Rare double-sided invitation-poster from the first solo exhibition of Jannis Kounellis at Galleria La Tartaruga in Rome (June 1960). See item 13 below.

New Arrivals

Below, our monthly selection of 22 new arrivals at Harper's Books. For additional images and purchasing options, follow the links. For more titles, visit our Chelsea bookshop at 504 West 22nd Street and our East Hampton location at 87 Newtown Lane.

1. Manuel Álvarez Bravo and Diego Rivera

Fotografias: Tercera Exposición de la Sociedad de Arte Moderno, Mexico

Mexico City: Sociedad de Arte Moderno, 1945. First Edition. Quarto. Published on the occasion of Álvarez Bravo's influential 1945 exhibition, which explored the quality of "Mexicanidad" and helped set the agenda for a generation of Latin American photography. (Parr / Badger, v2). Contents: 93, [3] pages, featuring 30 black-and-white plates captioned to opposing pages. Includes a series of critical texts on the esteemed photographer, from the likes of Diego Rivera and Gabriel Figueroa, along with an artist statement, biographical text, a portrait of Álvarez Bravo by his wife Doris Heyden, a timeline of the history of photography, and a descriptive catalogue of the 109 photographs on display in the exhibition. Text in Spanish. Printed wrappers with light wear along edges and lightly age-toned, with slight bump to top of text-block; thus close to near fine. Housed in black cloth clamshell case with lettering piece to spine.

$6000.00

2. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, and Keith Haring (introduction)

Collaborations: Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat. 21 November 1988 – 21 January 1989

London: Mayor Rowan Gallery, 1988. First Edition. Oblong quarto. Published on the occasion of a multi-gallery London exhibition mounted just a few months after Basquiat's death. Contents: 22 leaves, mostly color plates, reproducing 17 of the more than 150 collaborative paintings executed by Basquiat and Warhol between 1983 and 1985. This catalogue further notable for an insightful text from Keith Haring, who describes the conversational nature of the duo's collaborations, and the manner in which they produced "a third distinctive and unique mind." Very minor rubbing to illustrated wrappers; near fine. Uncommon.

$1200.00

3. Peter Beard

The End of the Game (Special Edition, with Inscribed Print) 

New York: International Center of Photography, 1977. First Edition. Quarto. Revised issue of Beard's classic, published to commemorate his support for a 1977 benefit auction for the International Center of Photography. SIGNED by Beard, as issued, in red crayon to front endpaper. Accompanied by programme for the benefit auction; loose. This copy further accompanied by two silver gelatin prints of Beard's iconic image of a rhinoceros with its front leg noosed (9 x 10.75 in.); one of these photographs inscribed by Beard in year of publication to photographer Jill Krementz: "Dear Jill... despite all the drawbacks, many thanks for coming." Spine faded, with small blemish to rear panel; a very good copy in gray boards, without jacket as issued.

$4500.00

4. Stefania Bril

Entre

[Sao Paolo]: Self-published, 1974. First Edition. Quarto. A poetic interpretation of Sao Paolo—its streets, characters, and texts—from the Polish born chemist-turned-photographer Stefania Bril. This copy numbered as 452 of 900 (there were an additional 100 hors commerce copies); inscribed to the gallerist Agathe Gaillard to front endpaper. Contents: [152] pages, illustrated after 63 black-and-white photographs (captioned in index at rear); accompanied by texts from Olney Krüse. (The Latin American Photobook, pp. 98-99). Bumping to corners of laminated boards with some toning to page edges; nonetheless, a better than very good copy of an uncommon work, with only 8 OCLC records located in North America.

$3000.00

5. Willem de Kooning, Kenneth Koch, and Thomas B. Hess

Drawings (Signed Deluxe Edition)

Lausanne: Editions des Massons Lausanne, 1972. Deluxe Edition. SIGNED and numbered by de Kooning to colophon. A beautiful catalogue raisonné of de Kooning's drawings, printed on BFK Rives paper, with 128 black and white and color plates; the latter tipped in. From the edition of 150 copies, comprised of 100 copies in Arabic numerals and 50 copies in Roman numerals set aside for the author, artist, and contributors; this is copy II of  L. Introductory statement by Kenneth Koch, followed by an essay by Thomas B. Hess. Paul Bianchini published a simultaneous edition with the New York Graphic Society. Contents clean and bright. White wrappers with printed mustard jacket; small tear to the bottom left of jacket with minor dampstain to top corner of spine, thus close to near fine. Includes the original slipcase, with a split along the top edge.

