A lot of three Dickran Tashjian books: Skyscraper Primitives; A Boatload of Madmen; William Carlos Williams and the American Scene, 1920-1940 by Tashjian, Dickran

First Edition. Hardcover. Fine. Signed by Author. A lot of three different art historical titles by Dickran Tashjian, a preeminent art and cultural historian: 1) Skyscraper Primitives: Dada and the American avant-garde (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1975). Fine condition cloth hardcover copy sans dust jacket, a stated First Edition and in SIGNED condition (being flat-signed opposite title page). Sharp-looking, clean of interior, tightly bound and handsome looking, bound-in-yellow-orange cloth with brown and gilt titles on spine. xiii + [xiv-3], 4-283 pp. From the personal library of Richard L. Press, noted Sacramento-based art book dealer, and personal friend of the author, who flat-signs his name here. Tashjian has provided a fine, grounded, interdisciplinary study of the relationship between the deliberately incoherent Dada of Europe and the rebellious artists of the American avant-garde. Tashjian calls them "Skyscraper Primitives." The book discusses poets, photographers, painters, and writers, from Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Charles Sheeler, Joseph Stella, Man Ray, and E.E. Cummings, to Marcel Duchamp, Hart Crane, Francis Picabia, William Carlos Williams, and others. Full index, notes, replete with black-and-white plates. 2) A Boatload of Madmen: surrealism and the Americn avant-garde, 1920-1950 (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1995). A nearly As New condition copy in oversize octavo hardcover format in a like dust jacket. Stated First Edition, SIGNED by the author, being dedicated warmly to the former owner, Richard L. Press, noted Sacramento-based art book dealer, and personal friend of the author. Square-looking, tightly bound, and clean and unmarked of interior. xx + 424 pp., replete with illustrations, full bibliography, notes, index. A superior copy, inside and out. According to the publisher’s blurb, "The American art community had its first glimpse of the revolutionary art of the Surrealists in the turbulent Depression year of 1932. Combing a fascination for Freud’s new symbolic language of dreams with a radical leftist utopianism, Surrealism galvanized an emerging avant-garde, New galleries opened up to exhibit the 'terrifying,' 'insane' works of Surrealist artists, and new magazines sprang up to publish a starling crop of Surrealist poetry, criticism and vociferous attacks on mainstream culture and politics." Laid in is the original, three-page review written by Robert M. Crunden of the American Studies and American Civilization Programs at the University of Texas, Austin, written to the publicity director at Thames & Hudson. 3) William Carlos Williams and the American Scene, 1920-1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press and Whitney Museum, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1978). A Fine condition hardcover, cloth-bound copy in First Edition, First Printing state, in a Near Fine condition dust jacket, Brodart-protected. SIGNED by the author at first free endpaper, being inscribed warmly to the former owner of the book, Mr. Richard L. Press, the noted fine art book seller in Sacramento, California. Tall quarto format, two-brown and black cloth covers, sharp, clean, unmarked interior. 168 pp., and with full notes, index, and bibliography, replete with black-and-white, duotone and full-color reproductions, 128 of them, including 16 color plates. Double-column text makes for easy, accessible reading. Published in conjunction with the Whitney Museum of Modern Art exhibition, and augmented with the full-color illustrated dust jacket deploying Demuth’s "Figure 5." A lovely copy. Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. Additional postage may be required for oversize or especially heavy volumes, and for sets.