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

Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Colombia. El solamente quería vivir: En Colombia la acción criminal de los grupos paramilitares debe terminar: La CUT ante las naciones unidas y la OIT. Bogota: 1988. Second (expanded) edition. 23 cm, 119 pp.; a number of b/w portraits, photo reproductions, of assassinated politicians, NGO members, etc, in illus. color wrappers, rear wrap with crease starting to tear (closed). Illus. by Luis Caballero.

Gathering a number of important manifestos, speeches, and texts primarily by the central national union, but including statements by other student groups and left-wing organizations against paramilitary groups in Colombia. Includes a multi-page blank template for reporting missing persons to the United Nations.

Edition history is a bit confusing, first edition recorded in OCLC as 1982 (one location in North America, UT-A), but the CUT didn’t exist until 1986 and many of the texts and documents in the second edition date to 1987 and 1988. 2nd e. held by Harvard, Princeton, and UT-A. First only at UT-A

$90

Frente Popular en todo el mundo [...]

Dimitrof, G. [Dimitrov, Georgi]. Frente Popular en todo el mundo: La unidad obrera campesina en la lucha contra el fascismo. Mexico: Ediciones Frente Cultural, nd. [1935]. 19 cm, 111 pp.; color pictorial wrappers with losses, esp. to blank rear edges. A few chips in toned textblock. One signature, pp. 81-96, bound upside down.

The only Mexican edition of Georgi Dimitrov’s Stalinist speeches promoting the Popular Front at the Comintern Congress, 1935. Dimitrov was a Bulgarian communist and General Secretary of the Comintern from 1935-1943. With three loose illustrated advertisements for other communist publications by Ediciones Frente Cultural (EFC), and a booksellers ticket on rear wrap from Libreria Navarro (EFC having been founded by Navarro owner, Enrique Navarro Orejel).

One copy? of this edition located by WorldCat, at UT-A. Cataloged page numbers differ vastly (47pp according to UTA). Later Spanish editions published in Europe include Dimitrov’s speeches from Comintern congresses in 1936 and 1937.

$225

Manolin: Novela Original

Canel, Eva. Manolin: Novela Original. Habana: Romero Rubio, 1891. First Edition. 19 cm,. 215 pp.; ownership inscription on half-title “Maria de Lourdes,”; in contemporary three-quarter calf, spine with five compartments and gilt title, rubbed, esp. at head of spine and rear corners, marbled boards scratched.

Romantic novel by the prolific Spanish journalist Eva Canel (1857-1932) who, in addition to writing seven novels and four plays, published a satirical newspaper in Havana, reported on the World’s Columbian Exposition (1893) for papers across Latin America, lived in Argentina, Bolivia, and Cuba, where she founded her own press, and in the ultimate paradox, was a friend to both Jose Martí and Valeriano Weyler.

Despite the unusual scope of her activities, Canel was not a feminist. During her coverage of the Columbian Exposition she wrote a confusing defense of traditional Spanish womanhood. “In Spain we know nothing of women’s congresses, because the women who struggle and who study, and who enter the literary, scientific, artistic, or journalistic arena, do so on the same footing as men, the culture of both sexes being thus measured by the same standard … what does it matter if Spanish girls are not allowed the liberty of traveling and going out unaccompanied…?” (A perfectly hilarious question for a woman who wrote a travelogue about Tierra del Fuego.)

But Canel thought nothing of writing and reading about scandalous affairs and female sexuality of the kind encountered in this book and the 19th-century romance genre more generally.

The novel was included in an exhibition of rare Cuban books at the University of Miami, though oddly their copy is a second edition published in Madrid. WorldCat identifies approximately four other institutional holdings in the US.

SOLD

Cited:

Canel, Eva. “The Spanish Woman.” The North American Review 157, no. 444 (1893): 566–70.

Zequeira, María. “Eva Canel, Una Mujer De Paradojas.” Anuario De Estudios Americanos, 2001.

Exposición no. 2. Antonio Bonet: Arquitectura

Exposición no. 2. Antonio Bonet: Arquitectura. Exh cat. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona. Barcelona: 1960. Oblong, 18.5 cm, [12] pp.; b/w illus. throughout the architect’s projects in Latin America (primarily Argentina and Uruguay); stapled self-wrapper, lightly worn.

Catalogue of the second exhibit at the newly organized Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona (MACBA). Curated by art critic and co-founder of MACBA, Alexandre Cirici Pellicer, it features photo-illustrations of architect Antonio Bonet’s work in Latin America, and an essay, “La Nueva Ciudad Latina de Antonio Bonet” by Oriol Bohigas. Bonet (1913-1989) cofounded the architectural and design collective Grupo Astral in Buenos Aires (inspired by the GATEPAC, in Catalunya).

The catalogue itself is a scarce artifact of the short lived original MACBA program. The museum existed from 1960-1963 when it closed for political reasons during the Franco regime. A museum of contemporary art was proposed by provincial authorities again in 1985, the new MACBA opened to the public in 1995.

We are able to locate only one other copy in museum and library collections, at the Museu Nacional d’art de Catalunya.