$2000.00

6. Robert Frank

The Lines of My Hand

Tokyo: Yugensha, 1972. First Edition. Folio. From a total edition of 1000 copies; this copy with the "New York City, 1948" slipcase variant. With [32] pp. booklet in Japanese laid in. The first of four books designed by Kohei Sugiura and published by Kazuhiko Motomura under the Yugensha imprint. Frank's only retrospective, beautifully printed; issued here in Japan soon-before the Lustrum Press edition. Like all of Motomura's publications, a triumph of book making. (Parr / Badger, v1). Slight scuff to top corner of white-stamped black cloth boards, else fine. Housed in publisher's black slipcase with matching spine lettering and a reproduction of "New York City, 1948" photo mounted to upper panel.

$3000.00

7. General Idea, Kathy Acker, Les Levine, and Various Others

File: New York City Edition. Volume 3, No. 2, Spring 1976

Toronto: Art Official Inc., 1975. First Edition. Slim quarto. The delightfully gossipy New York City issue of General Idea's FILE Megazine—the "alternative to the Alternative Press"—which also featured contributions from Kathy Acker, Les Levine, and Jimmy DeSana. Rubbing to illustrated wrappers, featuring detail of black leather jacket with studded titles. Closed tear to margin of one leaf, else near fine, with typical toning to newsprint pages.

$200.00

8. Mark Gonzales 

Arkitip: Issue No. 0013

Hollywood: Arkitip, 2002. Limited Edition. Quarto. Copy 282 of 1000, hand-numbered to front cover in black marker. Features black-and-white reproductions of Mark Gonzales' drawings, photographs, and poems, with further contributions from the likes of Shepard Fairey, KAWS, and Space Invader. Includes sealed Mark Gonzales Mobile multiple. Fine in illustrated wrappers; all contents housed in the original plastic bag.

$650.00

9. Keith Haring (illustrator)

Not Guilty. Volume 1, Issue 1

Providence, RI: Safe Press / Lesbian Gay Student Alliance, 1988. First Edition. Slim quarto. With a glossy pink-triangle pin fastened to top corner of table of contents. Published by Brown University students who had been mobilized during the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, Not Guilty was an attempt to normalize support for gay and lesbian issues on campus, at a time when the Administration refused to add "sexual orientation" to their nondiscrimination statement. Featuring an original cover illustration from Keith Haring. Contents: 56 pages, illustrated throughout in black-and-white. Minor rust-offsetting from button and some scuffing to illustrated wrappers, else near fine. Only two OCLC records located (Brown and Minneapolis). Scarce.

$750.00

10. Ernest Hemingway 

The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1938. First Edition. Thick octavo. Famously-named after the Rebel phrase for those Fascist sympathizers who lay waiting within Madrid's walls, The Fifth Column was Hemingway's first and only completed play. Published here along with 49 of his short stories; four of them appearing for the first time, including The Snows of Kilimanjaro. This copy with illustrated bookplate of Harvard Professor of Sanskrit Daniel Henry Holmes Ingalls to front pastedown. Red cloth boards with gilt lettering to spine. Save for typical tanning to endpapers, and minor blemishes to boards, this copy near fine. In unclipped jacket, with minor edgewear and some creasing to top of spine; thus close to near fine. A sharp copy; uncommon thus. Housed in half-leather slipcase with pull-tab chemise.

