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The books described here are only a tiny fraction of an estimated 30,000 books and exhibition catalogues currently in stock. The great majority are on modern and contemporary art and artists--Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Cobra, Pop Art, Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Fluxus and so on. You also will find photography and unusual books in other areas.Inernational League of Antiquarian BooksellersAntiquarian Booksellers' Association of America

Hungarian caricatures, 1933. For a unique album from Budapest of brilliant, original caricatures worthy of publication and exhibition, please click here.

An additional 40,000 art periodicals include the world's largest holdings of Artforum, Art in America, and High Performance, plus many others.

Shipping is free for most items to US addresses and for some items to international addresses. Please see individual descriptions.

Two free, on-line indexes, to the early years of Artforum and to High Performance (partial), are open to all.

Visitors are welcome by appointment at my nearly invisible offices in central La Jolla, where good restaurants abound and cultural treasures include three other antiquarian dealers within a hundred yards, the Athenaeum (a music and art library), San Diego's Museum of Contemporary Art, several first-rate galleries, and a remarkable private map museum. Nearby are the Salk Institute, the University of California with its splendid special collections, the La Jolla Playhouse, and of course our beaches. Or simply send an email with your inquiries.

We have been members of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America and the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers since 1971.

Featured Items

FREE domestic or international shipping with direct order. ** Stockholm: Moderna Museet, 6 November 1971–9 Januari 1972. Poster. The inside is several black-and-white drawings on pale blue paper. The outside is a long gestural drawing in flesh color—probably a serigraph. Folded in four. About 15-3/4 x 23-3/4 inches flat (oversquare). Some fading and browning at the folds. Laid in is an order form for the 1969 book published by the Stedelijk Museum. Never mailed. Exhibition Paul Thek. Poster
Thek, Paul
FREE domestic or international shipping with direct order. ** Stockholm: Moderna Museet, 6 November 1971–9 Januari 1972. Poster. The inside.. more
Price: $500.00
FREE domestic & international shipping with direct order. **Fischer's imaginative cover for this publication is a sealed vinyl sandwich with internal spaces in the shapes of fingers and semi-circles. The resulting, partly continuous void contains pink sand that can be shifted into different shapes by tilting and shaking the periodical. Supplementary material is laid in. Most of the issue consists of an article on 34 artists working in plastics, among them Arman, César, Dubuffet, and Saint-Phalle. Profusely illustrated in color, including one 3-panel gatefold. 36 pp. 30.7 x 23 cm. Fine. Hygiène de l'art. In Petroleprogrès: revue trimestrielle. Printemps 1972. No. 91.
Fischer, Hervé. Esso Standard
FREE domestic & international shipping with direct order. **Fischer's imaginative cover for this publication is a sealed vinyl sandwich with.. more
Price: $250.00
The nine pieces are primarily personal correspondence in the artist's inimitable syle sent in the early 1970s to James Butler, husband of Eugenia Butler, Los Angeles gallery owner in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Byars seemed to turn everything he touched into a work of art. The first seven of these pieces are museum quality. **Nine handmade pieces, mostly correspondence: **1) Scroll letter on matte orange paper 1 foot by about 18 feet long, plus gold triangular tail, 1 foot. Written in blue (?) pencil. **2) Heart-shaped letter. Five leaves of tissue with vivid red matte surface. Written with gold pencil (?). Approximately 12 x 11 inches. Folded in half vertically. **3a & b) Gold egg with gold writing, 13-1/2 x 11 inches, folded crosswise in half; in gold envelope written in blue (?) pencil (?). "I just bought the whole _____(?) world (?)." **4) Letter addressed from DAAD, Berlin, 25 May 1974, in ordinary business envelope. Bone shape; single-sided gold paper written in pen. 8-7/8 inches by about 36 inches; ends about 12-1/2 inches wide. Folded. "The germs love my bone _____? music (?)