Search Results: Authors starting with I from Michael Fagan Fine Art & Rare Books

Moscow-Leningrad: Teakinopechat', 1928 Octavo 18x13 cm., wrappers, 16pp. Glavlit A10279. Harry Piel (1892-1973) was a German actor on stage and film. He became a film idol during the 1920s. Unattributed photomontage cover. One library holding in North America (USC).

Small octavo 17x11.5 cm., wrappers, 166pp. In the original dust wrapper from F. Hoesick, Warsaw. Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz aka Witkacy (1885-1939) was an extraordinary gifted artist, photographer, dramatist, novelist and philosopher. He developed a fantastic expressionism and participated in the Formist group in Kraków from 1917 to 1919. Here he outlines his differences with all of the art theories and movements of modernism in general and breaks with Formist movement and its proponents. With his usual brilliance, he deconstructs all the foundations of modernism, in addition to throwing doubt on the validity of art in the current age altogether. For him, this ultimately led to an abandonment of conventional painting in 1924, when Witkacy opened his portrait shop with its peculiar set of terms for prospective clients, and experimented with various drugs and alcohol to explore unusual psychic states with his subjects, all meticulously noted on the works. His cynical attitude was foreshadowed in the… Read More

Brno: Katalepton, 1934 Octavo 20.5x12.5 cm., wrappers, 300 numbered copies. No. 3 of a bibliophile series issued by Katalepton. Frontispiece and cover design by architect Jaroslav Soldán. Author Otokar Žižka (1907-1963) was a poet from Břeclav. OCLC finds no record of this book; not found in NTC. Rare; this copy very good+.

Octavo, wrappers, (56)pp. Il'ia Erenburg (1891-1967) worked successfully as a fellow traveler journalist and essayist for the Soviet state and eased though the purges, becoming most famous for his anti-Stalinist novel The Thaw,in 1954. The present work with a fine cover design by El Lissitzky. Comprised of two short stories by Erenburg: Aktsionernoe obshchestvo Merkiur-de-Riussi and Opytno-pokazatel naia koloniia No. 62 . Both stories had been published four years earlier in a collection of six stories by Ehrenburg with illustrations by Lissitsky. (Six Tales with Easy Endings) in 1922. First edition thus. Worldcat locates only one North American holding for this edition (Harvard). A rare ephemeral publication.

Small octavo 17x13 cm., wrappers, 32pp. 5000 copies. Original red and black wrappers by Aleksandr Rochenko, with both front and rear covers forming a single composition. Here Rodchenko uses a photo of of his colleague Liubov' Popova in an extraordinary photomontage design. Il'ia Erenburg (1891-1967) is widely known for his essays and stories, but this is his singular foray as a critic of the cinema. He was actually quite drawn to it and had strong ideas which he wanted to put to work in screenplays which never reached daylight. As for the content of this work, it is one of the last free statements of the author without concern for censure, which soon came upon him from RAPP (Proletarian Writers Union) for his fiction, and which subsequently forced him to tailor his words to the authoritarian vise of Socialist Realism. The Rodchenko cover design is a tour de force of constructivist design. Worldcat locates this in 5 institutions (Getty, NYPL, Rochester, Harvard, Yale).

Quarto 30.5x22.5 cm., ½-cloth decorated boards, (96) pp. Edited by A. Babushkin, Foreword by Shapovalov. Illustrated with photomontages and photogravures by G. Sheifer and V. Fomin. A posthumous collection of Lenin's statements on the Red Army. During the Great Purges of the 1930s, Stalin attacked the Red Army. He executed her officers, fearful that they were plotting a coup. Leon Trotsky, who was the founder and commander of the Red Army during the Bolshevik Revoution, had been expelled from the Party in 1927 and forced into exile. He eventually landed in Mexico in 1937 and was assassinated there in 1940. The current work is Soviet propaganda, offered as revisionist history to conform to Stalin's attitude toward the venerated Russian military. OCLC locates three institutional holdings in North America (Cornell, Columbia, NYPL).
This copy very good+ with light cover soiling.