$175

Otoño Imperdonable

Walsh, María Elena. Otoño Imperdonable. Buenos Aires: [Imp. Ferrari], 1947. First edition. 20.5 cm, 78 pp.; interior evenly toned, wrapper bumped and a bit faded, separating at internal hinge. Signed dedication from the author to the poet and tango critic/historian León Benarós, dated 31-7-1947.

María Elena Walsh (1930-2011) was a nationally beloved Argentinian poet, singer, and composer. Walsh published her first book of poetry at the age of 17. These adolescent verses, reissued numerous times over the next 30 years, were praised by a remarkable list of literary greats including Pablo Neruda, Juana de Ibarbourou, and Juan Ramón Jimenez. Following a trip in 1948 to Paris, she began her musical career, forming the group “Leda & María” with her romantic partner Leda Valladares. The two women toured extensively in Europe before Walsh returned to live in Argentina in 1956.

Much of her later poetry and music was written for children, including a number of anti-dictatorship and anti-censorship songs. She lived openly with her partner, the photographer Sara Facio, from 1978 until her death in 2011.

OCLC records 3 holdings in North America.

$750

La Trampa

Portal, Magda. La Trampa. Lima: Ediciones Raiz, 1956 [1957]. First edition. 17.5 cm, 138, (2), pp.; textblock toned with some foxing, illustrated wrapper bumped and foxed, flaps with author portrait, bio, and blurbs.

La Trampa is the only novel written by one of Peru’s most important writers, the revolutionary feminist Magda Portal (1900-1989). The semi-autobiographical story is a political murder mystery; she wrote it to sway public opinion on the imprisonment of Carlos Steer Lafón, responsible for the double assassination of a newspaper magnate and his wife in 1935. The character María de la Luz is based on Portal’s own experiences as a poet, activist, leader of an Aprista party, and a political prisoner.

Scarce in commerce.

$100

Quienes traicionaron al pueblo

Portal, Magda. Quienes traicionaron al pueblo? Lima: Salas é Hijos, 1950. 17 cm, 30 pp.; frontispiece portrait, some underlining, in stapled wrappers, toned and sunned, three pin holes near top of wrapper extend through publication. Black strikethrough over orig. price on rear wrap. Signed in ink by the author with dedication to Richard Lee Chin.

Revolutionary feminist Magda Portal’s Aprista manifesto written after her trial by a military tribunal, describing her opposition to the leaders of the failed Peruvian Aprista uprising in 1948. Rear wrap references her famous “Flora Tristan” essay?

$75

Diez Maestros

Diez Maestros. Buenos Aires: Plan Cultural de la Manufactura de Tabacos “Particular”, 1935. 18.5 cm, 185 pp.; fore-edges foxed, interior clean; wrapper foxed and stained, edges bumped, spine chipping.

Proceedings of a radio conference held simultaneously in Madrid and Buenos Aires. Commercially sponsored by a tobacco company, the list of participants included José Ortega y Gasset, Victoria Ocampo, Leopoldo Lugones, and Manuel Azaña among others. The volume contains the first published iteration of Ocampo’s dogmatic feminist literary manifesto: La mujer y su expresión. An important item for Ocampo bibliographies and a curious artifact of an industrial manufacturer’s “cultural plan” that brought together “illustrious” hispanic authors, political philosophers, scientists, and poets (many with socialist beliefs).

OCLC lists 2 copies in North America: BYU and Univ. of Victoria.

$125

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.

SOLD

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.

Maria Fuentealba

Montecino, Sergio, Intro. Maria Fuentealba. Exh. cat., Instituto de Extensión De Artes Plásticas de la Universidad de Chile. Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Londres, nd. [1964]. Square 16 cm, [10] pp. followed by [7] b/w plates; stapled wrappers with reproduction of sculpture verso, wrapper a bit rubbed with light wear, interior VG+. Photos by Luis Ladrón de Guevara (1926-2015)?

The only? exhibition catalogue documenting the work of mid-century Chilean sculptor Maria Fuentealaba (1914-1963). Fuentealba was a professor of sculpture with a promising career when she died in 1963 at the age of 49. She exhibited and won prizes at annual national salons, and at the first Bienal do Museu de Arte Moderna, in São Paulo, in 1951. Her work is in the Collection of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago. The booklet is a posthumous celebration of her work with an essay by artist and critic Sergio Montecino.

OCLC records one copy at the Biblioteca Nacional de Chile (listed twice), none in North America.

$100

La Mujer y su Expresión

Ocampo, Victoria. La Mujer y su Expresión. Buenos Aires: Sur, 1936. First edition. 21.5 cm, 67 pp.; small dampstain at upper fore edge, pages largely unopened; signed and dated by the author in ink to author Alberto Gerchunoff on ffep, with shelf stamp (bookseller’s?) on same page; in orig. green paper wrappers, worn, corners bumped, rear wrapper with small repair and a closed tear at rear hinge.

