Scène de Carnaval. ca. 1920s. [11" x 16 7/8"] A fine selection of works by famed Art Deco book illustrator and painter Gerda Wegener is on exhibition at Leonard Fox Ltd, in the rare book dealer’s shop-gallery on Madison Avenue in New York City October 29 through November 25, 2009.A small section of the exhibition.Where to begin about Gerda Gottlieb Wegener Porta (1886-1940)? Many, this author included, were first introduced to the Danish artist through her spirited and playfully exquisite erotic imagery. But her initial success was as a fashion and contemporary scene illustrator for Vogue, La Vie Parisienne, Fantasio,...
A "Witch" So Rare It’s Scary
Yes, some water-stains; it's a maritime novel, what'd you expect?This copy, apparently, skimmed the seas.Some days I wake up lucky. I now have before me one of the great rarities in American literature, the true first edition of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Water Witch. Published no later than September 18, 1830, the London edition followed in October, and the Philadelphia edition in the the Spring of 1831.Only sixteen copies of this, the Dresden edition, are known to exist: OCLC and KVK locate twelve copies in institutional collections worldwide, and ABPC records only four copies at auction within the last thirty-five...
O. Henry’s Morphine Overdose, Pay-Scale, and Advice to Writers
Recently, while on recon for Book Patrol, I discovered Fog in Santone, a short story by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter, 1862-1910) set in San Antonio Texas and loaded with morphine. In it, O. Henry limns the nexus of tuberculosis, desperate sufferers, and drug addiction amongst the sick and “sporting class" with lighthearted morbidity.In contrast to Fog in Santone, At Arms With Morpheus takes place in turn-of the-century New York City boarding house. From clues in the narrative, it is the boarding house located off Madison Square where Porter lived.In At Arms With Morpheus, which first appeared in the October,...
I Sing the Blue Jeans Electric: Walt Whitman for Levi’s
"Hi, Walt Whitman for Levi's. A fustian cloth, rough-hewn, enduring, yeoman, riveted,the fabric of America. These are my pants.Boot-cut. Perfect fit. Get into them, O shapeless, unformed youth!"American poet, Walt Whitman, has been drafted by advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy of Portland to lead the battle cry, i.e. shill, for the American economy in general and Levi’s jeans in particular in an effort to get the demographic of the young into the venerable working-man’s pants that Whitman likely wore.“America’s poet was an optimist at a time when it as easier to be a pessimist. He lived through the civil war, one of...
They Laughed When I Sat Down To Read Piano 300
On March 8, 2000, the National Museum of American History opened Piano 300 in the Smithsonian Institution's International Gallery in Washington D.C.Celebrating the tricentennial of the piano’s introduction in Florence by Bartolomeo Cristofori, this outstanding exhibition was seen by more than 330,000 visitors from around the world during its twenty-month run.I’m a sucker for great exhibition catalogs, and that which accompanied Piano 300 is one of the most interesting and visually rewarding that I’ve seen in quite awhile. It is, arguably, be the best, most concise volume about the instrument there is with chapters that include: Early Stages; The Rise...