COFFEE TABLE / ART BOOKS

Featured Selection:

MORRIS, FRANCES; WARNER, MARINA >> LOUISE BOURGEOIS (THE UNILEVER SERIES) >> $160, from the Tate Modern in London. Hardcover. Burgundy cloth-covered boards debossed with spider design and title stamped in silver on cover and spine; no dust jacket as issued. Sculpture and mixed-media works and text by Louise Bourgeois. Essays by Frances Morris, Marina Warner and Paul Hillyard. Includes a chronology and a bibliography. Designed by Anne Odling-Smee / August. 72 pp., with numerous color and black and white illustrations. Published on the occasion of the 2000 exhibition Louise Bourgeois at the Tate Modern, London. Out of print. Scarce. In PERFECT condition. (Willing to discount this one, but just slightly.)


Coffee Table Books from $4 and up:

BASE, GRAEME >> THE WORSE BAND IN THE UNIVERSE >> $12; from Abrams, with unopened CD, this is the guy who gave us Animalia.

BERMAN, CARL >> PEOPLE OF THE HIGH PLATEAU >> $3, from Airlife, documenting in paintings and text people who live where the air is thin and the hallucinations come easy. A bookplate signed in the front but otherwise in good condition. You wouldn't give it to your mother, but you might give it to someone instead of tupperware.

CRISPOLTI, ENRICO, EDITOR >> ERNST, MIRO, AND THE SURREALISTS >> $10, from Bloomsbury, art by Ernst, Miro, etc., with commentary. A handsome book.

DODD, PHILIP >> THE BOOK OF ROCK >> $5; from Thunder's Mouth Press, a thick bulldog of a soft cover with tons of photos and recollections, with a red remainder mark, alas. Otherwise, we'd be selling it much higher. It's beautifully designed.

DOONAN, SIMON >> CONFESSIONS OF A WINDOW DRESSER >> $12; from Calloway Press, "Involved in the cutting edge of fashion, design, and pop culture for twenty years, Doonan has collaborated with the biggest names in the fashion world--Lagerfield, Lacroix, and Armani--and worked with the most notorious names in the art world--Mapplethorpe, Rauschenberg, and La-Chapelle. Whether making fun of blondes, sending up Sigmund Freud in Neurotic Yule, or creating caricatures of celebrities--such as Dan Quayle (paired with a giant Mr. Potato Head in a dunce cap)--Doonan's windows have been sometimes irreverent, yet always fearless and entertaining." The dust jacket is torn, but the boards reproduce the same image, somewhat mitigating this disadvantage. The book itself is in excellent condition.

HARPER, PRUDENCE ET AL >> ROYAL CITY OF SUSA: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN TREASURES IN THE LOUVRE >> $20, from Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993, published on the occasion of an exhibition of objects on loan from the Louvre to the MMA. Some 200 artifacts found at the site of the ancient Iranian plateau's city of Susa produced over a period of almost four thousand years are presented. Each work in the exhibition is illustrated and fully described. With maps, chronology & a comprehensive bibliography. Over 70 full-color pictures and many hundreds in black-and-white.

HENNING, EDWARD B >> FIFTY YEARS OF MODERN ART, 1916-66 >> $4, from the Cleveland Museum of Art, with some color plates. Published in 1966. No dust jacket. Boards are somewhat worn. A bookplate is pasted into the front inside cover. Miro, Picasso, and all the rest. Some of the full-color art plates are tipped in.

KAHLO, FRIDA >> FRIDA KAHLO POSTER BOOK >> $4, from Taschen, an oversized softcover slipcase for 6 wonderful prints (31 x 44 cm).

LAMBRAY, MAUREEN >> THE AMERICAN FILM DIRECTORS, VOLUME 1 >> $15, from Collier Books, a little worn around the edges (it is 30 years old) and a little bit of price tag glue that'll be gone by the time it gets to you in your ancestral home with the ivy creeping up the walls. Photographer Maureen Lambray explored an essential moment in American film by photographing some of the great Hollywood directors such as George Cukor, Billy Wilder, and Frank Capra. She also captured young rising stars such as Martin Scorsese and Robert Altman. Great black-and-white art in soft cover.

LONDON, ROSE >> CINEMA OF MYSTERY >> $4; 112 pages, mostly black-and-white, a history of horror films. Ann wrote her name in the book, on the inside front cover, but otherwise it's in very good shape.

MILNE, PETER >> FISH IN A BARREL: NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS ON TOUR >> $25, from 2.13.61, in excellent condition, a large-format soft cover of photographs by Milne from the Nick Cave 1992 tour. Brilliant photos, and with an introduction by Cave. Stunning photos, really. Give this one a good home.