Signed first edition of a volume containing three of Victoria Ocampo’s first openly feminist essays. Ocampo was one of 20th-century Latin America’s most famous authors and intellectuals. In addition to her own writing, she was the founder and editor of Sur, the avantgarde literary magazine closely associated with Borges and his circle.

The present book Includes the ground-breaking title essay, originally given during a radio broadcast conference in Argentina and Spain, which seeks an autonomous feminine expression or language. Anticipating so many later philosophers, including Cixous, Ocampo described the constraints of “masculine” forms and styles and the futility of trying to write within them. She wrote: “El monólogo del hombre no me alivia ni de mis sufrimientos, ni de mis pensamientos. ¿Por qué he de resignarme a repetirlo? Tengo otra cosa que expresar. Otros sentimientos, otros dolores han destrozado mi vida, otras alegrías la han iluminado desde hace siglos.”

The final essay, “La mujer, sus derechos y sus responsabilidades,” directly addresses the evolving fight for women’s civil rights in Argentina and abroad.

$550

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.

RESERVED

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

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, 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

Traços biographicos da heroína brasileira Jovita Alves Feitosa ...

[Feitosa, Jovita Alves]. Traços biographicos da heroína brasileira Jovita Alves Feitosa, ex-sargento do 20 corpo de voluntários do Piauhy, natural do Ceará, por um Fluminense. Rio de Janeiro: Typ. Imparcial de Brito & Irmão, 1865. 14.6 cm, 44 pp.; litho frontispiece portrait of Feitosa, with foxing to same and title page, rest lightly toned; later cloth over decorated boards, spine worn at foot, orig. front wrapper bound in.

At 17, Jovita Alves Feitosa disguised herself as a man and enlisted in the Brazilian army to fight in the Paraguayan War. She cut her hair and bound her breasts, but was discovered before being deployed. The patriotism of her efforts was acknowledged by provincial authorities who allowed her to continue in the army as a uniformed second sergeant. When her volunteer corps reached Rio de Janeiro, her story became a sensation and was seized upon by propagandists to increase recruitment for the war. Despite this acclaim, the Minister of War refused her petition to proceed to the battlefront. Denied her goal, Jovita remained in Rio where she continued to be used as a symbol of Brazilian bravery until her sudden death in 1867, aged 19. Contemporary newspapers described it as a suicide.

This volume was published shortly after her arrival to Rio in September 1865 and includes a long poem celebrating her honor and bravery. It is the first biography of the national war heroine known today as simply “Jovita.”

Two North American holdings recorded in OCLC: Stony Brook and UCLA.

HOLD

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.

$400

[1959 Dragon Yearbook]

[1959 Dragon Yearbook]. Warren, PA: Warren High School, 1959. Yearbook, 27.2 cm, 144 pp.; reproductions of b/w photos throughout; blue embossed cloth, lightly worn, small stain recto. Spine starting, pastedowns fragile at hinge.

Yearbook of Warren High School, attended in 1959 by German exchange student Gudrun Ensslin, who would go on to co-found and lead the Rote Armee Fraktion, the notorious far-left militant group (sometimes referred to as the Baader-Meinhof Group).

Like the other RAF members, including her romantic partner, Andreas Baader, she was an excellent student before her radicalization and provided the intellectual framework for many of the RAF’s actions.

Ensslin is listed as a participant in Future Teachers of America, German Club, Orchestra, Student Council, Latin Club, and the National Honor Society. She appears at least five times (pp. 40, 52, 57, 122, and 136) and we believe can be identified in a sixth (p. 43) pledging allegiance with a larger group of students.

A fascinating artifact of one of the postwar period’s most visible proponents of political violence. She argued against the capitalist, imperialist policies of Western Europe and the US, which she had experienced first hand as an exchange student at Warren. The RAF was involved in numerous bombings and hostage situations; Ensslin was one of several members charged with murder and sentenced to life in prison. She died there under mysterious circumstances (in the same evening as two other RAF members) in what became known as the “Death Night.”

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..

Ricardo Aldape Guerra: ¡Condenado a muerte!

(Criminal Justice) (Wrongful Convictions) (Illegal Immigration) Jaubert, Sergio. Ricardo Aldape Guerra: ¡Condenado a muerte! Por un incidente de tránsito. Mexico: Edamex, 1989. 17 cm, 121 pp.; with b/w illus; pictorial wrapper.

Mexican criminologist Sergio Jaubert’s book was the first significant challenge to the wrongful conviction and death penalty for illegal immigrant Ricardo Aldape, found guilty of killing a Houston cop in 1982. Aldape’s eventual exoneration (1997) confirmed many of Jaubert’s theories about the biases and false evidence presented during the trial. The case became a landmark of what the judge called “outrageous” police misconduct; the jury was allowed to consider his status as an illegal immigrant during sentencing.

Aldape became a folk hero and the subject of corridos, novelas, and soap operas upon his return to Mexico, but he died in a car accident only four months later.

Jaubert’s book is profusely illustrated with evidence (photographic, ballistic, etc.) presented at the trial, with his own annotations and interpretations. Fewer than 10 physical holdings recorded in OCLC.

