Portrait of Nan Goldin by David Armstrong, included as loose print in his copy of Die Andere Seite; see item 2 below.

55th California International Antiquarian Book Fair
Booth 411
February 10–12, 2023
VIP Preview: Friday, February 10, 3–8pm

Pasadena Convention Center
300 East Green Street, Pasadena, CA 91101
 

Visit Harper's Books at the 55th California International Antiquarian Book Fair at the Pasadena Convention Center in sunny Southern California, February 10–12, 2023.

Click here for tickets. For a select number of complimentary VIP tickets, contact us.

Highlights from Booth 411

1. Jack Black

You Can't Win (First Edition)

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926. First Edition. Octavo. Autobiography from adventurer Jack Black detailing his experiences in the hobo underworld, freight-hopping around the still-Wild West of the U.S. and Canada. He tells of becoming a thief, burglar, and member of the yegg subculture, as his narrative explores themes of crime, vice, addiction, penology, and human folly from various standpoints; from observer to supplier, victim to perpetrator. William S. Burroughs cited You Can't Win as an extremely influential book in his life, with Black's mark quite clear in Junkie. Red cloth boards with bright gilt lettering to front panel and spine. Ownership inscription to front endpaper, with minor spotting to margins of pp. 305-11, else a near fine copy. With a pleasing, unsophisticated copy of the scarce jacket; chip to tail of spine, with closed tears to upper section. Housed in custom case with chemise, with gilt lettering to leather spine compartments box. An exceptional survival.

$9500.00

2. Nan Goldin [and David Armstrong]

Die Andere Seite: 1972-1992 (Association copy, with photograph)

Zurich: Der Alltag / Parkett, 1992. First Edition. Quarto. Association copy, dated in the year of publication and SIGNED by Goldin, with heartfelt inscription to fellow Boston School photographer David Armstrong ("my right hand..."). Accompanied by b&w photographic portrait of Goldin by Armstrong (9 x 6 in.); the same image reproduced as the book's frontispiece. Additionally SIGNED with presentation inscription to Armstrong by Rene Ricard, beneath his contribution to the book; an epigraph poem. A remarkable presentation copy inscribed by Goldin and Ricard to David Armstrong, one of the four figures to whom the book is dedicated (along with David Wojnarowicz, Kenny Angelico, and Alf Bold). This German edition being published the year prior to Scalo's English edition (The Other Side). A fine association copy in near fine jacket.

$1500.00

3. Keith Haring

New Music Distribution Service, 1986

New York: Jazz Composer's Orchestra Association, Inc., 1986. First Edition. Quarto. Catalogue from artist-run New Music Distribution Service, with vibrant wrappers illustrated by Keith Haring. Contents: 92 pages, with forward from music critic Gregory Tate. Minor creasing to illustrated wrappers, with a handful of manuscript notes to contents; else near fine.

$450.00

4. Lewis Hine

Men at Work: Photographic Studies of Modern Men and Machines 

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1932. First Edition. Small quarto. Hine's iconic images of the construction of the Empire State Building are the highlights of this book, which was originally intended as an industrial primer for children. While Hine rarely strayed from documenting social injustice, the modernist aesthetic employed in Men at Work is a fitting corollary to the real star of this book: the American skyscraper. (Open Book, 108-109). Small blemish to front panel of green cloth boards, with minor rubbing to ends, else a near fine copy. With a remarkably sharp copy of the iconic jacket, with light rubbing and wear to corners, else near fine.

$8500.00

5. Lorine Niedecker

New Goose (Association copy)

Prairie City, Illinois: The Press of James A. Decker, 1946. First Edition. Duodecimo. First book of poetry from Niedecker, which grew out of her work for the WPA Federal Writers' Project. This copy INSCRIBED by Niedecker to Edwin Honig in 1950; the two poets having worked together in the Madison chapter of the Writers' Project. Near fine, in tan cloth boards with gilt lettering, preserved in near fine jacket, with minor edge-wear. Housed in custom clamshell case, with leather lettering piece to spine. A remarkable association copy of a scarce work in beautiful condition. Rare.

$18,500.00

6. Richard Prince

Pamphlet (Signed with ephemera)

Villeurbanne, France: Le Nouveau Musée, 1983. First Edition. Quarto. The trade edition of Richard Prince's first important illustrated catalogue, incorporating some of his landmark early rephotographs, published on the occasion of his first solo museum exhibition. Limited to 1000 copies. This copy SIGNED by Prince to title page, along with humorous inscription. Some scuffing to stapled wrappers, else near fine. Accompanied by loose invitation to the exhibition at Le Nouveau Musée in Villeurbanne (Jan. 21 through Mar. 7), printed to glossy A4 sheet, also SIGNED by Prince, featuring b&w reproduction of one of his untitled works from 1971. Invitation sheet with horizontal crease from folding, now preserved flat.

