On July 9, David Hockney was eighty years old. To celebrate the occasion, Belgian television channel Canvas broadcast a long documentary and online auction Catawiki had the luminous idea of starting their Sunday photography auction with this fine portrait taken in 2012 by British photographer John Angerson, one from an edition of twenty-five.
One of the strange things in the antiquarian book business is the vague sense of loss you feel when a very special book or catalogue that you have been offering for sale for quite some time is effectively sold. Booksellers with a more pragmatic turn of mind might remind you that was why you offered it in the first place, but nevertheless the awareness that the chances of ever coming across another copy are virtually none makes the sale a sort of mixed blessing.
Perhaps it would have been more logical to write about this extraordinary catalogue when I first acquired it, over a year ago, but now that it is about to be sent to its new owner in Paris, it would be a pity to let it go without presenting it to a larger audience first. I did my best to give a full description and together with the pictures it will speak for itself.
SURREALISM
The International Surrealist Exhibition – New Burlington Gardens, London, 1936
The original catalogue, printed by The Women’s Printing Society, Ltd.
Pap., stapled, 24 x 14.5 cm, 31p. Text only. Cover by Max Ernst. Preface by André Breton (translated by David Gascoyne). List of participating artists. Introduction by Herbert Read.
Catalogue, including 392 nrs, including works by Arp, Bellmer, Brancusi, De Chirico, Dali , Duchamp, Ernst, Gascoyne, Giacometti, Klee, Magritte, Masson, Miro, Moore, Nash, Penrose, Picabia, Picasso, Man Ray, Tanguy, a.o. + Oceanian & African objects.
Overall in good condition, worn, but without serious damage. Cover discoloured. The previous owner has added some surrealist comments of his own. On the front cover he notes (with some changes and words crossed out) a comments that roughly reads:
‘this catalogue does not belong to [name unindentified]. But it doesn’t belong to anybody else either. It belongs to poached eggs in a bath with knobs on’ [my transcription, DS]
The catalogue part has some markings in pencil at particular numbers, and on the blank page ‘Addenda’the note ‘Man Ray, A l’heure de l’observation’, suggesting that the note was contemporary.
The back of the cover showsthree caricature portraits, sadly unidentified, as is the artist.
Taschen has just published a truly magnificent (and huge) volume on album covers by artists. More than 400 pages, profusely illustrated, make it a feast for the eyes and a must-have for all collectors. Run off to your local bookshop! And while you're at it, check out the special page on 'Records and covers' on the Prentwerk website (see under 'Multiples')
It is one of the main problems for all bookshops all over the world: how to persuade customers to leave the endless lists of titles on Amazon, Abebooks, Biblio etc, alone for a moment and check out individual websites of specialist booksellers, where they can find quality selections in their particular field of interest, with better descriptions and more pictures. So here is a new way to keep up with all Prentwerk acquisitions on modern and contemporary art, rare catalogues, artist books, photos & photobooks and so much more. Follow us on Pinterest: https://nl.pinterest.com/prentwerk/whats-new/ Enjoy!
As self-confessed human sculptures, Gilbert and George have probably been photographed more extensively than any other artist, with the possible exception of Picasso. Here are just some examples from the Prentwerk files:
This is just to let you know that last Thursday saw Prentwerk's debut at Instagram, with daily selections of interesting new acquisitions. Check us out at 'prentwerkartbooks'!
Over the past months your auctions have featured prints
by various artists published by 'Suc. Salerno & Hijos'. They are all prints
by prominent artists, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Pierre
Alechinsky. They all bear printed signatures,
are published in large editions (mostly 300), numbered by hand and accompanied
by impressive looking COA’s, with blindstamps, publisher’s signatures and
registration numbers.
Let me point out, however, that there is nothing
'authentic' about these prints. Although presented as ‘lithographs’, they are
simply reproductions of existing works of art, sold quite cheaply. 'Suc.
Salerno & Hijos' is a highly dubious firm. I have not been able to find a
website, which is in itself a bad sign. In their descriptions, however, both
the publishers and the sellers, at various auctions, try to create the
impression that they are in fact selling original prints. Needless to say that this is
highly misleading, if not downright criminal.