$225

La lucha política de las mujeres

Instituto de Estudios Políticos, Económicos y Sociales; Inter-American Commission of Women; Partido Revolucionario Institucional. La lucha política de las mujeres. México, D.F.: PRI, IEPES, 1990. 28 cm, 79 pp.; b/w illus. throughout, color pictorial wraps a bit rubbed with corner crease.

Highly politicized, propagandistic account of the women’s movement from the Revolution through suffrage (1952), emphasizing participation in the Revolution and achievements by individual women in government and agriculture (happy peasants!). Final brief section on post-1952 developments. No mention of the feminist struggles for additional civil and political liberties, voluntary motherhood, etc.

$90

Revista Mujeres Insurgentes

(Feminism) (Mexico) Pleites, Lidia, Ed. Revista Mujeres Insurgentes, No. 2. Mexico, D.F.: Federación Nacional de Mujeres Insurgentes, 1996. 28 cm, 15 pp.; color pictorial wraps. VG.

Curious feminist artifact of internecine Mexican political struggles in the 1990s, the short-lived magazine was allied with the controversial Partido Cardenista, which may have been a socalist-leaning front for the PRI in its electoral campaigns against the PRD.

Not recorded in OCLC.

$70

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

(Women’s Liberation) (Communism) Lega delle donne comuniste italiane. Mezzo cielo: Il giornale della lega delle donne comuniste italiane. Anno I, Nos. 1-2; Anno II, No. 1. Milano: Lega delle donne comuniste italiane, 1973-1975. Three of six numbers, issued irregularly from late 1973-1975 (calling itself a trimestral). Sizes vary, tabloid to 4to. Illus throughout, incl b/w repros from photographs of events etc., also some comics, and original graphics. Stapled color pictorial wrappers. Inaugural issue with heavy center crease, rubbed. No. 2 (March 1974) closed tear on front cover.

Three issues (the first two together with the final number) of a well designed magazine professing women’s liberation through class struggle and labor emancipation. Articles on contemporary social issues and national events and strikes, in addition to reporting on “women’s issues” including health care, childcare, and education.

No OCLC holdings in North America, a few scattered issues in Europe, a single presumed complete run at IISH.

$425

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

Gobetti, Ada, Intro. Donne piemontesi nella lotta di liberazione 99 partigiane cadute, 185 deportate, 38 cadute civili. Turin, Italy: Torino Commissione femminile dell’ A.N.P.I. provinciale di Torino, nd. [ca. 1945]. 24 cm, 103 pp.; many b/w portraits, wrappers darkened and a bit worn, small ink numeric notation on front cover.

Haunting commemoration of women partisans in the Italian Resistance, with portraits, personal testimony, extensive biographical details, information about individual service and military action, and battle recollections. Includes many reproductions of letters and clandestine flyers and newsletters by the women’s resistance groups Gruppi di defesa della donne and La Difesa della Lavoratrice, as well as the Corpo Volontari della Liberta. The list of deported women is mostly Jewish, and includes girls as young as 9.

OCLC lists North American holdings at Harvard, NYPL, and Princeton.

$350

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

La Protesta: Semanario de Batalla

(Nationalism) (Carlism) (Anti-Semitism) La Protesta: Semanario de Batalla. Radicalismo, Intransigencia, Nobleza, Sinceridad. Año I, Núm. 1. Barcelona, 1923. 49.6 x 34.5 cm, 4 pp., newsprint toned with creases at bifolds, small loss through full sheet at central crease, not affecting text.

First issue of an irregularly published radical monarchist (Carlist) paper, issued during the political crisis that led to General Miguel Primo de Rivera’s coup and dictatorship. Prefigures the cooperation of the Carlists with the fascists against the Second Republic with expressions of outrage against Spanish losses in Morocco, Catalan separatism, and the enemies of the “Sindicato Rojo” (the anarcho-syndicalist CNT etc.). Satirizes the campaign of a Jewish politician, Frederico Schwartz, and includes a brief panel on Schopenhauer’s fatal pessimism (but support of monarchism?).

Bold graphic design from the far-right. No copies of any issues in North America.

$325

Mirlitón: El Compañero de Juan

​Enriqueta, Maria [Camarillo]. Mirlitón: El Compañero de Juan. Madrid: Juan Pueyo, 1918. First Edition. 19.4, 232 pp.; some foxing, esp. in first quarter of text block; illus. color wrapper, worn and splitting at rear. Signed and dedicated by the author on ffep.

Maria Enriqueta Camarillo was a contributor to the proto-feminist Mexican journal La Mujer Mexicana (1904-1906). She was the author of a mandatory Mexican grammar school textbook and many volumes of popular children’s literature in Mexico. Miriltón was her first novel, preceding her well-known work El Secreto (1922), which was praised by Paul Valéry and selected by L’Académie française for a prize in 1923.

She also translated works from classic French literature and philosophy into Spanish.

$125

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

Catálogo de Peletería

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

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

Not found in OCLC.

$225

Catálogo de Peletería

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

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

Not found in OCLC.

$225

Publicité Chaumet. SEP/ETE/REM.

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

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

Not in OCLC.

