrated women’s serial with texts in both Castilian and Catalan, bound in single cloth volume, lacking orig. wrappers. Barcelona: 1933-1935.

Uncommon Spanish Republican women’s serial directed by the Catalonian feminist and journalist, Carme Karr, who wrote for and edited some of Spain’s earliest feminist publications, including the magazines Feminal and Or y Grana. Women were granted suffrage in Spain in 1931 (and were elected to office that same year), but the could not actually participate in elections until November 1933, shortly after the origination Cultural Doméstica.

The serial documents the early days of this brief moment in Spanish women’s history (roughly 1931-1939), when new freedoms and roles were possible. This period lasted until the Republican defeat in the Civil War ushered in a new era of tradition and oppression. Along with monthly columns on women’s issues and news by Karr (e.g. “La mission social de la mujer en la vida moderna,” the magazine carried regular features on girl’s education, women at work and job training, medicine and family health, cooking, fashion, applied arts and interior design, all with an emphasis on modern styles, particularly German. Contributions by or articles on artists and authors including Elvira August Lewi, Margarita Sans Jordi, Margarita Xirgu, Anna Casanovas (book binder), Maria Teresa Vernet, Enriqueta Pascual Benigani, and the fashion houses Pedro Rodriguez and El Dique Flotante.

OCLC records one holding, in Barcelona.

$550

El Espacio Escultórico

(Land Art) (Abstract art) (Mexico)

Centro de Investigación y Servicios Museológicos, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. El Espacio Escultórico. Mexico, D.F.: UNAM, 1980. 21.7 cm, 119 pp.; trilingual catalogue, profusely illus. in b/w, thumbed, with crease at fore corner affecting early pages; in color wrappers worn with creases, starting to separate at foot of spine, small chip in rear wrap.

This volume was the first and only monographic publication to document UNAM’s instantly recognizable, massive sculpture park. The park was one of Mexico’s most important public art projects in the second half of the 20th century. Conceived of by artist Federico Silva, the monumental works by Silva, Helen Escobedo, Manuel Felguérez, Matías Goeritz, Hersúa, and Sebastián respond to the extraordinary volcanic landscape of the surrounding ecological reserve incorporating elements of Land Art, pre-Hispanic imagery, and immersive geometric abstraction. The volume documents its planning, construction, and completion, including images of the architectural, archeological, and geological context of the site, the inauguration of the space, and the sculptures; together with artist biographies, artistic statements, and other short essays, followed by translations to English and French.

The colophon claims an edition of 3000. OCLC records fewer than 10 in public US collections, almost all museum libraries.

$550

Exposición Internacional de Barcelona. Catalogo Oficial de la Seccion Alemania

[Junta Nacional Alemana de Expos y Ferias]. Exposición Internacional de Barcelona. Catalogo Oficial de la Seccion Alemania. Berlin: Reichsdruckerei, 1929. 20.8 cm, 127, [32] pp.; illustrated throughout: 1 folding map, 23 b/w plates reproducing maps, floor plans, and architectural renderings, a further 12 b/w illus. from photos, with index followed by 32 unnumbered pages of ads for German exposition vendors. A broadside advertisement for a Spanish vendor laid in. Fore edges and front matter foxed, rest of interior relatively clean and tight; in stapled wrappers worn with foxing, discoloration, and a small repair.

A rare publication highlighting Lilly Reich’s prominent role as artistic director of the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition, including her collaboration with Mies van der Rohe on the iconic German Pavilion and her plans for the other German sections. The simple and elegant catalogue was designed(?) by Reich and printed in Berlin, its chapters reproduce (from Reich’s drawings) the floor plans for the exhibition palaces and offer lengthy detail on the vendors and materials in each exhibition (industrial and applied arts, graphic arts, agriculture, electricity, communication and transport, textiles, construction and building materials, film, etc.).

Reich was selected as the Barcelona exposition’s artistic director following her success with van der Rohe at the Deutscher Werkbund’s “Die Wohnung ’ exhibition in Stuttgart (1927). She was placed in charge of the Barcelona exhibition design and focused much of her energy on the interiors, including furniture, textiles, and bespoke display architecture. Most famously, she and Mies van der Rohe designed two chairs used in the German Pavilion, the MR20 and the “Barcelona” chairs. The MR20 is reproduced at the rear of the catalogue in an advertisement for furniture-maker Jös Muller. The advertising section and exhibitor lists feature a number of businesses associated with architecture and applied arts at the Werkbund and Bauhaus, as well as those notorious for their later association with National Socialism and slave labor: including a four-page spread for IG Farben and its associated brands; Deutsche Luft Hansa; Berlin-Karlsruher Industrie-Werke AG; and WUMAG (Görlitz).

