Search Results: Art & Photography from The Manhattan Rare Book Company

New York: Charles Cowles, 1971. First edition. Original wrappers, custom box. Very Good. THE GROUNDBREAKING APPEARANCE OF DIANE ARBUS'S PHOTOGRAPH'S IN ARTFORUM. By 1971, "an appreciation of [Arbus's] photography was building in the art world at large... The most gratifying acknowledgement of her as an artist came not from a museum but from a magazine. Through Henry Geldzahler, the contemporary-art curator at the Metropolitan Museum, Arbus arranged a meeting with Philip Leider. The founding editor of Artforum, an influential monthly art magazine that championed modernism, Leider regarded the sculptor and land artist Robert Smithson as the most significant artist of the day. He had never featured a photographer in his pages. He didn't believe photography mixed with painting and sculpture; he wasn't even convinced that it was an art form. But he agreed to meet Geldzahler in Arbus's apartment and look at the pictures in her portfolio. "Even though he was very aware… Read More

Tokyo: Gendai Hanga Center, 1984. First Edition. Original cloth. Fine. FIRST EDITION, WITH STUNNING ORIGINAL SILKSCREEN PRINT BY WARHOL, of the catalog for Warhol's celebrated "Kiku" Tokyo exhibition. Capitalizing on Warhol's strong appeal to Japanese collectors, members of the Gendai Hanga Center in Tokyo asked Warhol in 1982 to create a body of work specifically for them, focusing in particular on images of flowers. Warhol agreed, and created a beautiful series of images inspired by the chrysanthemum (the traditional symbol representing the Japanese emperor and Imperial House). The exhibition was a success and Warhol's exquisite prints for the "Kiku" (the Japanese word for chrysanthemum) exhibition have since become highly regarded by both critics and collectors. One of 1500 copies printed. Tokyo: Gendai Hanga Center, 1984. Octavo, original silver-lettered silver cloth; custom silk box. Without rare original slipcase. With original silkscreen print bound-in and… Read More

New York: np, 1903. First Edition. nb. Very Good. EXCEEDINGLY RARE SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH OF YEATS BY ALICE BOUGHTON. ONE OF THE EARLIEST KNOWN SIGNED YEATS PHOTOS. A rare bust portrait of Yeats as a young man, signed and inscribed by Yeats to U.S. politician and later U.S. secretary of state Bainbridge Colby: "To Mr. Bainbridge Colby with kind regards from WB Yeats March 1904." Inscribed in ink on the flush board mount beneath the photograph. On the verso of the photograph mount is written in pencil: "Young Yeats photo [????] not to be used without Mr. Yeats permission." The photograph was taken by the photographer Alice Boughton during Yeats's first American tour (November 11, 1903 - March 9, 1904), almost certainly on December 22, 1903, when Yeats's friend and champion, the Irish-American collector John Quinn, arranged for the sitting with Boughton. Quinn wrote to Alice Boughton on January 7, 1904, to thank her for four prints (two solio prints and two platinum… Read More

Princeton, NJ: np, 1948. framed. Fine. ONE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED IMAGES OF EINSTEIN, SIGNED BY MASTER PHOTOGRAPHER, YOUSUF KARSH. On February 11, 1948, Yousuf Karsh, perhaps the most accomplished portrait photographer of his generation, visited The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton to fulfill a dream of his: to photograph Albert Einstein. As he later explained: "Among the tasks that life as a photographer had set me, a portrait of Albert Einstein had always seemed a 'must' - not only because this greatest refugee of our century has been accounted by all the world as the [most] outstanding scientist since Newton, but because his face, in all its rough grandeur, invited and challenged the camera..." (Karsh: Beyond the Camera, David Travis, ed.). "At Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, I found Einstein a simple, kindly, almost childlike man, too great for any of the postures of eminence. One did not have to understand his science to feel the power of his… Read More

Valencia Spain & New York: Aperture/A New Images Book & IVAM/Col.lecció Centre del Carme, 1989. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Fine. FIRST EDITION of one of Prince's most influential books, published in conjunction with the artist's landmark 1989 exhibition at the Institute of Modern Art in Valencia, Spain. Illustrated with over 200 color images and with a preface by Corinne Diserens & Vincent Todoli and an 'interview' with Richard Prince and the author J.G. Ballard. (Valencia, Spain/New York): Aperture/A New Images Book & IVAM/Col.lecció Centre del Carme, (1989). Quarto (286x195mm), original photo-pictorial wrappers. A fine copy.

Rome: Roma: G.Giacomo de Rossi, 1660. 5th edition or later. no binding. Fine. Beautiful 1660 engraving of the Baths of Caracalla, by Marco Sadeler. Exquisite original engraving from 1660 of Rome showing parts of the Baths of Caracalla.  Engraved by Marco Sadeler, part of the most famous European print-making family of the 17th Century. Plate #19 from: Vestigii dussa parte di dentro delle terme d'Antonino caracala. Roma: G.Giacomo de Rossi, 1660. A few stray spots, otherwise fine with exceptionally large margins. Engraving: 14.5 x 10.25 in.; image alone: 10.25 x 6 in.

New York: np. first edition. Fine. LARGE, LIMITED VINTAGE SILVER GELATIN PHOTOGRAPH OF BASQUIAT FROM 1984. ONE OF ONLY THREE VINTAGE PRINTS PRODUCED OF AN ICONIC BASQUIAT PORTRAIT. Trained under Richard Avedon, the photographer Richard Corman has been one of the most celebrated portrait photographers of the last thirty years. Rolling Stone refers to his photographs as "iconic" and documentarian Ken Burns says Corman's versatile body of work is an "artistic vision dedicated to the highest aspirations of human endeavor... the photographs record in big moments and small, among the famous and ordinary, the gifted and challenged, larger truths relevant to all of us." Corman's 1984 photo session with the 23-year old Jean-Michel Basquiat at Basquiat's Great Jones St. studio produced wonderfully evocative images of the now legendary artist. As Corman explains: "In 1984, I was asked to photograph Jean Michel Basquiat for L'Uomo Vogue. When I walked into the… Read More