NINTH LETTER >> NINTH LETTER, VOL. 3, NO. 1 AND 2 >> $3.50 each, from University of Illinois, 2006-07, a literary magazine that as a hugely oversized softcover of almost 200 pages each looks more like...a coffee table book. Poetry, art, fiction, and essays from a variety of cool literary figures like Michael Martone, Roy Kesey, Josh Ames, Elizabeth Bell, etc., but the reader's eye is as drawn to the cool graphics and art as the text. Nice, aggressive, sometimes experimental layout. A few pages are dog-eared in vol. 3, no. 1. Normally costs $10 per issue.

O'KEEFE, GEORGIA >> GEORGIA O'KEEFE: THE NEW YORK YEARS >> $34, from Knopf, a fine, large--very very large (16 x 13 1/2)--book on early Abstract American painter Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986); two specialists spotlight her years in New York between her arrival in 1905, her fateful meeting with Alfred Stieglitz and her rise to fame in the 1920's - a groundbreaking analysis of O'Keeffe's work by art historian Bram Dijkstra. With huge, spectacular color plates. The dust jacket has some scuffs. On the inside front cover, there is an inscription from Jeff.

OWEN, WILLIAM >> MODERN MAGAZINE DESIGN >> $65, from Rizzoli, 1991. STILL in shrinkwrap, never opened, in pristine condition, including the dust jacket. Part one concentrates on the history of design, illustrated magazines and the photographic movement, photojournalism between the wars, the first age of the art director: Cleland, Agha and Brodovitch, the New York School 1945 - 68 etc. Part two discusses the cover, photography and illustration, magazines for the electronic age including examples of Emigré, Tatler, and the Face. This is a steal at this price.

PARMALEE, DAVID F. >> BIRD ISLAND IN ANTARCTIC WATERS >> $8, from University of Minnesota Press, the adventures of an artist/ornithologist on a lonely outcrop in the far South Atlantic. Yeah, the guy almost goes crazy, but gets a book out of it. It's a first edition. Possibly the only edition. We bought it for $20, so we're not ripping you off...

PIADE, LYNN >> CITIZEN KANE: HOLLYWOOD CLASSICS >> $5, from Smithmark, documenting how the movie was made, with copious full-page, sharp black-and-white stills from the movie and from the set.

PIGNATTI, TERISO >> MASTER DRAWINGS: FROM CAVE ART TO PICASSO >> $25; from Wellfleet Press, a comprehensive and gorgeous book with hundreds of full-color plates and well-written essays. Inscription and name on the inside of the boards; otherwise, perfect.

REILLY, WILLIAM >> VANISHING EDEN: THE PLIGHT OF THE TROPICAL RAINFOREST >> $30; from the Barrons educational series, a collection of wonderful photos that show what we still can see of our global natural heritage. Nice picture of Olivia Newton-John in the forward, which she wrote.

REISS, DAVID, EDITOR >> MASH: THE EXCLUSIVE INSIDE STORY >> $5; everything you ever wanted to know about the TV show in 160 pages of soft cover text and black-and-white photos, published in 1980.

RENSE, PAIGE, EDITOR >> DESIGNER'S OWN HOMES >> $6; from Architectural Digest, private residences of 30 of the leading designers from the 80s. Great photos and really funny to see what they thought was good design back then. A bump on the front board, reflected on the dust jacket, but hard to see unless you're looking.

ROMANELLI, GIANDOMENICO, EDITOR >> VENICE: ART & ARCHITECTURE >> $70; from Konemann, a 2-volume set in slipcase featuring hundreds and hundreds of full-color photographs and illustrations, with text. Oversized hardcovers. Dustjackets of both volumes are pristine, as are the books themselves. The slipcase is torn and will need to be repaired. Vol I is "devoted to the artistic history of Venice from its beginnings in the Lagoon region, even before the emergence of Venice as a name, to the 16th century. Particular attention given to the development of mosaic art." Vol II "explores the period from the 17th to the 20th centuries.".

SCHIFF, NANCY >> ODD JOBS >> $8; from Ten Speed Press, those insane bastards. If you hate your job, just be glad you don't sniff armpits for a living. Apparently, if a woman sniffs a man's armpit for 6 hours, it has a calming effect. It's just the first 5 hours and 59 minutes that are excruciating. Anyway, this fascinating and compact hardcover includes really good black-and-white full-page photos with text describing jobs that you'd mostly rather not have.

SLOWINSKI >> SLOWINSKI >> $65, from Direct Art Books, with an introduction by Andre Codrescu. The iconic and insane art of this extremely talented creator. It looks a little like a surreal Sendak for adults. We're selling it $15 below the ABE price. Cover printed on the boards. A political artist in addition to being an American Surrealist. Very original.

SUTCLIFFE, PHIL ET AL >> THE POLICE >> $4; in an attractive soft cover, everything you ever wanted to know about The Police.