The history of the collaboration between Lilly Reich and Mies van der Rohe was recovered in a 1996 exhibition at MoMA, which drew from the 800+ Reich drawings in the van der Rohe archive at the museum. These drawings confirm that Reich produced many if not all of the plans reproduced in the present catalogue.

We have identified 3 copies of the Spanish-language guide in public collections. Only one in the US, at Stanford, the others in Spain at the Reina Sofia and possibly the Museo de Pontevedra. A German edition was also published, with fewer pages and, according to the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek records, only 8 plates (vs the 35 appearing in the present copy). The only OCLC holding recorded in North America for the German edition is at the Getty. No modern auction records appear for either edition.

(HOLD)

Four Artists’ Books

Four Artists’ Books by Ediciones Vigia, 1990-1997. Early and uncommon examples from the famed Cuban artists’ book collective, a collaboration between artist Rolando Estévez and poet Alftedo Zaldivar. Each book is assembled by hand and includes hand coloring, found and recycled materials, and collaged elements.

Composed of:

Burgos, Julieta and Camilo Venegas Yero, C, Illus. Los Reyes Illuminados. Matanzas, Cuba: Ediciones Vigía. 1990. 16 x 17.5 cm, 18 pp.; toned, profusely illus. with some hand coloring; tied with brown cord, collaged wrappers, wrappers with minor closed splitting on top edges. Signed by Burgos. No. 53.

2 OCLC holdings: Univ. Miami and Notre Dame, as of December 2022 no others on the market.

Venegas Yero, Camilo. La venta de miel. Matanzas, Cuba: Ediciones Vigía, 1997. 2-.5 x 16 cm, [18] pp.; mimeograph with handwritten titles, stamps, collage elements; tied with brown string, pictorial front wrapper with collage elements. No. 103 (out of 200?).

1 OCLC holding: Univ. of Miami. As of December 2022 no others on the market.

Mendez, Roberto. Cena en casa de Levi, A.D . 1573. Matanzas, Cuba: Ediciones Vigía, 1990. Poem printed on four brown paper sheets, glued vertically to form a continuous single sheet, folded seven times and tied with a paper handle at head. Front panel with hand coloring. No. 139/200. Illustration and design by Rolando Estévez.

2 OCLC holdings: Univ. of Miami, Univ. of Utah. As of December 2022 no others on the market.

[Alcaeus] Ferraté, Juan y María Eugenia Alegría. Untitled [Alceo]. Matanzas, Cuba: Ediciones Vigía, n.d. ca. 1990s. 19.5 x 15 cm, [10] pp.; reproducing 3 poems by Alcaeus in Spanish with original Greek on facing page, followed by bibliography. No. 47. Illustration and design by Rolando Estévez. There appear to be two editions with different pictorial wrappers. The other edition is titled “Hablar de poesia”.

3 OCLC holdings: Univ. of Miami, Notre Dame, UC-Berkeley..

El Movimiento Estudiantil: Three Posters

El Movimiento Estudiantil de 1968: Three Posters. México: 1968. Donde hay lucha hay sacrificios [...], linocut?, 34 x 47 cm, center crease, newsprint toned as expected; Asesinos. Pueblo: el gobierno te engaña [...] ¡Despierta!; 29 x 43 cm, an uneven impression, colored ink slightly faded, typical minor soiling and staining for a protest poster; and Untitled [after Adolfo Mexiac]; offset?; 44.7 x 29.8 cm, unevenly trimmed.

Rare surviving graphics from the 1968 student protest movement in Mexico City, which ended shortly before the ‘68 Olympics on October 2nd with the infamous Tlatelolco Massacre. The posters were printed rapidly and inexpensively during the summer and early fall for use during massive demonstrations and as street propaganda. They were primarily created by student collectives at the San Carlos and La Esmerelda art schools using linocut and silkscreen in addition to offset presses. In addition to original artwork, the artists appropriated militant imagery and text from previous social protest movements and legendary Taller Grafica Popular prints.

This group includes two uncommon examples together with a variation on a famous Adolfo Mexiac linocut that was repurposed (with the artist’s permission) during the protests. The juxtaposition of student artwork and protest language with the official Olympic graphic, as seen on the Asesinos example, was a hallmark of many of the ‘68 poster designs.

The first example is known from a copy in the UNAM archives, but otherwise unrecorded in OCLC holdings; we are unable to find location information for a copy of the second despite its reproduction by at least one blog. The third is a curious version of the Mexiac image, slightly altered from most period examples available for comparison, and evidence of the print collectives’ ongoing process of iteration and reproduction.