It is, of course, up to the auctioneers to decide whether
they want to include such material, but if they are at all serious about the
quality of their auctions, I believe they would do well to reject any such
prints offered to them. Also, the general public should be informed about these practices in
order to prevent them from spending their money on worthless reproductions.
In the eighties and nineties, A.R. Penck was represented in the Netherlands by Galerie Aschenbach, Amsterdam. On October 13 and 14, 1988, The artist was present at the opening of a new exhibition for a painting & music session. Sylvia Scholten and Janine Schrijver took photographs, which were subsequently published in an exclusive box containing 18 prints, signed, in an edition of 27.
Although one
might argue that, strictly speaking,
Damien Hirst’s I Want To Spend The Rest
Of My Life Everywhere, With Everyone, One To One Always, Forever, Now 1997) does not qualify as an ‘artist book’ (because the graphicdesign was done by Jonathan Barnbrook, not by
the artist himself), it is usually described as such, even in museum collections. In any case it remains one of the most staggering art books of all time, with a sumptuous collection of pop-ups, transparencies, movable plates, fold-outs,
inserts, die-cuts, stickers and a poster. It presents a virtual catalogue raisonné of his works to date.
Discriminating
collectors should go for the first edition (as presented here), not for the smaller
2006 reprint published by Other Criteria.
With a record sale of 41 million euros for his Abstraktes Bild from 1986, Gerhard Richter has resumed his position as the world's most expensive living artist. At the same time many people in the art world express their concern that market for contemporary art is increasingly becoming a playground for a small company of millionaires, galleries and auction houses, worlds removed from ordinary life and ordinary people.I remember Robert Hughes wondering in the nineties whether there was actually one painting in the world worth a million dollars.May he rest in peace.
The fine portrait below was taken in 1991 by Dutch photographer Peter Daalderop and printed in an edition of twelve, True, it is not a painting, but at least it's affordable.
Roy
Lichtenstein was an exceptionally versatile artist, who did not wish to confine
his visual language to his paintings, but sought to apply it in many other ways
as well. Thus he created the famous paper plates and original wallpaper for the
Bert Stern's celebrated, but shortlived On 1st gallery in New York in the late
sixties, made designs for ceramics, multiples and record covers.
Curiously
enough, Lichtenstein made only two original book covers, both for books by his
friend Frederic Tuten. The first was a portrait of Mao for The Adventures of Mao on the Long March (1971). Although there are
later reprints, Tuten was not exactly a bestselling author and first edition
copies have become very rare, even in the US.
The
second cover was especially made for Tin
Tin in the New World: a romance, published in 1993. It was based on a huge
painting (205 x 167 cms, now in a private collection). On the occasion of
Lichtenstein's retrospective exhibition in Brussels in 1995, an offset poster
(without text) was published by the Belgian firm Plaizier in an unspecified
edition. Although it appears to be out of stock there, the print is widely
available on the internet, suggesting there must have other subsequent editions
as well. But even so it is generally regarded as a collectors’ item, fetching
anything up to $500.
Frederic Tuten, Tin Tin in the New World: a
romance, 1993, first edition, with a very fine original cover design by Roy
Lichtenstein, and an altenative design reproduced as frontispiece. New York,
William Morrow, 1993. Boards, hardcover with mylar dustjacket, 22 x 15 cm,
239p.
Lit.: Mary Lee Corlett, The Prints of Roy
Lichtenstein, a catalogue raisonnée, nrs III.16 en III.17
Thanks to Catawiki online art auctions, we are able to present our most recent acquisition: this ultra-rare Andy Warhol catalogue, issued by the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, in 1970, with silkscreened cover.
I take the liberty of quoting my American colleagues of Skyline Books, the ONLY bookseller offering a copy of this book on AddAll:
'This issue with the silk-screen covers is quite scarce---this is the first copy we've encountered and the Warhol Museum is unfamiliar with it.'
It is one of those things you come across more or less by accident, because some Facebook friend picked it up from somebody else who picked it up from somebody else. But worth viewing nevertheless. Thanks Elaine!
In November
1968, the New York hip and trendy,
always eager to check out the latest hot spot, found there was a new kid on the
block. And not just any kid. Situated on First Avenue, it was called On 1st, and the name covered the entire
facade. There was no shop window; whatever went on inside could only be seen on
a number of television screens placed in the centre of the huge O. The entrance,a double-door tinted like sunglasses with
black painted doors behind it, was formed by the letter N.