$250

La Femme Canon. Chansonnette

(Women; Human Cannonball) Clairville; Villebichot, Auguste de. La Femme Canon. Chansonnette. Paris: Le Bailly, n.d. [ca. 1878].

Sheet music, 27.3 cm, [4] pp.; pictorial self-wrapper. Lower edge worn.

Rousing comic song about a woman “human cannonball” and her marital life, likely inspired by Rossa Matilda Richter, aka Zazel, the first human cannonball. Richter’s pioneering flight took place in London in 1877 and her act quickly became a sensation across Europe, inspiring both waltzes and comic songs. Oddly enough, she founded an opera company in the US in the 1880s.

One record in OCLC, at the BNF.

$125

Grand Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles. Situation Exceptionelle d’Hygiène & d’Agrément

(Education) (Girls) Institution Belle-Vue. Grand Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles. Situation Exceptionelle d’Hygiène & d’Agrément. Paris: A. Breger Frères, n.d. [ca. 1895]. Oblong 17.5 x 13 cm., 24 plates (printed recto only). Plates printed by “neo-bromure” method (similar to an Albertype or heliotype) with captions; in pictorial wrappers, very good.

Promotional book for a girls’ boarding school located in Fontenay sous Bois, now a suburb of Paris. Fine views of the interior facilities, many with students at study and play, including classrooms, the gymnasium, the art studio, and the dormitories, as well as the expansive grounds (30,000m2 de parc) used for “le tennis” and “étude en plein air.” Extensive photographs of these activities testify to a growing belief in healthful outdoor activity as an aspect of the “complete” education of girls and a cure for modernity’s spiritual and moral ailments.

The school seems to have operated under the direction of Catholic nuns from 1893 through WWI, adding classes for poor children in 1904 and a free parish school in 1911. Transformed into a Francisican seminary in 1923, the building is known locally as the center of the area’s antifacist Resistance activities during WWII.

Not located in OCLC.

$300

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.

Primer Salon Nacional de la Estampa

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

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

Unrecorded in OCLC.

$50

Boletín de Artes Visuales. Nos. 1 and 4.

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

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

$100

Museos: Realizaciones y Proyectos

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

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

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

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

$250

Plastica Bajacaliforniana: Selección Bienal 1977

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

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

$45

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

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

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

$60

De l’extinction de la prostitution: pétition au Sénat, session de 1865

Meugy, Jules. De l’extinction de la prostitution: pétition au Sénat, session de 1865 [...]. Paris: Garnier, n.d., ca. 1865.

Small 8vo, 71, 36 pp.; text followed by 36 pp. catalogue of Garnier Frères, catalogue pages uncut; in printed wrapper with advert, rear wrap abraded at corner.

Full title: De l’extinction de la prostitution. Pétition au sénat, session de 1865. Par le Dr. Jules Meugy, suivie du discours de M. le procureur général Dupin sur le luxe effréné des femmes prononcé à l’occasion de cette pétition.

$65

La Lotta Contro La Prostitutzione

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

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

No North American holdings recorded in OCLC.

$95

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

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

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

$40

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

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

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

$125

Including:

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Sexual Health) (Religious Orders) Sammelband of Five French Medical Theses

(Sexual Health) (Religious Orders) Sammelband of Five French Medical Theses, 1792-1793. Unbound pamphlets, stitched, 21 x 14 cm, untrimmed. Engraved headpieces, wide margins, some general darkening and light staining or foxing; dampstain affecting gutter of final two pamphlets, else good, sound copies.

A group of First Republic-era medical pamphlets published at the Faculté de médecine de Montpellier, under the direction of some of the era’s most famous vitalist physicians and chemists, i.e. Paul-Joseph Bartez and Henri Fouquet.

The final pamphlet, by Lion, is a rare thesis on sexual diseases caused by excessive or insufficient sexual activity. The epigraph by Voltaire sets the tone with the warning “L’abstinence ou l’excès ne fit jamais d’heureux.” [“Abstinence or excess never made anyone happy.”] Lion speculates on the effects of abstinence in the health of priests and nuns, at risk for “erotic deliriums,” visions, and hysteria. He discusses masturbation and admonishes against marriage between a young woman and an older man. Particularly interesting in the context of the French Revolutionary “reorganization” of the Church.

Only no. 4 is noted in OCLC, with one holding, in Wales. The rest, including Lion, are not recorded institutionally.

$500

1. Durand, Joanne-Antonio-Guillelmo. De atmosphaera quatenus physicum, chemicum et medicum spectat, selecta quaedam [...]. Monsepelii: J.G. Tournel, et primo Reipublicae [1792]. 51 pp.
2. Duhult, Francisco. Dissertatio anatomico-physiologica de systemate lymphatico seu absorbenti [...]. Monsepelii: J.G. Tournel, 1793. 41 pp.
3. Magistel, Gabriel. Collecta quaedam circa naturae morborum cognoscendae necessitatem [...]. Monsepelii: J.G. Tournel, 1793. 29 pp.; closed tear beginning at fore edge, p. 3.
4. Vidal, Joannes-Baptista. Quaedam circa naturae vires, et circa perturbationem virium vitalium [...]. Monsepelii: J.G. Tournel, 1793. 29 pp. Some footnotes in French. Partially a vitalist assessment of epilepsy, just over ten years after its first classification in French.
5. Lion, Laurentius-Basilius. Pensum academicum circa tum continentiae, tum lubricitatis morbos [...]. Monsepelii: Tournel Patris & Filli, 1792. 16 pp. Some footnotes in French.