SOLD

Illustrated Autograph Album: El Frente de Juventudes Femenino a su Regidora Comarcal

(Education - Girls) (Fascism) [El Frente de Juventudes Femenino, Villanueva y Geltrú]. Illustrated Autograph Album: El Frente de Juventudes Femenino a su Regidora Comarcal. June 1943. Oblong 19.5 x 31 cm, 97 manuscript leaves; including approx. 90 pages individually executed by members of the Juventudes Femenino, approx. 90 with brightly colored pencil and pen drawings accompanying various inscriptions, poems, songs, and signatures; stab bound in brown faux-leather boards with leather thread, leather broken thus loosening the album, otherwise very good. With two leaves laid in, these two a bit frayed where they extended beyond the boards.

Unique illustrated gift album for Sra. Mercedes Rodriguez, a regional commander of the Falange Party’s Girls Youth Front, commemorating a political indoctrination summer camp focusing on home economics, physical education, religion, and social hygiene. During the Civil War, El Frente de Juventudes (like its fascist counterparts Hitlerjugend [Germany] and Balilla [Italy]) became an important part of securing a fascist future. Following the Nationalist victory, Franco made voluntary and involuntary state-sponsored youth organizations a priority of his new government, providing militarized style training for both boys and girls. Loosely based on scouting troops, the girls sections (“Margaritas” for 7-10 yr olds; “Flechas” for 10-18 yr olds) wore uniforms and practiced the songs and policies of the new Homeland.

Later superseded by the Juventudes de la Sección Femenina (1945), the Margaritas and Flechas of 1943 were being prepared to be good wives and mothers to the soldiers of Spain: in addition to domestic skills (sewing, nursing, cooking, etc.), they were encouraged to be physically fit, hygienic, churchgoers capable of teaching the core Falange values (Dios, Patria, Hogar) to the next generation.

In detailed drawings and inscriptions, the album documents the language and imagery of this indoctrination and its eerie combination of idealized femininity, children’s comics, and facist propaganda. Again and again Margaritas and Flechas announce their dedication to their beloved (“cariño”) commander, obedience to the political hierarchy of the Falange (“a tus ordenes”), and submission to the collective goals of national syndicalism. ¡Arriba España!

Despite its wide integration into girls education for more than thirty years, El Frente de Juventudes Femenino and the Juventudes de la Sección Femenina are poorly documented in North American institutions.

$2250

Vérascope, Taxiphote, Glyphoscope

(Trade Catalogue) (Photography) (WWI) Jules Richard. Vérascope, Taxiphote, Glyphoscope. Paris: [Jules Richard], 1918. 24 x 15 cm., 72 pp.; b/w illustrations throughout, light foxing to ffep, the rest of the interior quite bright with a few pages slightly foxed, lower stitch failing, two central sheets loosened. Embossed pictorial cover a bit soiled, faded office stamp on front cover.

WWI was a watershed moment in the relationship between photography and war. Although earlier wars were obviously photographed, the smaller cameras and new film formats available during WWI enabled combat photographers and soldiers themselves to take pictures of the war as it happened. Jules Richard was a second-generation instrument maker who entered the stereographic camera market in the early 1890s with the Vérascope, a compact camera known for its durability and innovative engineering. The first model was introduced in 1893 and it quickly became the bestselling stereograph camera of the period. The large Taxiphote viewer and storage cabinet was equally impressive in design, incorporating aspects of scientific instrumentation and clockmaking to create, according to the Oxford History of Science Museum “the most technically sophisticated” stereo viewer ever produced. It allowed a viewer to load up to 25 stereographs at the same time and then view them in any order. This extensive catalogue advertises these items and an exhaustive numner of accessories for the cameras, development, storage, and transport.

Richard was also known for his publicity. This example, issued during WWI, highlights the Vérascope’s suitability for war photography. More than half of the photographic illustrations in the catalogue are from the war, including images of soldiers and artillery in trenches, German flags at Invalides, “une boucherie sur le front,” a convoy of prisoners of war, troops in Alsace and Northern Africa, etc.

With tipped-in notice that the catalogue prices were established “according to pre-war manufacturing conditions” and in addition to possible price increases, the company “may need to suspend or stop the manufacture of certain items.”

Single holdings of other Jules Richard Vérascope catalogues found in OCLC, this one not recorded.

See: History of Science Museum, “Recent Acquisitions: Richard Verascope & Taxiphote,” Sphæra newsletter (Spring 1999).