Whoever
ventured inside must have been amazed. The interior was covered with blue
carpet, not only wall-of-wall, but also right up to the ceiling. ‘Everything
for sale is as different as the shop is from others’,EugeniaSheppard wrote in the St Petersburg Times,‘Art turned into some kind of usable object.’
The genius,
if that’s what it is, behind the project turned out to be as fashion
photographer Bert Stern, who had conceived the idea of a shop with objects for
the home designed by artists or fashion designers. Apart from promoting the Marilyn
photographs that he had taken six years earlier ( the Last Sitting series) by
having them transferred to anything from scarves to wallpaper, Stern invited a
host of artists and designers, because On
1st was meant to be a shop of ideas. There was even an artist in
residence, whose task was to produce them,whether they were usable or not. His name was James Lee Byars, a man
who, in Sheppard’s words, ‘looked like a Mennonite father with shoulder-length
hair, a wide-brimmed black hat and a frock coat’. She found him sitting in Stern’s office, the
floor scattered with sketches on pink paper.
On 1st was a thrilling, but short-lived adventure. The shop was closed in what must have been a
matter of months , if not weeks. Curiously enough, the fact that it is
remembered at all is largely due to Roy Lichtenstein. In any Google search his
name is almost invariably coupled with that of the shop, perhaps even more
often than that of Stern himself.The
reason is that Lichtenstein made some of the most important contributions to
the project, and while the shop itself came and went, some of its products
lived on and as Lichtenstein’s fame rose, the objects he designed for On 1st acquired legendary status. Theyinclude the wrapping paper, a high
polish wallpaper that looked like stainless steel, and, most famous of all, the
silkscreened paper plates. These were originally sold in shrink-wrapped sets of
ten, a bargain at $3, and many of them must simply have been thrown away. What
copies survived have since become rare and highly desirable.They now count as official Lichtenstein
multiples and are listed in Mary Lee Corlett’s catalogue raisonné of Lichtenstein’s prints. It is by no means uncommon to see them
offered, neatly framed, in high-end art galleries,‘price on request’.In other words, they have attained the status
of Art.
Some people might argue that
in looking upon these and similar objects as objets d’art, we have come a long way from the artists’ original
intentions, which were based on the idea of making original art available to a
large public. Andthey do have a point
there. On the other hand, with prices for Lichtenstein paintings soaring from
one auction record to the next, the discrepancy between the original prices of
multiples and ephemera and the prices you have to pay for them today is perhaps
not, proportionally, so very different from those of his paintings.
While
Lichtenstein originals, and even prints, have risen far beyond the means of the
vast majority of art lovers, the multiples , or artists’ ephemera, at least
leave the not-so-well-to-do collector (the
man or woman who genuinely interested in art for its own sake, as opposed to
the professional art investor and the art speculator) an opportunity to obtain
an original Lichtenstein design at a price he can afford. After all, collecting
is, or ought to be, a matter of art, not merely a matter of money.
Perhaps it
is time to consider a re-definition of the ‘art collector’ and broaden it
sufficiently to include the man who is happy to obtain an old issue of Time Magazine with Lichtenstein’s
portrait of Bobby Kennedy on the cover, or a piece of wallpaper from Bert
Stern’s shop, or an original poster for the Salzburger
Festspiele. And yes, those, too, will originally have been sold at a
fraction of the price you’ll have to pay for them now. But even so they can
bring back some of the sheer joy of collecting that a hysterical art market has
taken away from us.
* * * *
In 1990, Melvyn Bragg interviewed Lichtenstein for the BBC. In the first part (the other five can also be found on YouTube) he looks back on the rise of pop art in the early sixties.
Roy
Lichtenstein died in 1997. One of the last exhibitions during his lifetime was
held 1995 in the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, Germany, where photographer Klaus
Behr took this picture showing an American icon in the frailty of old age:
On July 3, 1982, the German television music
program Bananas featured a very
special guest. Not Fischer Z or Adam Ant, who were also in the studio, but
artist Joseph Beuys who, accompanied by the group BAP, made his first and
last appearance as a pop singer. His song Sonne statt Reagan (‘Sun instead of
rain/Reagan’, with an untranslatable pun in German) formed part of a mass protest
against the deployment of SS-20 and Pershing missiles in Europe and was recorded in
support of the election campaign of die Grünen,
the Green Party. It did not take the audience long to realize that Beuys’s
talents unquestionably lay elsewhere, but it remains one of the most curious ‘art videos’ to
date.
