Ephemera

Hollywood , Cal . Book. Illus. by James Abbe. Fine. No Binding. Autographed. 1924c. This vintage black & white photo by the Hollywood photographer James Abbe (1883 - 1973) is of Rudolph Valentino ( 1895 - 1926 ) . This personalized vintage photo of Valentino sitting on a couch with a book on his lap is a scarce image of this Silent Movie Star in relaxed full view shot ( scarce in pose and signed). The photo is now matted and framed . The autograph is to a friend ( **** to one of the sweetest girls I know, Rudy ). Signed photos of Valentino are extremely rear and photos by this photographer are also scarce to the market . Over all framed size : 17.5" x 15.5" . Size: 8 x 10 Photo Matted.

[New York: n.p., 1983-1987]. Contents uniformly in near fine to fine condition.. Collection of 120 flyers and posters from New York's hottest and most inventive nightclub, Area, during the mid-1980s. Although it was a disco, Area was a purely visual, happenings-based venue, where New York's art, music, design, fashion, and literary worlds collided; Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, or Jean-Michel Basquiat might be brushing up against Michael Forbes, David Byrne, or Georgio Armani, and Stephen Saban would be there to remind them what happened afterwards in his Details magazine column. Unlike other downtown clubs that focused on music or dancing, Area was driven by art and the scene that it engendered, through its theme nights, elaborate installations, and inventive flyers that seemed to embody Warhol's concept of business art. This archive includes Area's famously unconventional invitations, posters, articles, booklets, and other ephemera from the nightclub's short-lived, yet significant, four-year history.… Read More

Paris: Meynial, 1925. First Edition. George Barbier. A complete and excellent set of the five annual issues illustrated with a total of sixty beautiful pochoir plates, complete with decorated pochoir title pages. 'Falbalas and Franfreluches' (Frippery and Finery: Fashion Diaries) represents a literary and artistic collaboration of unusual elegance and sophistication. French illustrator, George Barbier (1882 - 1932) spared no effort in the making of this beautiful collection, using the finest pigments and up to thirty stencils per print to create images of the highest quality reflecting fashionable themes of the day. The plates portray romance amidst exotic lands and ages past, including a native American idyll on the Missouri, a languid mistress cocooned in a hammock in the tropical Antilles, high baroque debauchery, and, of course, a myriad of lovers depicted in Paris at the height of the chic 1920s. Each annual includes twelve pages of fine writing by Barbier's contemporaries in the Parisian scene… Read More

Paris: Fernand Hazan, 1948. Soft cover. Near Fine. 4.5" x 7" 4th volume in the Bibliotheque Aldine des Arts Series. In glassine wrapper. Signed by Henri Matisse on the title page to 'a Monsieur Lionel Aucoin.' [12] p.p., plus 20 colour illustrations. Text in French. The book is enclosed in a stamped and typewritten envelope from Matisse at his apartment at 132 Montparnasse Paris, 52, France to collector Mr. Lionel Aucoin at 49 Chestnut Street in Spencer, Massachusetts with French stamps. Light rubbing to spine, covers. Small tears to edges of glassine wrapper Covers slightly yellowed but Interior clean. Envelope slightly browned, bruised at edges, but otherwise near fine.

No binding. Fine. Fine Art Print. Vintage original 41 x 81" (103 x 203 cm.) three sheet poster on linen, USA. Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bisset, Don Gordon, Robert Duvall, dir: Peter Yates; Warner Brothers. Unrestored, with great, nicely matched colors and all minor original issues addressed in conservation. Fine.The classic 1960s action-crime thriller, with an iconic performance by Steve McQueen playing the San Francisco cop who becomes obsessed with finding the underground leader responsible for the deaths of witnesses in his protection. Here is one of the finest and most rare posters for this classic title. This example does not appear to have ever been used. Prior to expert linen backing, it showed only very minor shelf wear and shows just minor shelf wear, such as three minor fold juncture separations, a bit of creasing at the very edges and a few minor spots of soiling in the white background. What makes this poster particularly desirable is the fact that the colors match correctly… Read More