$500

1a Exposició de Cartells [...] Internacionals en Previsió dels Accidents de Treball

(Graphic Design) (Worker Safety) (Expositions) Generalitat de Catalunya, Conselleria de Treball; and Marti Bas, Illus. Calendar commemorating the 1a Exposició de Cartells Nacionals i Internacionals en Previsió dels Accidents de Treball. Barcelona: 1937. 23.5 x 16.6 cm; 52 weekly calendar sheets printed recto, each sheet illustrating a different international worker safety poster with explanations of the dangers represented in each, in Catalan. Sheets loose, neatly removed from their original perforated(?) binding, the final week mounted to a heavier card stock, weeks 43 and 46 with small losses to blind top edge where removed from binding. Orig. color cover present, illus. by Marti Bas, lightly foxed on blank verso, not affecting recto. Together with a second calendar: Generalitat de Catalunya, Conselleria de Treball. [Croada de La Previsio 1937]: [Commemoració de la 1a Exposició de Cartells Nacionals i Internacionals en Previsió dels Accidents de Treball…]. Barcelona: 1937. [Fotolitografia Barguño]. 11.4 x 7.7 cm. [8] pp., single sheet, tri-fold monthly calendar with 14 illus. Both VG+.

Appealing, otherwise unrecorded, artifacts of a graphic design exhibition organized during the Spanish Civil War by the Catalonian Ministry of Labor, probably in conjunction with the UGT (General Workers Union). The weekly calendar surveys 52 dramatic, often frightening, international accident prevention posters (incl. the workplace dangers of alcohol, electrical shocks; eye safety; braking; cranes, ladders, fire, slips and falls, heavy lifting, cables, scaffoldings, scalding, sharp tools, sewing machines, etc.). Examples drawn from safety campaigns in Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and the U.K. (Strange bedfellows given the political realities of many of these countries in January 1937!)

The safety posters themselves were probably the product of union efforts in individual countries, not necessarily by governmental organizations or propaganda offices. They underscore the dangerous and inhumane conditions that many laborers faced twenty years after the creation of the ILO in the Treaty of Versailles (1919). Occupational health and safety policy would not be nationally regulated in most of these countries for another thirty to forty years.

Cover illustration by artist Marti Bas, known for his work on other civil war-era posters and propaganda programs.

We are unable to find records of another copy of the weekly calendar in OCLC or market records, such as they are. The smaller, monthly calendar is known from other examples, but is also not listed in OCLC holdings.

$1750

Two Photographs of Anarchist Actions in Barcelona

(Anarchism) (Political Violence) Two Photographs. Barcelona: 1896 and 1902. One gelatin silver(?) print: 12 x 16.8 cm and one albumen print: 12.5 x 17.3 cm. Both mounted to heavier tan card, with substantial manuscript annotations recto, one stamped “Vista de Heridos y Demas Traumatismos / Del Hospital de la Sta. Cruz / Barcelona”. Verso with additional stamps and later annotations and signatures (by an administrator?) dated July 1906. Photos a bit worn, card on latter with some flaking and splitting, not affecting the image.

Scarce primary source documentation of early anarchist actions in Barcelona, a period of violent engagement that radicalized many Europeans. The earlier photograph documents 8 of the approx. 64 people wounded by the bombing of a Corpus Christi procession in Barcelona on June 7, 1896. Although no one claimed responsibility, municipal authorities and the police blamed militant anarchists and used the violence as a pretext to arrest and torture hundreds of anarchists and labor organizers, eventually sentencing five men to death at Montjuic. The real perpetrators were never found, and circumstantial evidence has led many to believe it was a false flag operation, since the bomb went off among the working-class crowd, rather than amongst the high-ranking politicians and church officials in the parade itself.

The second photograph documents wounded participants in Barcelona’s first general strike, in February 1902. The general strike evolved from an anarcho-syndicalist metal workers’ strike into a citywide work stoppage which eventually found working men and women, students, and the lower classes in pitched battles against the Spanish military. Hospital de la Santa Cruz was the destination for the strikers’ wounded and dead comrades.

$1500

Collection of Genre Fiction Featuring Illustrations of Apes and Women, 1890-1994

Collection of Genre Fiction Featuring Illustrations of Apes and Women, 1890-1994. 42 titles, primarily adult/erotica, horror, noir, mystery, and science-fiction; in English, French, German, Spanish, Polish, and Russian; includes two non-fiction and four graphic novel or serial examples. Many pseudonymous or lacking complete publishing data. Detailed list of contents below.