$6500.00

11. Jenny Holzer

A Little Knowledge Can Go a Long Way / Your Oldest Fears Are the Worst Ones

New York: Self-published, 1978. First Edition. One of Jenny Holzer's first artist's books, featuring a selection of her Truisms arranged in alphabetical order—from "A little knowledge can go a long way" to "Your oldest fears are the worst ones." Contents: [6] pages, printed in red. Minor toning to side-stapled wrappers; near fine. 6 OCLC records located in America. Scarce

$3500.00

12. Jeff Koons

Versailles (Signed with Drawing)

Paris: Editions Xavier Barral, 2008. First Edition. Square quarto. SIGNED by Jeff Koons and dated 4/17/09 with a drawing of a flower in silver marker on the gold metallic endpapers. Published on the occasion of Koons' lavish installation at the Palace of Versailles. Features vibrant color images of the installed works with palace views, along with detailed descriptions. With several texts by curators, collectors, and an interview with Koons. Perhaps the most fitting and iconic installation of Koons' work to date. Fine in white boards. With small closed tear to illustrated jacket and scuff to upper corner of rear panel, thus close to near fine.

$1250.00

13. Jannis Kounellis

Kounellis: Galleria La Tartaruga, 4 giugno 1960 (Poster)

Rome: Galleria La Tartaruga, 1960. First Edition. Double-sided invitation-poster (13.25 x 12 inches). The only documentation issuing from Kounellis' first solo show at the pioneering La Tartaruga gallery in Rome, which was entitled L'alfabeto di Kounellis. While still a student, Kounellis developed this cycle of stencilled language paintings as a kind of "hermetic rhythmic writing in space." The 1959 work featured to the front of this poster—Untitled (7 x 33)—being held in MoMA's permanent collection; see our cover image above. Some minor toning to edges of print, with two small pinholes to top corners and minor hinge residue. Else near fine on thick stock. No OCLC records located; a crisp example of this rare piece of Kounellis ephemera.

$1750.00

14. Yayoi Kusama 

Galerie Ursula Lichter: Yayoi Kusama

Frankfurt: Galerie Ursula Lichter, 1968. First Edition. Octavo; bifolium. Published on the occasion of Kusama's 1968 solo exhibition at Galerie Usula Lichter; one of her first in Germany. With a charmed text from art critic Heiner Stachelhaus, who attempts to articulate Kusama's singular aesthetic following his meeting with the ambitious young artist; though having exhibited with the Zero Group, Pop artists, and the New Realists, she defied categorization, standing by the statement "Kusama ist Kusama." Includes a list of shows and a brief biography. Text in German. Fine. Only two OCLC records located, both in Germany. A scarce early example of Kusama exhibition ephemera.

$750.00

15. Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama

Tokyo: Sogetsu Art Museum / Committee of the Exhibition of Yayoi Kusama, 1992. First Edition. Quarto. Errata page laid in. Bound in bright green fuzzy felt; silver stamped titles to front and spine. In the publisher's acetate jacket. Catalogue to accompany an important retrospective, one of a number of exhibitions in the late 1980s and early 1990s— culminating with the Japanese Pavilion at the 1993 Venice Biennale—that brought Kusama back to the international attention that has only grown to this day. A beautiful production; copies were bound in a number of jewel-toned felts. Most likely produced in small numbers and not distributed internationally, the book is uncommon. A hint of wear along the bottom edges, else fine in an acetate jacket with a few tiny wrinkles. Beautiful copy.

$900.00

16. Yoko Ono and John Lennon

Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings (Signed)

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970. First American Edition. Duodecimo. This copy SIGNED by Ono to front endpaper. Originally published in Tokyo, Grapefruit was one of the defining artist's books of the 1960s, but only received wider recognition with this revised 1970 edition, following the breakup of the Beatles. John Lennon here supplying a new introduction. Near fine in a fine jacket with small ink stain to the bottom of the cloth boards.

$2500.00

17. Pablo Picasso and Roland Penrose

Desire Caught by the Tail. A Play in Six Acts by Pablo Picasso... (Programme with Press Clippings)

London: Thameside Production (The Watergate Theatre), 1950. First Edition. Quarto. Written feverishly across three days in occupied Paris, Picasso's first play received a rather honoured first reading at the house of Michel Leiris, where it was directed by Albert Camus, with a cast including Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Raymond Queneau. In October 1950, the British Surrealist Roland Penrose translated the play for a two-week run at London's Watergate Theatre. With this programme for the production, Penrose offered a 6 pp. introduction for the audience, addressing the inter-arts tradition in which Picasso was working, the history of the play's development and reception, and an an analysis of its potency. "Language has been forced into a state of instability and like a spring uncoils with violence, hitting out on all sides as it is released. What style could be more suitable to Picasso in expressing the rage, the anxiety, and the nostalgia of Paris occupied by the Nazis during the depths of the blackest winter of the war?" This copy accompanied by 11 contemporary newspaper clippings, in which the Watergate production was savagely reviewed by critics; one of these reviews capturing two photographs from a performance. Illustrated wrappers with short closed tear, else near fine. Press clippings with some annotations. Scarce; with only a single OCLC record located (British Library).