Budapest: Singer és Wolfner, 1909 (Meeting Cinderella. New novelettes by Béla Révész with drawings by Lajos Kozma). Folio 31 x 22.5 cm, two vols.,decorated boards, 158, 72pp. Book cover, interior decorations and page design by Lajos Kozma. Hungary, as the theoretical half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, began to participate vigorously in the Viennese secessionist movement by 1900 with distinctive achievements in the decorative arts, architecture and design. Produced in the peak of the era, this is a fine production with the particular flavor of the movement that sets Hungarian secessionism apart. Volume I provides the text with uncials by Kozma and the second volume consists of thirty full-page zincographs by him, plus an additional two as frontispieces for each volume. Kozma (1884-1948) first acquired fame for his visual gifts as a book artist before his renowned achievements as an advanced architect and designer of the 20s and 30s. These images, while clearly indebted to… Read More

Sofia: Paksalev, 1920 Octavo, wrappers, 80pp., with six linocuts, some in two-color, by Sirak Skitnik. Chavdar Mutafov (1889-1954) art theoretician, architect, critic. Collaborator in the Vezni and Crescendo journals, strong advocate for modernism and experiment in art. He was expelled from the Writers Union and jailed in 1945 and banned from publishing for life for breaking ranks with communist doctrine. The present work is expressionist prose sketches about encountering the Blaue Reiter and the works of Kandinsky and Marc while the author was studying in Munich. Sirak Skitnik (1883-1943) provided the artwork for this book. Skitnik was a artist, poet, and teacher who spearheaded new art and stage design in the interwar years. He is one of the topmost figures in the Bulgarian avant-garde. The present work is a most successful modernist venture in content and graphic design in Bulgaria; a signature work. Refs: Jacono: Bulgarian Modernism 2013, No. 4., Illustrated. Rare. OCLC finds three library… Read More

Prague: Družstevní Práce, 1934 Octavo, decorated cloth, 340(ii)pp. Book cover, book design and frontispiece by Mikulas Galanda. Kral' (1903-1955) was an American born Slovak writer whose family returned to Slovakia early on and lived in dire straits and ill health. Early contact with the Czech avant-garde writers Nezval, Neumann, Wolker et al and leftist orientation informed his writing with plight of underprivileged and suffering of war and capitalist exploitation. His work from the interwar years is acknowledged as his best. This novel published in Prague, in Slovak language and with Slovak-Czech dictionary for Czech readers. Mikulas Galanda was a noted Slovak graphic artist. Published in conjunction with Slovenia Grafia in Bratislava. This first edition not located in North American libraries.

Prague: Odeon, 1927 Octavo (18.2 x 12.5 cm), wrappers, 72pp., edition of 520 numbered copies on Japan Banzay paper. A bibliofile edition, with cover, title & 2 illustrations by Mrkvicka.

Prague? J. Hlavky, 1946 Octavo 20x14 cm., wrappers, 81pp. No.74 of 100 copies. (The Baptism of St. Vladimir, a Legend of Russian History) A commemorative volume, celebrating the centenary of Karel Havlícek Borovský (1821-1856), writer, journalist, critic , politician and publisher who headed the newspaper Národní Noviny, espousing liberal nationalist causes; He was arrested for his publishing efforts in 1851 and sent into exile in Brixen (now Italy) where he composed his most important works, including this long, ribald satirical poem. Borovský is revered as the leader of the Czech Renaissance of politics and culture. These late poems are a rallying point of Czech national identity and were published in his centenary year in several editions. The book is accompanied with ten drawings by Richard Lander, a member of the Linie group in Ceské Budejovice, who renders this in a modernist fashion and emphasizes the erotic aspects of the text. OCLC locates one copy in… Read More

Breclav: Vladimir Chlands, 1929 Quarto 27x20 cm., textured decorated wrappers, 49(4) pp. Second edition of 200 numbered copies, this second edition with Bartuska’s artwork. (The End of Celebrations) Otokar Žižka (1907-1963) was a poet from Břeclav who collaborated with Josef Bartuška and Linie Group in České Budějovice. Bartuška (1898-1963) is emerging as a foremost book artist, photographer and poet who was a central figure in the Skupina Linie organization; he pioneered new graphic design several decades ahead of his time. In the present work he contributed cover and four drawings. Three North American library holdings (PennState, UMI, Northwestern).