A collection documenting the enduring racialized fantasy of women menaced by apes, responding to colonialism and shifts in scientific understanding and popular culture during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. European accounts of sexual relationships between apes and women, with abduction and rape themes, date back to at least the 11th-century in St Peter Damian’s De Bono religiosi status et variorum animatium tropologia (1061) and his description of a Ligurian count cuckolded by a monkey (as told to him by Pope Alexander II!). John Donne’s Metempsychosis (1633) includes an ape who seduces one of Adam’s daughters; a later example is the the femicide in Edgar Allen Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) by an orangutan.

Gorillas were distinguished as a species in the 1840s; adult specimens were displayed for the first time in Paris in 1852; and Darwin’s Origin of the Species was published in 1859. Growing popular fascination with the physical and evolutionary kinship of apes and human followed, and the more specific gorilla|woman “tale type” emerged: this collection includes many examples from the 1920s-1940s building on and responding to the narrative structure and popularity of the Tarzan stories (1912 onward) and King Kong (1933).

In the one hundred years of publishing represented, endless variations on the theme emerge, but the confusion or failure of moral and species categories continues. Men become apes, apes become men, doomed and violent romances with white women ensue. The protagonists change over time and across genre (travelogues, future noir, LGBTQ, S&M, occult) but the vocabulary of impenetrable jungles, dark Africa, and helpless/drugged/sleeping women persist. The visualization of apes and women is based on a number of extremely racist prototypes, notably sculptor Emmanuel Fremiet’s Gorilla Abducting a Woman (1887) and his earlier, now destroyed, Gorilla Abducting a Negress (1859).

Important early examples in this group include Von einem Gorilla entführt (Philadelphia, 1867; 1890) and Tragedja odmłodzonej kobiety (Krakow, 1929).

$3500

See Georges Dodds, “Monkey-Spouse Sees Children Murdered, Escapes to Freedom! [...]” E.L.O. 11-12 (2005-2006), pp. 73-96 and Marek Zgórniak, et al. “Fremiet’s Gorillas: Why Do They Carry off Women?” Artibus et Historiae, 27:54, (2006), pp. 219–37.

CONTENTS:

Nonfiction:

Annan, David. Ape: Monster of the Movies. New York: Bounty Books, 1975. 25.5 cm, 93 pp.; cloth with orig. illus. dj, VG.

J.A. Richards, Inc. The First Story Ever Told [cover title]. New York, NY: Np, 1924. 18 cm, 26 pp.; trade cat. for a 20 vol. illus. “Library”. Stapled pictorial wrappers. VG.

Fiction:

Les Ardeurs de Zoé. Paris: Collection Gauloise, [1926]. 18.5 cm, 48 pp.; no. 59(?) in this erotic novel collection, b/w illus. within, stapled color pictorial wrapper. No North American holdings in OCLC.

The Ape Girl. New York: Star Distributors, 1982. ST 18. 17 cm, 180, (12) pp.; text followed by 12 pp. of advertisements for S&M literature, toys, etc. “Looking up into his simian face, she felt a moment of fear, but it was too late to turn back.”

Benjamin, Jack. Sex Between People and Their Pets. North Hollywood, CA: Barclay House, 1971. BH 7174. 17 cm, 187 pp.; previous owner’s annotations, some damp stain; color pictorial wrapper, worn. G.

Berry, Bryan. Dread Visitor. London: Panther Books, 1952. PB 28. 18.4 cm, 127 pp.; color pictorial wrappers, rear wrapper lower corner lacking. Fair. “Earth is held in a cloak of terror when a dread visitor descends from the past.”

Berthoud, Ferdinand. Legs Parsons. London: The Modern Publishing Company, n.d. (ca 1924-1925). 17.7 cm, 172 pp.; in color pictorial wrapper with illustration by Ellis Silas, wrappers very worn. Color advertisement for Oxo verso. No copies recorded by OCLC in North American institutions.

Braun, Lisa. Captured. First Niter Book. FN 239. Buffalo, NY: 1966. 16.5 cm, 159 pp.; color pictorial wrappers, ink annotation on rear wrapper. G. Not in OCLC, no copies found in the market.

Brown, Fredric. The Dead Ringer. New York: Bantam Books, 1949. BB 361. 16.2 cm, 212 pp.; color pictorial wrappers, sl faded, VG. “Murder Wears an Ugly Mask!”

Caval, Patrice. Savage Breed. Las Vegas: Playtime Books [Neva Paperbacks], 1964. 17.4 cm, 158 pp.; color pictorial wrappers. VG. Carnival Noir. “What good did it do here to try to be a gentleman? Obviously this koooky broad went for beasts … So Steve let the beast in him take over.”