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

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

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

Single North American holding in OCLC: UCSD.

$30

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

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

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

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

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

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

$150

30 Years of Amalgamated Cooperative Housing, 1927-1957

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

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

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

$150

Rosalba Carriera per l’inaugurazione delle sale degli autoritratti nella R. Galleria degli Uffizi

Malamani, Vittorio. Rosalba Carriera per l’inaugurazione delle sale degli autoritratti nella R. Galleria degli Uffizi. Rome: Ministero dell’Istruzione Pubblica, 1899. First separate edition. Large 4to, 125 pp.; with illus. facsimile reproductions of Carriera’s letters and 9 plates, most reproducing engravings made after her paintings and pastels, some in color, bound together at rear, contents very good with occasional small marks, pages untrimmed; orig. paper wrpprs. present but separated with significant chipping at edges of both covers, spine lacking. Manuscript presentation inscription on half-title from the author to Riccardo Artoni(?). Together with 3 b/w prints of Carriera’s L’Innocenza (1705; a.k.a. La Giovinetta della Colomba) by Ed. Alinari. Carriera submitted L’Innocenza to the Accademia di San Luca and on the basis of its quality was the first woman admitted to Rome’s all-male academy.

This extract is seemingly the first major monographic work devoted to Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757), and the missing “first edition” to Vittorio Malamani’s later Carriera catalogue (Bergamo: Istituto Italiano d’Arti Grafiche Editore, 1910). Originally published in Le Gallerie nazionali italiane: notizie e documenti 4 (1896-1897), pp. 27-149, it is the first application of modern art historical methods to Carriera’s artwork and career.

On the occasion of the opening of the Uffizi’s new self-portrait gallery, Malamani set out to correct a problem that Carriera’s biographers still encounter: little is known of her early training and her established biography is dependent on both short sentimental elegies published decades after her death and transcriptions of her journals and letters heavily edited by friends, family, and prejudiced translators.

Rare. The 1899 first edition listed by OCLC at only two European institutions, all other holdings are the second edition.

$550

La prostitution [...] et ses multiples aspects

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

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

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

$150

Le Véritable Guide des Jeunes Amoureux: Nouveaux Recueil des Lettres

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

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

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

$95

Sous la jupe: illustré

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

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

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

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

$450

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

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

Early issues of the classic revolutionary film journal.

$75

Cuauhtemoc

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

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

OCLC identifies only two copies in US libraries.

$150

¡Vean estos films!

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

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

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

$125

Mexico

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

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

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

Example 440 of 3000.

$450

A ruptura da fotografia nos anos 50

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

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

$150

Crónicas, documentos, y otros papeles.

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

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

Unrecorded in OCLC.

$175

Sol Lewitt

LeWitt, Sol. Sol Lewitt. Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Haags Gemeentemuseum 25 July – 30 August, 1970. The Hague: Haags Gemeentemuseum, 1970. Oblong 4to, 64 pp.; b/w illus. throughout; in orig. wraps, rubbed and worn at extremities, bumped corners sl. affecting interior leaves; ex-library with ownership sticker on front cover.

$50

Rauschenberg: Selections

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

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

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

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

$750

¿Qué es la CNT? : La emancipación de los trabajadores será obra de ellos mismos o no será

Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, Federación Local de Malaga. ¿Qué es la CNT? : La emancipación de los trabajadores será obra de ellos mismos o no será. Malaga: Libreria Interna Confederal, Federación Local de Malaga, 1978. Oblong 8vo, 26 pp.; stapled pictorial wraps, sl. soiled and creased, ex-library with withdrawn stamp p. 5 not affecting text.

$25

Pedrito Contreras y Juan del Campo

Segui, Pedro. Illustrator. Pedrito Contreras y Juan del Campo. [Argentina]: N.p., [1950]. Oblong 8vo, [16] pp.; color illus. propaganda narrative with one page marked with English; stapled illus. wrapper, colors bright, lightly worn, very good.

Unusual Peronist propaganda illustrated by humorist Pedro Segui. Text defends Peronist nationalization policies from criticisms following rapid inflation and economic isolation.

OCLC lists two holdings: Brown and UMass-Amherst.

$60

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

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

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

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

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

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

$2500

Nosotros: [Revista Mensual Anarquista]

(Giménez Igualda, Miguel). Nosotros: [Revista Mensual Anarquista]. Nos. 1 [Oct. 1937] and 5 (Feb. 1938). Valencia: Editorial Guerri, 1937-38. Two issues, 4to, each 48 pp.; paper wrappers toned with spotting, no. 5 corner bent, affecting a few subsequent pages, minor interior foxing.