Prague: Frantisek Borovy, 1916 Octavo, wrappers, 154 (iv)pp. The first edition of this work, with six ink drawings by Vincenc Beneš. The most widely read and appreciated of Weiner’s expressionist collections, this work was written shortly after the author’s convalescence from a nervous breakdown he suffered at the front. The illustrations of Vincenc Beneš (1883-1979) are strong statements of the cubo-expressionist style he employed at that time. Beneš was an important figure during the Czech cubist period.

Prague: Fr. Borovy, 1920 Octavo,wrappers, 254pp. With 14 full-page illustrations by Josef Capek, 3 of which are linocuts and lithograph cover. Neumann wrote a series of essays on modern art which appeared in journals in the years 1913-1914, formulating a new sense of creation for Bohemia and ultimately the world. This "personal, engaged, combative" approach lay the groundwork for the postwar eruption of art and activism in Czechoslovakia. The collection was published for the first time here with Josef Capek's illustrations. Neumann (1875-1947) was a poet, journalist, translator and a main figure spearheading much of Czech modernism in his writings, especially during the early years of the First Republic of Czechoslovakia. He was a major component in the Tvrdosijni group after 1918 and supported the Devetsil program through the 1920s. Initially a recalcitrant and later dedicated Marxist, his polemics and experimentation gave way to Socialist Realism in the 1930s. An important document,… Read More

Prague: Sfinx, 1929 Octavo, dec. cloth, 231 (vi)pp. Karel Teige photomontage dust wrapper cover design. "Chronicle at the Turn of the Millenium" was one of Nezval's most popular novels and was issued in the Pyramid series edited by Emil Vachek.

Prague: Kuncir, 1920

Tbilisi: Lit. Gruzgiza, 1936 Small quarto, wrappers, 32pp. An program for the opera written by Georgian composer Mikeladze, with stage designs reproduced in full page color by Gamrekeli who also designed the cover. Gamrekeli (1894-1943) was a participant of the avant-garde in the USSR who created many works for the stage and for a time was highly experimental. Although the booklet was published in Tbilisi, it is in Russian language and was distributed in the opera season for 1936 in Moscow. Includes a synopsis of the opera, with photos of all the principals including composer, director and musicians; photo of Gamrekeli is included and a full-page photo portait of National Artist Z.P. Paliashvili. Also included is a four-page announcement of the general auspices under which the opera appeared, called A Decade of Georgian Art, for the 1936-37 season in Moscow. Worldcat finds no copies held in libraries or institutions for this title.

Ceske Budejovice: Okresni odborová rada ucitselká v Ces. Budejovicích, 1945 Octavo, wrappers, unpag (4)pp., 7 plates. An exhibition catalogue of work by the three artists Resková-Charypová, Režab and Švácha in memory of Emil Pitter, esteemed teacher and central figure of the Linie group in Ceské Budejovice. Includes poems by Oldrich Nouza and Josef Bartuška, and a short essay by Bartuška, list of works displayed and several reproductions. One copy found in regional Czech library only.

Paris: Rieder, 1927 Octavo 18.8x12 cm., wrappers, 256pp. The first edition of Istrati's biographical novel, in French language, No. 121 in an edition of 230. Uncut signatures, a fine copy in original glassine.

Wonderful childen's book in Yiddish by Mark EpshteynKyiv: Kooperativa farlag Kultur-Lige, 1924 Octavo 17x12.5 cm., Illustrated wrappers by Mark Epshteyn; , 18, [1] pp. A one-act children s play, Di farshterte khasene is about the bear's wedding, featuring the traditional Jewish figures of the shadkhn (matchmaker), badkhn (traditional wedding entertainer), and a klezmer band. In this story, the wedding is disrupted by insects who steal honey from the party. Kipnis (1896 1974) was a Jewish Ukrainian writer, noted for his contributions to Soviet Yiddish literature and his writing for children. Epshteyn (1899 1949) was a sculptor, painter, and stage designer who worked with Chagall, Lissitzky, and Al'tman. Futur anterieur: l avant-garde et le livre yiddish (Paris: Skira-Flammarion, 2009), cat. 95 (illustrated on p. 119). Worldcat finds four copies in North American libraries.