Champsaur, Félicien. Ouha: Roi des Singes. Paris: Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1923 [22e mille]. 19 cm, 292 pp.; cover pictorial wrappers illustrated recto and verso with erotic variations on the woman and ape theme. Illustrations by Lucien Jaquelux (covers) and Edouard Chimot (head- and tailpieces). Text block and wrappers fragile and tones, with losses. From a recent review: “the thematic “missing link” between Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes (1912) and Edgar Wallace’s King Kong (1933).”

Dexter, John. The Sin Veldt. San Diego: Corinth Publications, 1966. 18 cm; 160 pp.; color pictorial wrappers. VG. “With Darvi on safari even the apes went ape!” One holding OCLC.

Diderot, Denis. Les Bijoux Indiscrets. Paris: Editions E.L., nd. [19—]. 18.5 cm, 252 pp.; unopened, color plates, color pictorial DJ in protective cover.

Gamma: New Frontiers in Fiction. Vol. 2, No. 5. North Hollywood, CA: Star Press, 1965. 18.3 cm, 127 pp.; stapled color pictorial wrappers, price in wax pencil on front cover, ink annotations on rear, heavily creased. Featuring a novel by Ron Goulart, “Nesbit,” and a story by Ray Bradbury, “A Careful Man Dies.”

Goulart’s story is an unusual twist on the ape-man fantasy: Nesbit Belgraf is a racist megalomaniac recruiting an army to invade the US and turn it into concentration camps for Jews and Negroes. He’s also the survivor of a brain transplant to a gorilla.

Gardner, Erle Stanley. Perry Mason Solves the Case of the Grinning Gorilla. New York: Pocket Books, 1973 [PB edition, orig. 1952]. 17.7 cm, 224 pp.; color pictorial wrappers with cover art from photography

Garland, Curtis. El Yeti. Selección Terror No. 117. Barcelona, Bogota, Buenos Aires, et al.: Editorial Bruguera: 1975. Cover illustration by Alberto Pujolar. 15 cm, 95 pp.; color pictorial wrapper rubbed with creases. G. No OCLC holdings in North America.

Hughes, Dorothy B. The Decliate Ape. New York: Pocket Book, 1944 [this 1947]. PB 422. 16.1 cm, 198 pp.; color pictorial wrappers, separating from endpapers at crown.

Има, Иво [Ima, Ivo]. Похитители разума [Pokhititeli razuma]. Np, nd. [Изд-во “М.Б.”]. ca. 1940s. 15.3 cm, 187 pp.; novel followed by table of contents; in color pictorial wrappers, spine chipped with loss at head, small closed tear (1cm) to fore edge. 5 North American records in OCLC none on the market.

Jason the Monkey. Np: Stallion Publication, nd. 20.7 cm, 54 pp.; two b/w pls., illus. stapled red wrappers, light wear. Psychiatry and bestiality pornographic fiction.

Kenyon, Paul. [Kenyon Engle, Lyle]. The Baroness: Flicker of Doom. New York: Pocket Books, 1974. 17.8 cm, 222 pp.; 2 pp. color advertisement for Kent Menthol cigarettes bound in; color pictorial wrappers. VG. Cover illus. by Hector Garrido.

Lorrain, Jean. Le Crime des Riches. Paris: Pierre Douville, 1905. 18.8 cm, 320 pp., [8] pp. illus. catalogue of Douville “nouveautés”; in gray paper with color label tipped in. Cover illustration by Guillaume, at least two different versions were produced. Textblock uniformly toned, rear wrapper soiled. VG-.

By the openly gay, Decadent author: “Un étude violente, sincère, presque toujours féroce, du monde aristocratique et gangrené qui peuple la Riviera. Ce livre est un acte d’accusation formidable contre la richesse qui engendre tous les vices et excuse toutes les tares…”

Marmor, Arnold. The 13 Sinners. Chicago: Camerarts, 1960. 18 cm, 128 pp.; color pictorial wrapper. “The 13 sinners, all marked for death!”

Mercier, Mario. La Cuvée de Singes. Paris: Editions Civilisation Nouvelle, 1970. 20. 8 cm, 189, [5] pp.; pictorial wrappers, photomontage by Denise Miège [Simansky]. Wrappers worn and starting at spine. Printed by Simansky, a poet and author of women’s erotica.

Monkey Business. Adults Only. Np (California?), Nd. (ca. 1970s). 16.8 cm, 191 pp.; 16 color pls., 9 b/w pls.; color pictorial wrappers. Pseudo-scientific bestiality with low-key (by current standards) photography of women and animals.

