BLACK SUN PORTFOLIO. An Intercontinental Quarterly. Nos. 1 - 6. (All Published).

Washington D. C., Paris, Rome, Athens.: The Black Sun Press., 1945 - 1947.. Each issue loose in original publisher's portfolio (differing sizes and colour paper portfolios for each issue) with printed title.. 6 issues. Folio.. Profusely illustrated in colour and monochrome throughout. A very good complete set of the international Black Sun Portfolio.Published in different cities (Washington D. C., Paris, Rome and Athens) with contributions from eminent figures from various modern movements (see below). Although copies are often in poor condition, the copy offered here is in very good, even exceptional, condition with only some very minor creasing to some of the card portfolios. Volume 1. Portfolio. Washington. Cover leaf, fore leaf and 26 leaves (single sheets and bifolia as issued) of text and plates. Edited by Caresse Crosby. Assistant editor: Harry Thornton Moore; Editorial advisors: Henry Miller (Prose), Selen Rodman (Poetry), Sam Rosenberg (Photography). Texts by Caresse Crosby, Henry Miller, René Crevel and others. Illustrations by Jean Helion, Henry Moore, Harry Crosby, and others. With additional original stiff card protective portfolio.Volume 2. Portfolio II. Paris. Christmas 1945. Cover leaf and 22 leaves (single sheets and bifolia as issued) of text and illustration (leaves 7 & 20 are present in the 'Supplement' as issued). With texts by Paul Eluard, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, René Char, Francis Ponge, and others. Illustrations by Dora Maar, Cartier-Bresson, Picasso, Giacometti, and others. Two variant issues of this number are present: in variant portfolios and with some text and plates on different paper stock. With additional original stiff card protective portfolio.Volume 3. Portfolio III. Washington. 1946. Cover leaf, fore leaf and 29 leaves (single sheets and bifolia as issued) of text and illustration. With texts by Kay Boyle, Harry Crosby, Jean-Paul Sartre, Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski, Stephen Spender, Garcia Lorca, David Daiches, and others. Illustrations by Hans Richter, Wilfredo Lam, Tal-Coat, Dorothea Tanning, and others. With additional original stiff card protective portfolio.Volume 4. Portfolio IV. Rome. Summer 1946. Cover leaf, fore leaf, frontispiece by Morandi and 28 leaves (single sheets and bifolia as issued) of text and illustration. With texts by Caresse Crosby, G. de Chirico, Alberto Moravia, Bruno Zevi, and others. With illustrations by de Chirico, Morandi, Carra, Campigli, Guttuso, and others; with additional stiff cream card protective portfolio with printed title. Volume 5. Portfolio V. Paris. Spring 1947. Cover leaf, fore leaf, 19 leaves of text and 11 plates (single sheets and bifolia as issued). With texts by Tolstoy, Selden Rodman, Anais Nin, Harry Thornton Moore, and others. Illustrations by Modigliani, Ernst, Man Ray and others.Volume 6. Portfolio VI. Summer 1947. Cover leaf, inserted subscribers' leaf and 36 leaves of text and illustration (single sheets and bifolia as issued); 'Contemporary Greek Literature' replaced with plate 8 'Island Sketches' as usual. With texts by Theotokas, Calas, Cambas, Nicolareizis, and others. Illustrations by Moralis, Kanellis, Kapralos, Diamantopoulos, and others.'Portfolio has been created and designed to present to an imaginative public, lively and varied examples of work by modern artists. Prose, poetry, prints and plans are gathered here into an ample folder of loose leaf design ... Following World War I the Black Sun Press was born in Paris of just such timely need as now exists - the need of effecting an exchange of thought between America and Europe. In Paris in 1927 Harry Crosby, one of the original editors of 'Transition', published his own poems under the Black Sun imprint, and from then on appeared books of verse and prose by many others ... Today, Phoenix-like, the world emerges once more from the ashes of a war, and again there is being born a new expression of man's aspirations. Never before has so much depended on the courageous vision of the artist, and more than ever before we realize that enormity is not greatness and that the bellowing of the war lords is a repetitive echo of sterility whereas the song of the poet bespeaks endless renewal ... To carry forward into the more complex world of peace that spirit, to build a bridge of enduring fabric between the ivory tower and the arena, to provide a forum in time not yet released from darkness for those who come clad in the Full Armour of Light, is the purpose of PORTFOLIO.' (Caresse Crosby).