$950.00

18. Kenneth Price and Harvey Mudd

The Plain of Smokes: A Poem Cycle (Signed with 20 prints)

Santa Barbara: Arabesque Books, 1981. Limited Edition; number 77 of 150 copies, SIGNED to colophon by both artist and author. A poem cycle by Harvey Mudd brilliantly illustrated by Ken Price; a collaborative ode to Los Angeles. With 19 loose folio gatherings of text (76 pages), accompanied by 20 original serigraphs—nine in colors—designed by Price and printed by Gary Lichtenstein (15.5 x 12 inch sheets); each with respective blind-stamps of artist, publisher, and printer. Three of the prints signed and dated in pencil by Price; two of those also hand-numbered. Publisher's pamphlet also laid-in loose. Contents laid into a clamshell case fully-illustrated by Los Angeles map, housed within orange cloth slipcase with printed label to front panel. Very minor curling to sheet corners, else fine in a near fine slip case with minor edge-wear. An impressive production.

$10,000.00

19. Anne Sexton

Selected Poems (Inscribed with Original Poem)

London: Oxford University Press, 1964. First Edition. Octavo. A selection of poems from Sexton, from her first two collections; without American equivalent. This copy graciously INSCRIBED by Sexton to front endpaper, in the year of her Pulitzer Prize victory for Live or Die. Quite remarkably, Sexton has further inscribed a poetic addendum within the margins of the first page of The Double Image, a poem written to her four year old daughter Joyce, after whose birth Sexton's struggles with mental illness intensified. "A nervous breakdown—my own suicide—/ the loss of my daughter, Joy— / the portraits of my mother & myself— / the death of my mother, the return of Joy, / my daughter— / to carry in my heart." Near fine in black cloth boards, in near fine price-clipped jacket. A powerful, if anonymous, association copy, testifying to Sexton's most challenging themes.

$5000.00

20. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Player Piano (Advance Review Copy)

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952. First Edition. Octavo. An advance review copy, in wrappers, duplicating George W. Thompson's classic jacket design. With the text from the jacket flaps pasted as two panels to verso of front cover and front endpaper. One of an estimated 30 such copies (Klinkowitz AA1). A pleasing copy, with minor toning to wrappers, else near fine. Housed in quarter-leather slipcase, with pull-tab chemise.

$3500.00

21. Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol: Mostra dal 29 luglio al 12 settembre 1976 [i.e. Andy Warhol, 1974-1976]

Boissano, Italy: Centro Internazionale di Sperimentazioni Artistiche Marie-Louise Jeanneret, 1976. First Edition. Quarto. Exhibition catalogue comprised of an illustrated portfolio folder, a printed red title sheet featuring curatorial statement from Marcello Levi to verso, and 16 folio pages (unbound), reproducing 23 of Warhol's works in black-and-white, including a dozen works from his Ladies and Gentlemen series, being portraits of trans women and drag queens. Very light wear to the portfolio folder and title sheet, else fine. Scarce, with only 4 OCLC records located in North America.

$950.00

22. Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol's Exposures (Inscribed Association Copy)

New York: Andy Warhol Books / Grosset & Dunlap, 1979. First Edition. Quarto. Twice-SIGNED by Warhol, to jacket and half-title page. Along with a warm inscription to Vogue fashion editor and socialite Gloria Schiff (and her husband Frank), with an initialed drawing of a heart; Schiff is mentioned on pg. 63 in the chapter on Diana Vreeland, and thus appears in the social index printed to the rear endpaper. A documentation of Warhol's "social disease;" black-and-white party photographs, accompanied by gossipy texts from Warhol and Interview Editor Bob Colacello. Near fine in a near fine jacket. A pleasing association copy.

$2500.00

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