Black & white illus. throughout. Two large folded newsprint sheets (=8 pp.), loose as issued, mailed. New York: 1978.

The rarest Backworks catalogue, their third and hard to find in good condition. WorldCat locates no examples in North America. Backworks was a New York-based collaboration between Barbara Moore and Jon Hendricks, specializing in documents and artifacts of avant-garde and experimental art. Located at 488 Greenwich Street, the store was active into the early 80s. In 1981, Hendricks left the partnership to become curator of the Fluxus collection formed by Gilbert and Lila Silverman (now at the Museum of Modern Art... More

Woodcut Medici arms on title. 8 p.l., 68, [4] pp. Large 4to, cont. calf, arms in gilt of Nicolas Joseph Foucault on covers, spine gilt, contrasting morocco lettering piece on spine. Florence: Santi Franci, 1681.

First edition of Baldinucci’s biographical history of Italian art and architecture from 1260 to 1300. The author’s son, Francesco Saverio Baldinucci, edited the remaining five volumes published in the years 1686-1728 and covering the period 1300 to 1670. This is a very handsome copy from the library of Nicolas Joseph Foucault (1643-1721), statesman and archeologist, with his arms in gilt on the covers and his... More

Unpaginated. 8vo, pictorial wrappers, staple-bound. London: n.d.

A fascinating bookseller catalogue published by Andrew Sclanders. It lists 680 items, including materials related to MC5, concrete & visual poetry, Ed Sanders and the Fugs, Alfred Jarry, experimental music, and Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground. A fine copy. More

Single A4 sheet with brown paper seal for mailing, horizontal folds. Amsterdam: 1975.

A famous Beau Geste Press flyer repurposed as a mailed invitation for the group’s 1975 Other Books and So exhibition. Ulises Carrión forged a close relationship with Felipe Ehrenberg and Martha Hellion, co-founders of the Devon-based small artist-run press. In 1973, he published two artist’s books with Beau Geste Press: Arguments and Tras la Poesía. Carrión also learned first-hand about printing processes, in particular mimeography, which he employed frequently in later years. With the opening of Other Books and So in Amsterdam, Carrión soon became one of... More

Printed on recto only. Thick card. New York: Paula Cooper Gallery, 1987.

Card announcing Benglis’s 1987 exhibition with Paula Cooper Gallery. Fine.

❧ See Paula Cooper Gallery’s website for several installation photographs. More

Printed on recto, opening hours written on verso. Postcard, mailed. New York: Paula Cooper Gallery, 1980.

A rare mailed example of this postcard announcing Benglis’s 1980 presentation with Paula Cooper. Fine; mailed to Eve Sonneman.

❧ See Paula Cooper Gallery’s website for several installation photographs. More

Black & white photographic illus. on recto, details on verso. Photographic postcard, mailed. New York: Paula Cooper Gallery, [1970].

An extremely rare piece of art ephemera, the postcard invitation for Lynda Benglis’s first-ever solo gallery show, held at Paula Cooper where the artist was working part-time. One of Benglis’s sculptures is pictured on the recto. She had an earlier one-person show at the University of Rhode Island's Main Gallery in 1969, but this was her solo debut with an art dealer.

Benglis shared this amusing anecdote about the exhibition with Artforum in 2018: “One day in 1970, Clement Greenberg came... More

Illus. on recto. Single sheet, vertical & horizontal folds as issued. Amsterdam: 1978.

Rare flyer announcement for an exhibition by Italian artist and poet Mirella Bentivoglio (1922-2017) at Other Books and So. It depicts some examples of her “letraset metaphors,” “stamp-poems,” and “ideo-poems.”

In excellent condition.

❧ Catalogue 237: Ulises Carrión (2022), p. 181. More

Black & white illus. on recto, text on verso. Amsterdam: Seriaal, 1972.

Card sent out by Wies Smals’s Seriaal gallery announcing a newly produced Beuys multiple (edition of 12 signed & numbered copies). Near fine. More

Many color illus. 7 p.l., 45 pp. Large 4to, pictorial wrappers, perfect-bound. London: Open Editions, 1992.

Uncommon and nicely illustrated exhibition catalogue, with the essays printed in Finnish and English parallel text. This travelling exhibition of British artists’ books was held at the National Gallery of Iceland, the Tokyo Gas Shinjuku Showroom, the Malmo Konstal, the National Museum of Contemporary Art (Norway), and the Vantaan Kaupunki. Work by Blamey, Büchler, Cutts, Fulton, Finlay, Long, Sackett, Stokes & Douglas, etc.

Near fine; a few scuffs.

❧ A. Desjardin, The Book on Books on Artists Books (2nd ed.: 2013) 62... More

Several black & white illus. 32 pp. Small 8vo, pictorial wrappers, staple-bound. Amsterdam: February 1996.

Impressive bookseller catalogue of manuscripts, drawings, exhibition catalogues, posters, etc. There are even original drawings by Polke, Richter, Long, Holzer, and Trockel, as well as letters from Christo, Rot, Higgins, and Fontana concerning exhibitions of theirs. This catalogue was one of two issued by the firm for the 17th Amsterdam European Antiquarian Book and Print Fair.

Fine copy. More

Black & white illus. throughout. [24] pp. Tall 8vo, printed wrappers. Arles: Le Méjan/Actes Sud, 1989.

Scarce Christian Boltanski (1944-2021) artist’s book published on the occasion of his exhibition at the Eglise Saint-Martin du Méjan d’Arles (3 July-3 September 1989). From the preface (in trans.): “These images were cut out from a 1972 weekly specialized in criminal news stories; they inexorably present the mixed faces, murderers or victims, of these forgotten dramas."

Fine.

❧ Jennifer Flay, ed., Christian Boltanski — Catalogue: Books, Printed Matter, Ephemera 1966-1991 (1992), pp. 186-87.

Bob Calle, ed., Christian Boltanski: Livres d’Artiste, 1969-2007 (2008), p. 61. More