Oslow, John, Rev. [Pseudo.]. Von einem Gorilla entführt. Philadelphia: Old Franklin Publishing House, 1890. 23 cm., 61 pp.; 4 b/w pls. with captions, all signed EBB, toned, final 5 leaves with turned corners; faded pink pictorial wrappers, chipped.

German language edition of the novella “Captured by a Gorilla” first published in English and French (simultaneously?) in 1867. This edition is not recorded in OCLC, orig. editions exceedingly rare, one each at the NYPL (Eng.) and Library of Congress (Fr.). Purporting to be a kidnapping story told by Dr. Livingstone, explicitly refuted by him when he found out about the book.

Owen, Dean. Konga. Derby, CN: Monarch Books, 1960. MM 604. 18 cm, 144 pp.; color pictorial wrapper creased, spine splitting with some losses. Fair. Based on, and released at the same time as, the eponymous sci-fi horror film; original story and screenplay by Aben Kandel and Herman Cohen. Few institutional holdings in OCLC.

Peters, Jack. Erica’s Erotic Fantasy. Chatworth, CA: Publisher’s Consultants, 1977. Secretary Lust Series-104. 17.5 cm, 192 pp.; textblock toned, pictorial wrappers tight and clean. Not found in OCLC.

Reed, David V. The Whispering Gorilla. [London]: [World Fantasy Classics] and [Sydney Pemberton], 1950. 18.2 cm, 159 pp.; color pictorial wrappers, lower edge with crease starting. VG-. “The whole of the dark continent is terrorised by a gigantic gorilla, a gorilla who is not a gorilla, but a man.”

Saxon, Vin. Ape Rape. San Diego: Rapture Books, 1964. RB 202. 16.7 cm; 160 pp.; color pictorial wrappers lightly worn at edges. Not in OCLC.

Saxon, Vin. Caged Lust. San Diego: Rapture Books, 1967. 17.6 cm; 158 pp.; color pictorial wrappers, with small diamond holepunch to front cover, textblock toned. A new printing of Ape Rape, names changed and different wraps. Not in OCLC.

Vigny, Benno. Tragedja odmłodzonej kobiety (Nell John). [Krakow], [Lwow], et al.: “Lektor” Instytut Literacki, 1929. First Polish Edition. 19 cm, 197 pp.; in color pictorial wrappers by “J. St. Kilian”, worn at foot and lower edge. Originally published in German as Nell John. Der Roman einer Verjüngten (Nell John, The Tale of a Rejuvenated Woman).

No OCLC records outside of Poland.

Whitmore, Linda. The Frantic Teeny-Boppers. Brooklyn, NY: Libertine Books, 1970. LR 205. 17.6 cm, 191 pp.; pictorial wrappers creased and sl. faded. G. Not in OCLC.

Williams, J.X. Black Mass Minx. San Diego: Phenix Publishers, 1967. Late-House Library. LL 708. 16.2 cm, 192 pp.; color pictorial wrappers, price marked recto and verso, otherwise VG. Not recorded in OCLC. Protagonist is Jason January, an occult bookstore owner!

Williams, J.X. Mistress-At-Large. San Diego: Phenix Publishers, 1968. Pleasure Reader. PR 138. 17.8 cm; 159 pp.; color pictorial wrappers. VG. “Absolutely everybody went ape for her!” One record in OCLC.

Williams, J.X. The Unsucsexful [sic] Swap. San Diego: Phenix Publishers, 1968. Companion Book. CB 588. 17.7 cm, 159 pp.; color pictorial wrappers, rear wrapper creased at corner. “She had to escape the rapacious ape!”

Graphic Novels and Serials:

Kirby, Jack. The Sandman. Vol. 2, No. 3 (July 1975). New York: DC Comics [National Periodical Publications], 1975. 19 [i.e. 38] pp.; thumbed with creases, starting to fray at corner.

El Libro Rojo, No. 402. (La Cabeza Del Mono). México: Novedades Editores, 1978. 15. 2 cm; color pictorial wrappers. VG.

Sensacional de artes marciales, No. 70. (El Discípulo del Mono Ebrio). México: Editorial Ejea, 1993. 15 cm, 95 pp.; color pictorial wrappers, color comics. VG.

Startling Detective Adventures. Vol. 5, No. 26 (July 1930). Louisville, KY: Fawcett Publications, 1930. 28.3 cm, 98 pp.; profusely illustrated with color pictorial wrappers, spine rubbed with minor loss at foot and crown. G. “Mighigan’s Gorilla Murderer.” Scarce.

Poetry:

Bernard, Kenneth. The Baboon in the Nightclub: A Poem. Santa Maria: Asylum Arts, 1994. 21.5 cm, 71 pp. B/W cover illustration. Near fine.