Two of five issues of the short-lived serial published by anarchist Miguel Giménez Igualda during a critical period in the Spanish Civil War. Most of its articles are attributed to one of Giménez’s pseudonyms or to French anarchists including Han Ryner; Giménez was also associated with the international Teatro del Pueblo movement (no. 1 reprints materials related to Isaac Steinberg, [Rodolfo González] Pacheco, and the Teatro del Pueblo in Barcelona). Other content focuses on anarchist philosophy; arts; and antifascism.

OCLC finds no physical holdings in North America.

$250

Sun Annual

(Nudism) Sun Annual. Nos. 1-3 (all published?). [Mays Landing, NJ]: Sunshine Publishing, [1959-1961]. Square 8vo, each 96 pp.; profusely illus. with b/w reproductions of nudist photography and a few color spreads, in stapled color pictorial wraps, covers lightly worn, else very good.

An annual roundup of international “social nudism” by the publishers of Sun Magazine. Photo essays and texts explore nudist vacations in the US and Europe, with topics relevant to foreign customs and campgrounds. A number of essays are of special interest: including the value of the Polaroid to the nudist community, a lengthy review of the “first” nudist movie, “Nature’s Paradise” (1959), and sociological commentary about the evolving nudist movements in Britain, Denmark, and France: “The Silent Revolution.”

OCLC locates two holdings, at least one complete: Indiana (Kinsey) and Rutgers.

$350

Instruction chrétienne pour l’éducation des filles

​(Maintenon, Francoise d’Aubigné, Marquise de.) D. R., Abbé. Instruction chrétienne pour l’éducation des filles, tirée des maximes de l’Evangile, des SS. Pères et des conciles. Dédié à Madame de Maintenon. Paris: Urbain Coustelier, 1687.

12mo, [26], 429, [6] pp.; engraved frontispiece, with engraved vignette and numerous head- and tail-pieces and initials; in contemporary calf, spine with raised bands, gilt stamped panels, worn and chipped at ends, corners, and front hinge, joints weakened but holding, interior good with scattered darkening, one brief, marginal worm hole, small repair to frontispiece. Contemporary ownership inscriptions(?) on front pastedown and ff, possibly 17th- or 18th-century; child-like ink lettering of Madame de Maintenon’s name, also possibly 17th- or 18th-cent, beneath frontispiece portrait.

Françoise d’Aubigné (1635-1719), Marquise de Maintenon, has been an object of popular fascination for three centuries. She was Louis XIV’s second wife and governess to his illegitimate children (later legitimized). The couple married secretly in late 1683 or early 1684, following the death of Queen Marie-Thérèse. Maintenon moved into the royal apartments at Versailles and lived there until Louis XIV’s death. Although her legacy is controversial, the Marquise was a skilled educator and used her position to found the first royal school for girls at Saint-Cyr. It opened in the newly built Maison Royal de Saint-Louis in 1686.

This treatise was dedicated to her just months later; a significant moment since it closely coincided with Louis XIV’s Edict of Fontainbleau, rescinding religious freedoms for the Protestant Huguenots, and for which the Marquise was publicly blamed (and mocked across Northern Europe). Her religious beliefs were a topic of scandalous speculation, since her father had been persecuted for Protestant heresies, but this book and her work at Saint-Cyr are evidence for her pragmatism. Her connection of the Christian education of girls to the king’s anti-Protestant campaign ensured the success of the school for a generation. The author’s arguments also reflect a shift in France away from secular girls schools toward religious education.

The frontispiece portrait of Maintenon presents another mystery, since there are no verified images of the Marquise as a young woman. It is likely that this is one of the earliest copies of a fictive engraving published by Pierre Giffart near the time of her marriage to the king. (See Henri Gelin, “Etude Iconographique of Madame Maintenon,” in Mémoires: Notes et Documents (Société historique et scientifique des Deux –Sèvres, 1907: 115-240.)

Institutionally scarce, OCLC locates two copies in North America: Northwestern and Toronto.

$950

Study for a bas-relief sculpture for Las Cristalerías Rigolleau

Soler y Manonelles, Urbici. Sketch for “La Llama,” unrealized(?) bas-relief sculpture for Las Cristalerías Rigolleau, Buenos Aires, 1928. 7-7/8 x 9-1/16 in., pencil and white gouache on paper, very good, small closed tear to right edge. Signed lower right. With typed, detached caption identifying artist, date, and project, in Spanish.

Soler (1890-1953) was a classically trained Catalan sculptor involved in the Noucentisme movement. In 1925, influential Argentinian architect and urban planner Jorge Bunge invited him to Buenos Aires to collaborate on the ornamentation of a number of public buildings.This sketch may have been part of a proposed series of overdoor bas-relief panels for the headquarters of the glassmaker Cristalerías Rigolleau, a building designed by Bunge. The actual, finished panels represent various stages of traditional glassmaking in a style that differs greatly from this allegorical sketch.

