Rare & Beautiful

Rare & Beautiful: Design Book Finds

Highlights from our Online Book Fair rare and out of print book dealers: Carnegie Hill Books, F.A. Bernett, Modernism 101, and Optos Books

By Stephanie Salomon November 25, 2014

New design books are on our mind this time of year, but rare and out of print works on architecture, photography, and graphic and interior design are proof positive that “They don’t make them like that anymore,” as Modernism 101’s Randall Ross points out.

To uncover some finds, we asked four vintage book dealers—F. A. Bernett, Carnegie Hill Books, Modernism 101, and Optos Books—featured on the Designers & Books Online Book Fair, for a few highlights of their out of print gems in all price ranges. (All books are available for purchase as of November 25, 2014, and to celebrate the winter holidays Optos Books is offering 15% off on all Online Book Fair titles and Modernism 101 is offering 10% off through December 31)

 

Interior spread from Abeceda, designed by Czech typographer Karel Teige, 1926. Courtesy of Optos Books. To see all the double-page spreads from this book, vitist the Victoria & Albert Museum’s page Abecda. In addition see the video “Recreation of April 14,1926 performance of Abeceda by Osvobozené divadlo (Liberated Theater),“ an astonishingly accurate recreation of the original dance performance by Milĉa Mayerová that accompanied Nezval's poetry. It was carefully crafted under the auspices of the The Wolfsonian–FIU for its exhibition "Dreams and Disillusions: Karel Teige and the Czech Avant-Garde (2000–2001)."

The 1926 alphabet book Abeceda is “a favorite of mine because it embraces several of the avant-garde disciplines into one visionary document,” says Optos Books proprietor Polly Dufresne.

Dufresne describes the book as a “landmark achievement in European modernism. She quotes from the article “Staging Language: Milĉa Mayerová and the Czech book Alphabet” by Matthew S. Witkovsky (The Art Bulletin, March 2004): “Its frequent reproduction in exhibition catalogues and scholarly articles has made it a key symbol of Devetsil (1920–c. 1931), the Czech artists’ collective within whose ranks the book was conceived. The book consists of a series of rhymed quatrains by Devetsil poet Vitezslav Nezval, titled and ordered according to the letters of the Latin alphabet. Facing each set of verses is a Constructivist photomontage layout by Karel Teige, a painter turned typographer who was also Devetsil’s spokesperson and leading theorist. Teige developed his graphic design around photographs of dancer and choreographer Milada (Milca) Mayerova, a recent affiliate of the group, who had performed a stage version of ‘Alphabet’ to accompany a recitation of the poem at a theatrical evening in Nezval’s honor in April 1926.”

Composite showing cover (upper left) and interior lithographed posters from Les Affiches Originales des Maitres de l’Ecole de Paris, by Parisian printer Fernand Mourlot 1959, Courtesy of Optos Books

Les Affiches Originales des Maitres de l’Ecole de Paris, from 1959, is notable for, among many reasons, “its exuberant cover design, done specially for the publication by Matisse (to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Paris printer Fernand Mourlot’s renowned studio) and the 102 lithographed posters inside, which represent some of the finest examples of early to mid-20th-century French poster designs (including Matisse’s “Jazz,” but also many lesser-known posters produced purely as advertising) by seven of the foremost modern French artists, painstakingly reproduced by yet again another master—Fernand Mourlot.”

According to AtelierVault, Mourlot associated in art history with the resurgence of the lithograph, printed work by Picasso, Léger, Matisse, Marino Marini, André Derain, and Miró, among others. “The results of his collaboration with these artists were so successful that more and more galleries chose Mourlot to print posters for their exhibits, known as Affiches de Peintres Lithographiées. By the mid-twentieth century, the reputation of Mourlot Frères was so respected that the words “Imprimée par Mourlot” were enough to guarantee the finest-quality lithographs and demand a premium collector or auction value, worldwide.”