." **5a & b) Chinese envelope for money gifts on New Year's, birthdays, etc., mailed from Switzerland. Contents: 6 sheets 6-1/2 x 5-1/4 inches with silver-leaf (?) applique on each, 2-3/4 x 2-7/8 inches; folded lengthwise. Writing in ____ (?). **6a, b, c & d) A "sculpture." Gold envelope containing two black paper bags marked "Rat" and Balls," with an instruction card written in silver on black-coated, cover-weight paper 11-5/8 x 8-3/4 inches. The bags are just under 22 x 17 inches and folded in half; titles written boldly in white chalk or pastel on each bag.. Each folded bag has folded within it a red tissue about 20 x 15 inches folded in eight. The bags are to be blown up and then connected at their tops. String not present. Envelope postmarked 30 December 1971. **7) "Spider" letter, though it does not have eight legs. Black tissue, crumpled, with gold writing. Four legs: two about 4 feet 2 inches from center; one L-shaped, 2 feet 7 inches + 2 feet; one L-shaped, 3 feet 3 inches + 2 feet; center about 11 inches each way, so total size about 5 feet or more across. Other similar pieces in galleries and museums are housed under clear plastic boxes. **8a & b) Scroll paper, pink tissue with tails. Black ink. Approximately 5-3/4 inches x approximately 9 feet 6 inches. Loosely folded in manila envelope postmarked "Nov. ____). **9) Letter on 7 sheets of very pale pink tissue 14-3/16 inches square, folded in four. Written in pink crayon (?). **Five printed pieces: **10a & b) "The golden tower 1." Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD zur Ausstellung in der Galerie Springer, Berlin, 1974. 2 sheets black paper printed in gold, 177 x 50 cm (together, the size of the artist's body). 180 lines of type in English and German on each sheet. Weserberg 20. **11) "A white paper will blow through the streets." Kyoto Museum of Art, 1967. Round broadside 68 cm in diameter. Framed. Printed in black offset on white Japanese tissue paper. Weserberg 44b. Reportedly, only 60 copies of this flat, unfolded version exist. Another edition, from New York (Weserberg 43), is on paper 63 cm in diameter and was published in larger quantities for use as an announcement or invitation. Most of these were crumpled or folded. **12, 13, 14) Three items printed in 1-point or smaller type, gold ink on black paper, perhaps for an exhibition at the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. These may have been tickets to the opening of "Perfect Is My Death Word," 1995 (?). Byars also appeared at the Van Abbemuseum in 1983 with Piet de Jonge in the exhibition "Gold dust is my ex libris." Perhaps these little pieces of ephemera come from then. **12) A circle 15 mm in diameter bearing the words, "The chair of the artist at Harvard" in tiny capitals. Weserberg 135 (though not dated). Several examples in collection. **13) The same, but the circular piece of paper is 25 mm. Not in Weserberg. **14) A 25-mm square bearing a small, open circle 1 mm in diameter. Not in Weserberg. The collection also includes the following reference work: James Lee Byars: Bücher, Editionen, Ephemera. Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen, [Part of the publication "Perfect Is My Death Word" (1995). A collection of nine unique pieces, plus five printed pieces. 14 items
Byars, James Lee (1932-1997)
The nine pieces are primarily personal correspondence in the artist's inimitable syle sent in the early 1970s to James Butler,.. more
Price: $50,000.00
FREE domestic shipping with direct order. **Bedford Village, New York: Tyler Graphics, ©1982. Superb lithographed miniature in black and light brown. 16.7 x 23.5 cm (image, oversquare); 18.5 x 25.4 cm (paper, oversquare). Print tipped into white folder with explanatory text, 22.3 x 28.6 cm. Original image size 44 x 61 inches. Not an "original print," but it certainly looks like one. 3000 copies of this brochure printed. Several as-new copies available. For other similar publications, please search for "Albers" or "Stella" as author and "miniature" as title. Lament for Lorca. [Handprinted miniature of lithograph by Robert Motherwell.]
Motherwell, Robert.
FREE domestic shipping with direct order. **Bedford Village, New York: Tyler Graphics, ©1982. Superb lithographed miniature in black and light.. more
Price: $50.00
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