No binding. Very Good. Fine Art Print. Vintage original 39 x 105" (100 x 270 cm.) poster, Italy. Olga Benetti, Frecesca Bertini, Vittorio Bianchi, Luigi Cigoli, Alfredo De Antoni, dir: Alfredo De Antoni; Caesar Film. This rare poster has been professionally conserved and now displays like new, on linen, very good.Italian version of the famous story based on the Victorien Sardou play, a print of which is still in existence. A stunning Art Nouveau-style portrait of star Francesca Bertini as Floria Tosca. This prolific star of the Italian cinema, one of film's first true divas, was also a writer and director. She made the first of her 140 films in 1907 and her last in 1976 (most were made before 1935), Bertolucci's 1900.Bertini was the ultimate diva of 1910s-era Italian film, the most celebrated and most adulated of Italian movie actresses of her generation. She married count Paul Cartier, and lived a life of luxury until her passing at the age of 93. Poster artwork is by Tito Corbella (1885-1966), a… Read More

No binding. Very Good. Fine Art Print. Vintage original 27 x 41" (68 x 102 cm.) one sheet poster, USA. Clara Bow, William Powell, Alyce Mills, Frank Keenan, Ford Sterling, dir: James P. Hogan; B. P. Schulberg/Preferred Pictures Corp. On linen, there was some fold line separation, especially at edge borders, there has been some minor inpainting in the area of the words "MY" and "LIPS", but poster has extraordinary, bright, original colors, near fine.An extremely rare poster and one of the earliest to feature star Clara Bow prominently. Long believed to be a lost film, a nitrate print was found and has been preserved. The film is a romance with a suspense twist in which William Powell plays the debonair character he became famous for and Clara Bow as the ultimate jazz baby.

No binding. Very Good. Fine Art Print Vintage original 40 x 30" (100 x 75 cm.) three-sheet poster, USA. Jeff Morrow, Faith Domergue, Rex Reason, Lance Fuller, Russell Johnson, dir: Joseph M. Newman, Jack Arnold: Universal. Poster is rolled and displays a fair amount of creasing at edges, particularly at the top and bottom. There is inner creasing, more evident in the title box area. Tears at edges have been repaired with brown tape and there are a few small unrepaired edge tears. The top image portion with portrait of Domergue and Reason and the alien to the right is a pasteover and the foot area of the alien has lifted slightly, very good.One of the top science fiction classics of the 1950s. The story involved aliens coming to Earth to engage scientists in a scheme to wage war and destroy the planet. This film, made on a very modest Universal budget, was likely not really in the making for 2 years, but the studio was dissatisfied with director Newman's work and hired Jack Arnold to reshoot a great… Read More

112+[1 ad] pages with diagrams and errata laid in. Square folio (12 1/4" x 10 1/4") bound in original publisher's wrappers in original onionskin jacket with a handwritten letter signed by Marcel Duchamp housed in a handcrafted archival enclosure by Octavaye. (Bibliotheca Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana: 2273) First edition.
Letter by Marcel Duchamp to Richard Hulbeck 25 October 1947. Reads as follows: Dear Hulbeck, The pictures are not back and I am afraid won't be back for some months. Schweizer, the representative there is in France and is coming back in a few weeks or days. He will have exact information about the return of the shipment. Don't worry and I will call you up some day soon. Affectueusement Marcel.
Richard Hulsenbeck (1892-1972) was a German writer, poet and psychoanalyst. In 1920 he was editor of the Dada Almanach and wrote Dada siegt-Eine Bilanz des Dadaismus. After emigration to USA in 1923 he changed his name to Hulbeck.Curiosity has impelled the authors to elucidate a question which… Read More

Motif Editions. No binding. Fine. Andy Warhol (producer) [London]: Motif Editions, 1970. Vintage original 30 x 20" (76 x 51 cm.) British poster. Unfolded, fine. Andy Warhol's massive 3 1/2-hour film Chelsea Girls was meant to be presented on two screens with only one of the two available soundtracks being played (the projectionist could choose which two soundtracks to use). The film had some kind of truncated showing in London soon after the New York premiere in 1966.In 1968 it received its first intact screenings in London, with the two screens simultaneously showing the different reels of film as intended. For that four-day event, pop illustrator Alan Aldridge created this poster for the London Arts Laboratory. The young woman in it is Chare Shentsone, 16, a budding artist who later became close to Francis Bacon. There was an edition of this poster printed in 1968 to be posted outdoors over London. No examples of that 1968 printing are known to have surfaced. Then, in 1970, Aldridge authorized this… Read More