Cover of Buntpapier by Albert Haemmerle, 1961. Courtesy of Carnegie Hill Books

Carnegie Hill Books, operated by Ann Brockschmidt, offers the remarkable Buntpapier by Albert Haemmerle, published in 1961 in Munich, Germany. Brockschmidt writes that the book, “a history of decorated and marbled paper with 155 illustrations and 18 actual paper specimens tipped-in, includes descriptions of 664 examples of decorated paper. It was issued on the 150th anniversary of the founding of Buntpapierfabrik AG Aschaffenburg.”

Brockschmidt also offers a work in a series showcasing interior design, Intérieurs II, by Léon Moussinac, which features interiors by seven French art deco designers/firms, including Dominique, Maurice Dufrene, Rene Gabriel, Andre Groult, Jobert et Petit (DIM), R. Mallet-Stevens, and Fernard Nathan. The book was published in Paris in 1924 by Albert Lévy.

Interior spread from Intérieurs II, by Léon Moussinac, 1924. Courtesy of Carnegie Hill Books

F.A. Bernett via Erika Hapke chose to highlight a book of rare urban architectural photographs and a vintage fashion design magazine collection. The four-volume Journal des Dames et des Modes comprises “comprising a complete run of the elegant Parisian fashion journal [published 1912–14] documenting the mode of dress, literary and artistic trends, and lifestyle of high-society at the end of the belle époque, with texts and illustrations by highly regarded designers, illustrators and authors, including Georges Barbier, Jean Cocteau, Paul Reboux, Henri Duvernois, Marcel Boulanger, Charles Martin, Paul Iribe, Fernand Siméon, Bernard Boutet de Monvel, H. Robert Dammy, et. al., accompanied by 1–5 hand-colored pochoir plates per issue [186 total]. This luxury magazine appeared three times a month during the final years of the pre-war golden era and provides a remarkable visual account of the fashion and leisure activities of upper-class women, men and children.”

Two interior plates from Journal des Dames et des Modes, 1912–14. Courtesy of F. A. Bernett

A Remarkable Collection of 92 Oversize Original Photographic Prints of Venice, also from F.A. Bernett, and published between 1870 and 1880, is “a spectacular compendium of early, large and gorgeously printed images showing iconic buildings, street views, details, sculptures and paintings in Venice as they existed ca. 1870–1880. Carlo Naya (1816–1882) was a successful photographer based in Venice and is well known as one of the leading early figures in the photographic documentation of European cities. The photographs offered here—heavily weighted towards architectural views—are for the most part beautifully composed and notably well-preserved, with deeply saturated darks and expansive lights. A remarkable collection, featuring not only beautiful individual prints but an amazing depth of imagery, essential for an art-historical study of Venice.”

Photographic print from From A Remarkable Collection of 92 Oversize Original Photographic Prints of Venice, by Carlo Naya, published c. 1870–80. Courtesy of F. A. Bernett 
Cover and glassine wrapper of Learning from Las Vegas, first edition, by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour; designed by Muriel Cooper, 1972. Courtesy of Modernism 101

Modernism 101, which specializes in modern architects, typographers, photographers, and industrial designers “from Aalto to Zwart. . . in all their published glory,” selected typography legend Herbert Bayer’s 1953 World Geographic Atlas and the controversial (see “Still Learning from Denise Scott Brown”) 1972 first edition of architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour’s Learning from Las Vegas. Randall Ross writes: “Bayer and his design team spent five years circling the globe researching and assembling the World Geographic Atlas, as a 25th-anniversary promotional keepsake for the Container Corporation of America. The gilt-stamped monkscloth exterior and the elaborate ten-color printing transcend the stated pedagogical intentions to perfectly represent America’s postwar dominance.

Twenty years later, Learning from Las Vegas emerged from the creative tug-of-war between authors Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour and MIT Press Design Director Muriel Cooper. The resultant edition was the seldom-seen masterpiece of form and content that Ellen Lupton has called “‘the New Testament of design theory.’”

Interior spread (above) featuring Texas and cover (below) from World Geographic Atlas by Herbert Bayer, 1953. Courtesy of Modernism 101

 

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