[Healey, Greville Giles]. McDill, Alexander. Musings on Big Sur Women and One Ape. Monterey, CA: Angel Press, 1979. 20.8 cm, 45 pp.; cover design by Pousel Productions. Overstrom House, Big Sur.

Voss, Fred and Joan Jobe Smith. The Honeymoon of King Kong & Emily Dickinson. Albuquerque, NM: Zerx Press, 1993. 21.5 cm, 41 pp.; chapbook, ed. of 300; stapled pictorial wrappers, illus. throughout.

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

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

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.

$950

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.

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.

$950

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.

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

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

NEW LIST

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

Curious about what we do?

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

Á las Señoras Católicas

Eight numbers of Calaveras and Calacas

Judas del 89; Judas del 90; Judas del 91 (all published)

El solamente quería vivir: En Colombia la acción criminal de los grupos paramilitares [...]

Acción Y Fe

Educación Femenina

Frente Popular en todo el mundo [...]

Acción Femenina [title from cover]: V Asamblea

Exposición no. 2. Antonio Bonet: Arquitectura

Hacia la República Socialista de los Trabajadores [...]

Estudio a Trista

Berta Singerman

Untitled Photograph of Alicia Penalba

Otoño Imperdonable

La Trampa

Quienes traicionaron al pueblo

Diez Maestros

Cocktail

Collection of 140 Argentinian Women Artists’ Exhibition Announcements and Catalogs

Maria Fuentealba

Five Mexican Gay Liberation Movement Magazines

Four Mexican Fanzines

Magdalena y Aurora Mira

La Mujer Proletaria: Poemas Escolares

Cantar Juvenil. Año I, Núm. 2-3

Flores en el desierto: Mujeres del Concejo Indígena de Gobierno

Semblanza de la mujer mexicana y su participación en el movimiento obrero [...]

Espejo en Sombra

La Mujer y su Expresión

Cuentos para Mari-Sol

La Hora de Queda: Novelas Cortas

Por Entre Frivolidades

Mujer Sin Trabajo. Año I, Num. 2

Los misterios desvelados [sic]; tratados de quirognomia; el árbol del ocultismo [...]

Cultura Doméstica; Cultura Femenina (all published)

El Espacio Escultórico

Bajo las garras de la gestapo: 36 días en capilla

[1959 Dragon Yearbook]

Exposición Internacional de Barcelona. Catalogo Oficial de la Seccion Alemania

Four Artists’ Books

Nota Roja: 27 Vintage Photos of Crimes and Accidents

Allegorical Map of Mexico City and Environs

Ricardo Aldape Guerra: ¡Condenado a muerte!

El Movimiento Estudiantil: Three Posters

La lucha política de las mujeres

Revista Mujeres Insurgentes

Mezzo cielo: Il giornale della lega delle donne comuniste italiane. Anno I, Nos. 1-2; Anno II, No. 1

Primo Congresso Nazionale, 26 27 Aprile 1919. Donne di Roma [...]

L’Opera Nazionale Maternità ed Infanzia nel suo costante lavoro per la difesa [...]

Donne piemontesi nella lotta di liberazione 99 partigiane cadute, 185 deportate, 38 cadute civili

Illustrated Autograph Album: El Frente de Juventudes Femenino a su Regidora Comarcal

Vérascope, Taxiphote, Glyphoscope

Eight Spanish Republican Women’s Groups’ Handbills and Flyers

1a Exposició de Cartells [...] Internacionals en Previsió dels Accidents de Treball

Two Photographs of Anarchist Actions in Barcelona

La Protesta: Semanario de Batalla

Collection of Genre Fiction Featuring Illustrations of Apes and Women, 1890-1994

Mirlitón: El Compañero de Juan

Alrededor de México: Vista en los carros especiales de La Compañía Limitada de Tranvías Eléctricos

Eight Central and South American Tourist Pamphlets

16 Cuban Tourist Pamphlets and Handbills

Recuerdos de la Cuba que Dejamos

Nine Photographs

Untitled Photograph

Two Photographs

Musterbuch 3 Abteilung Hohlglas and Preisliste

Direcções Telefonicas

Selling Beauty

The Secrets of Beauty

Typescript Letter (Jacob Lawrence)

Three Modern Turkish Architecture Catalogues

Cyklonette

El Arte del Embellecimiento

Catálogo de Peletería

Catálogo de Peletería

1ere Communion 1933

Publicité Chaumet. SEP/ETE/REM.

La Dattilografa: Canzone a ballo

Collection of National Shortwave Radio Station QSL Cards

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