Soler remained in Argentina until 1930, after which he traveled throughout the Americas, completing important important commissions in Peru, Mexico, and the US. Prevented from returning home by the Spanish Civil War, he lived a peripatetic life until eventually settling in El Paso, Texas, where he continued to work and teach until his death. El Paso is also the site of his most famous sculpture, Cristo Rey, commissioned as an anticommunist monument by a Catalan priest who led a congregation in Smeltertown.

$125

Art: The Independent Review. No. 1 (Dec. 1987) and No. 2 (Mar. 1988)

[Art] [South Africa] Hitge, Margaret, Ed. Art: The Independent Review. No. 1 (Dec. 1987) and No. 2 (Mar. 1988). Broederstroom, South Africa: Bruce Attwood, 1987-1988.

Two issues, 8vo, 96 pp. and 92 pp.; profusely illus. with b/w and color reproductions; color illus. wrappers, No. 1 shaken, front wrapper rubbed, with creases and closed tears.

Nearly complete run (lacking final issue) of scarce arts serial by artists; straight talk with relatively informal reviews and discussion of political and artistic realities of South African art world in the late 1980s. Essays and advertisements express deep anti-apartheid views, but also reflect positions of privilege. Notable articles include “Across the Color Line,” by David Koloane and “Women Artists Need Wives,” by Judith Mason.

OCLC finds only 2 incomplete holdings in North America, one complete run in the world.

$150

Willem Sandberg. Three Stedelijk Museum Exhibition Catalogues, 1935-1941.

[Willem Sandberg]. Three Stedelijk Museum Exhibition Catalogues, 1935-1941.

Three catalogues designed by the celebrated graphic designer, curator, director of the Stedelijk, and member of the Dutch Resistance, Willem Sandberg.

1. Stedelijk Museum. Bouwkunst en verwante kunsten: tentoonstelling, georganiseerd door de Tentoonstellingsraad voor bouwkunst en verwante kunsten, ter gelegenheid van het 80-jarig jubileum van het genootschap Architectura et Amicitia, van 23 Nov. t/m. 15 Dec. 1935, in het Stedelijk Museum te Amsterdam. Amsterdam: Architectura et Amicitia, [1935]. 8vo, 63, [5] pp.; exhibition catalog of Dutch architecture and applied arts with graphics and typography by Willem Sandberg, illustrated throughout, with orig. illus. color wrpps., a bit rubbed with small closed split at front hinge, unobtrusive contemporary stamp on front cover, “Kunst ...”

Includes an introduction by architect M.J. Granpré Molière and checklist of the exhibition. A very rare catalogue with an exemplary abstract cover design by Sandberg. OCLC locates only 1 US holding: Columbia Univ.

2. Stedelijk Museum and C.W.H. Baard. 40 jaar Stedelijk Museum te Amsterdam: Tentoonstelling van Hedendaagsche, Monumentale Kunst, 14 September – 13 October 1935. [Amsterdam]: [Stedelijk Museum], [1935]. 8vo, 51 pp.; exhibition catalogue with forward by Stedelijk director C.W.H. Baard and 24 b/w pls. reproducing works from the checklist, color wrpps. designed by Willem Sandberg, sl. darkened, small numbered tag on spine.

“Ontwerp Sandberg” printed in lowercase on rear wrapper. OCLC finds 7 copies in North America, only 2 outside museum libraries (Harvard and Toronto).

3. Stedelijk Museum and J Q van Regteren Altena, et al. In Holland staat een huis: het interieur van 1800 tot heden : tentoonstelling in het Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Juli-October 1941. Amsterdam: Satdsdrukkerij, [1941]. Oblong 8vo, 64 pp.; WWII-era exhibition catalogue with impassioned introduction the history of Dutch interior design followed by room-by-room descriptions with photographic illus. (arranged chronologically by alphabet from 1800-1940), in color wrpps. with folding floor-plan of exhibition in rear wrapper, typography and design by Willem Sandberg, some edge-wear. OCLC records 8 North American institutional holdings.

$175

Çayir Yapraklari (Leaves of Grass)

​Whitman, Walt. Trans. Suat Tașer. Çayir Yapraklari [Leaves of Grass]. Ankara: Buket Basimevi, 1961. Oblong 12mo unfolds to 6 x 23 cm; 19 pp. excerpted translations from Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, incl. 5 pp. intro. (in translation) by prominent American editor and socialist Max Eastman; color illus. wrpps. toned with two small stains (one from staple) on front wrap. Signed and inscribed by Taser, an important poet and political activist, on the first leaf.

Scarce, OCLC finds only 3 copies in North America.

$325

Sala Permanente de Artes Plásticas de Cuba

Habana: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, n.d. (ca. 1955). 4to, 16 pp.; chiefly illustrations, with text describing the national collection of modern Cuban art and its installation in the brand new Palace of Fine Arts, designed by architect Alfonso Rodríguez Pichardo in color illus. wrpps., fair: rubbed with creases and warping, some small losses and a damp-stain affecting several pages (but not the images). Includes list of painters, sculptors, and printmakers whose work was publicly exhibited in this first iteration of the museum.

Very scarce celebration of Cuban modern art museum. OCLC locates 3 copies in North America.

$325