197 leaves. Folio (12 ¾" x 8 ¾") bound in half cloth over beige cloth. This book holds all the closed loans in Puebla in the year 1606-1660. All these loans were handled by Convents or Capellanías. It's an interesting and early item that sheds light on how the churched worked in the colonial era, and it also provides a lot of information about properties and life in the XVII century in Colonial Mexico.
This volume records censos finalized in the year 1660, including some which originated as early as 1606. Most documents begin on a piece of sealed paper, extend to approximately 2 to 14 leaves, and conclude with docketing on the verso of the final leaf noting "senso" or "chancelacion."
By the last third of the eighteenth century, the various elements that had permitted the church to flourish economically—crown support, creole largesse, Indian and Black labor—began to come apart. At first, because of the peculiar way in which the church was involved in colonial economy and society, the clergy… Read More

Louisville, KY: Courier-Journal Job Printing Company , 1903. Broadside poster printed in black type of different sizes, 28" h x 10 1/4" wide, 6 horizontal folds, Very Good, two 1" tears at right edge, soiling at verso of bottom folded section. The printed admission price of 25 and 35c has been marked out in black ink with a reduced price of 10 - 15c written in. A broadside for the itinerant showman Samuel Gillock, Exhibitor. "Given under the Auspices and for the Benefit of The Choir At Centenary M. E. Church Friday Evening March 20". Likely the Centenary M. E. Church in downtown New Albany, Indiana, located across the river from Louisville where the broadside was printed. No year date, but Edison invented the concert phonograph in 1899, producing newer versions until 1906, and the first Friday, March 20 following 1899 was in 1903. "In the largest churches or halls. Everybody delighted with Mr. Edison's new improved Concert Phonograph. By means of a large microphone… Read More

[Philadelphia: John Binns, 1828. Folio Broadside, 11" x 19." Printed in three columns, each separated by a rule. Macabre relief cuts of six black coffins within the title. Repaired horizontal and vertical closed tears on blank verso; several small holes have slight effect on several letters. Light toning. Good+ copy of a rare, dramatic broadside. "As we soon expect to have official documents in relation to the SIX MILITIA MEN, arrested, tried, and put to death, under the orders of General Andrew Jackson, this may not be an improper time to give to the public some of the particulars of the execution..." The source of those "particulars" is the account in John Binns's 'Democratic Press.' The primary weapon of the anti-Jackson forces was his alleged impetuous, unrestrained, martial personality, utterly unsuitable for the presidency of a democratic republic whose success required respect for constitutional checks and balances. Jackson's indefensible shooting of the six militia men after the Battle of… Read More

Chicago: At the Sign of the Gargoyle, The Black Cat Press, The Norman Press and Normandie House. . A collection accrued over decades consisting of material produced by, or in conjunction with At the Sign of the Gargoyle, The Black Cat Press, The Norman Press, and Normandie House by Norman W. Forgue, bookmaker, typographer and founder of the above private presses. The collection includes about 150 Black Cat miniatures in a little glass front bookcase ( also made by Norman), RARE dioramas made by Norman and his wife Madeline (5 total, under the label Nor-Mad)), about 90 larger Black Cat, Norman Press, Normandie House, and At the Sign of the Gargoyle books, 60 pieces of ephemera including correspondence, catalogues, price lists, and receipts, 125 pieces of ephemera including Christmas cards, pamphlets, and announcements for publications, a unique salesman’s plaque with examples of 10 printed pages, a Black Cat Press printers block, and a first proof with numerous corrections of "The Miniature… Read More

Various Places: Various A remarkable collection amassed by a single collector from the 1940s-1970s whose original inventory sheet (included) lists 39,744 labels from 49 countries spanning the globe. The countries with the highest counts include Belgium, 8000+, France, 5100+, Spain, 4400+, and Switzerland, 3500+. The collector sent letters requesting their unused labels to wineries, breweries and distilleries. Consequently, almost all are unused and most are stored in the original contemporary return envelopes, with a count and sometimes a country on the outside for each envelope. A good number of duplicates and variants noted. Total inventory numbers not verified, although a good representative sampling of envelope counts confirms the accuracy of the count. Various sizes of labels, with complete bottle sets noted. Almost all are in Fine condition, with some creases and light wear from storage. The entire collection completely fills three bankers boxes. Provenance: from the original collector, Earl… Read More