Beuys’s career as a rock star may have come to
a premature end, the single Sonne statt Reagan is recorded by Schellmann as an
official Beuys multiple (nr 447). The record came in a plain brown cover with
yellow lettering, with the artist’s printed signature and the date 19.4.1982
just below it. Characteristically, he made also a special limited edition in an
edition of 90, for which a reddish brown circle oil paint was hand printed over
the ‘statt Reagan’ part and the record itself was signed on the label. The copy
shown below comes from the regular edition.
‘Artists’
ephemera’. The term doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue. It’s one of those
words, too, that may make you reach for the dictionary. Which is, in fact, is not
a bad thing to do, because once you find out what it means and where it comes
from, you realize it would be a pity to call the stuff by any other name. The
word ‘ephemera’, from the Greek, literally means ‘things lasting no more than
one day’, and could refer to anything from fame to insects. In modern use its
meaning has been narrowed down considerably; the ever-present Wikipedia defines
it as ‘any transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or
preserved’. ‘Artists’ ephemera’, then, refers to anything created by artists
for a particular occasion that, once it has served its purpose, may be
discarded because it does not have any true value. In other words, things not
worth collecting. Or are they?
It is perhaps
one of the cultural tragedies of our time that the phrase ‘art collector’ has
come to be associated with people in auction rooms who calmly raise their hands
just as the Warhol, or the Richter, or the Matisse, is about to reach the $100m
mark. Or with classy art fairs where elderly overdressed couples are set upon by
gallery owners trying to convince them that young so-and-so is the greatest
emerging talent in recent years and will make a great investment. The world of
art has become inextricably linked with the world of money and it has reduced most
of us to the status of spectators, gaping bystanders, for the simple reason that
taking part in it is well beyond our means.
It comes as
a relief, therefore, to discover that there still some corners of the art world
left where art is not exclusively approached in terms of market value. In 2001,
the California College of Arts and Crafts staged an exhibition entitled Extra
Art: A Survey of Artists’ Ephemera , 1960-1999. It presented a very small part
of the collection of Steven Leiber, a former gallery owner whose life took a
different turn when , somewhere in the 80s, he bought ‘twenty-one boxes of crap’
from artist Jeff Berner. After sifting through it for more than a year, he concluded
that what he found most exciting was not the most obvious material, but rather the
things that lacked any intrinsic value: the flyers, the posters, the invitation
cards, all the printed stuff that had, for some reason, escaped being thrown
away. Up to his death early this year, he amassed what is probably the largest
collection of artists’ ephemera in the world, published over forty sales
catalogues (which have themselves become highly collectible) and became the
acknowledged expert in the field. His single-handed efforts opened up a whole
new field of collecting, for which multi-figure bank accounts are, thankfully, not
a precondition.
Leiber’s Californian
exhibition was something of a landmark in the appreciation of art. Here, for
the first time, was a museum presentation of stuff that had never been thought worth
preserving. And it turned out to be great! The catalogue Extra Art became a
classic overnight and remains the most important work on the subject to this
day. It is a book for the amateur, in
the original and true sense of the word, featuring some 1500 items, all
illustrated. Browsing through it for the for first time, as I did some months
ago, is an extraordinary experience. Here are original works by all the great
artists of our time, but as they were often produced in large editions, they
are affordable. You realize with some surprise (at least I did) that it is possible
to actually buy them yourself, often at less than the price of a dinner for two.
Some of them, admittedly, are so rare that the chance of stumbling across them
is practically nil, but there are others that, with any luck, may be found on
Ebay or even at your local bookshop. All you need is an open eye and the
realization that art is not created by rarity.
Extra Art
is more than just a feast for the eyes. It is a book that brings back the sheer
joy of collecting: the thrill of discovering, and the satisfaction of acquiring
something that, however small, enriches your life. And after all, that is what
collecting is all about. Or should be.
[Extra Art is published by Smart Art Press, Santa Monica]
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