$3000.00

7. (Skateboarding) / J. Grant Brittain, Larry Balma, Neil Blender (editors)

Trans-World Skateboarding (First four issues)

Cardiff, CA: The United Skate Front, 1983. First Edition. Quarto. The first four issues of the important skateboarding magazine that revolutionized the industry in the early '80s and helped to transform skateboarding from a fringe underground phenomenon into a staple of popular culture. Accompanied by printed statement from founder Larry Balma (circa 1985), describing the early history of the magazine; featuring blind-stamp of California Surf Museum to lower corner. Each of the issues near fine in illustrated wrappers.

$500.00

8. Susan Sontag and Howard Hodgkin

The Way We Live Now

London: Karsten Schubert, 1991. Deluxe Edition. Quarto. Copy number 103 of 200 (from total edition of 243). A lovingly-produced work, SIGNED by both Sontag and Hodgkin to colophon. Sontag's short story addressing the AIDS crisis in New York—first published in The New Yorker in 1986—is here accompanied by 6 striking colored aquatints from British artist Howard Hodgkin, with added tempera; four are double-paged, the other two folding. The jacket hand-painted after Hodgkin design. This copy fine, with original tissues protecting jacket; accompanied by original cardboard box with printed label to front panel hand-numbered as 103 of 200. Uncommon; with only 9 OCLC records located in the United States.

$3500.00 

9. Ettore Sottsass, Barbara Radice, Allen Ginsberg (editors)

Pianeta fresco (Numbers 1 and 2-3)

Milano: Edizioni East 128, 1967-1968. First Edition. Quarto. Two volumes (all published); including the scarce first number (one of only 275 copies printed). Edited by Ettore Sottsass and Fernanda Pivano, with Allen Ginsberg recruited as "Direttore Irresponsabile." While influenced by the psychedelic aesthetics of countercultural magazines such as Oz and the San Francisco Oracle, the artist magazine Pianeta Fresco was designed as a "technology for deconditioning," amidst an increasingly authoritarian and technocratic society. "This means the magazine is interested in research and experimentation into the psychic and spiritual structures of an individual, research into new chemical products which might affect or speed up perception, research aimed at rediscovering the original reality and purposes of spoken, written, and visual language" (Pivano in Maffei/Tonini, p.99). Across two volumes, contributors—of both text and image—included: Archizoom, William S. Burroughs, Jan Dibbets, Mircea Eliade, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Allan Kaprow, Timothy Leary, Jonas Mekas, Fernanda Pivano, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Ettore Sottsass (as photographer), Gary Snyder, Tommaso Trini, and Alan Watts; with Archizoom's contribution to the first volume comprising 7 pages of experimental gazebos. Contents: first number with self-wrappers plus 58 leaves, for [120] pages; second number with wrappers plus 82 leaves (i.e. 164 pp.). Minor stains to front cover of the latter, with short-tear to top of first leaf. Number 1 preserved in remarkable condition; fine. The set housed in custom cloth slipcase, with acetate window to front panel exposing the turquoise and purple cover variant.

$8500.00

10. Hannah Wilke

Hannah Wilke: A Retrospective (Signed copy)

Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989. First Edition. Oblong quarto. With half-title page SIGNED by Wilke and dated in the year of publication, accompanied by one of her vulva doodles. A striking monograph published on the occasion of a retrospective held at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, curated by Thomas Kochheiser. Contents: 176 pages; thoroughly-illustrated in both b&w and color. With essay from art historian Joanna Frueh, and an impressive selection of texts from Wilke's own works. A near fine copy in panoramically-illustrated jacket with minor rubbing and faint impression to front panel, also near fine.

$1200.00

11. Martin Wong

Footprints, Poems and Leaves

San Francisco: Self-Published, [1968]. First Edition. Octavo. Martin Wong's self-published first book, featuring reproductions of early, almost psychedelic drawings, and handwritten poetry in his own dynamic pen-and-ink calligraphy. Issued with loose lithographic print on 8.5 x 11 paper, folded in thirds, with a poem on each side and a drawing of a leaf. Self-published when Wong was just 22. Rare. OCLC locates 4 copies. A sharp, clean copy; fine.

$3500.00

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