New York: Béatrice Coron, 2013. Paperback. 1 of 12 copies. A collaboration between Béatrice Coron and Shirley Sharoff. Christina Favretto, Head of Special Collections at the University of Miami describes her work in Coron's "artfragments" portfolio: "There is a palpable joy in the work of Béatrice Coron, the kind of joy we felt as children in unwrapping a particularly enticing holiday gift. But...for Béatrice the gift is a sheet of Tyvek...or paper, and the stories to be unearthed and unleashed within and through the medium." Coron describes her book work: "For the last 20 years, I have been exploring visual storytelling in artist books, paper cutting and public art. Collecting memories from individuals and communities, I stage narrative allegories in silhouette to create a dialogue with the viewer in playful fantasies. These visual chronicles record archetypal stories that transcend time and space. I have been fascinated by the relation of people to their space and the sense of belonging. Using papercutting where everything is cut from a single piece of Tyvek, the profusion of individual stories makes a coherent whole world." [From her website]. Hand-cut on paper. Size: 6 x 10 x .5 inches. ARTB/081921. Fine. More

New York: Béatrice Coron, 2016. Paperback. Number 3 of 3 copies. This intricate work created by Béatrice Coron beautiful displays her skill and artistry in papercutting. A sea blue book case opens to reveal the mystery, diversity, and wonder of the Galapagos through Coron's hand cut creation, made from a single sheet of black Arches paper. The individual pages unfold to show a scene 44 inches long. The viewer sees silhouettes of water, land, birds, sea creatures, and more. Coron describes her book work: "For the last 20 years, I have been exploring visual storytelling in artist books, paper cutting and public art. Collecting memories from individuals and communities, I stage narrative allegories in silhouette to create a dialogue with the viewer in playful fantasies. These visual chronicles record archetypal stories that transcend time and space. I have been fascinated by the relation of people to their space and the sense of belonging. Using papercutting where everything is cut from a single piece of Tyvek, the profusion of individual stories makes a coherent whole world." [From her website] Christina Favretto, Head of Special Collections at the University of Miami describes Coron's work in Coron's "artfragments" portfolio: "There is a palpable joy in the work of Béatrice Coron, the kind of joy we felt as children in unwrapping a particularly enticing holiday gift. But...for Béatrice the gift is a sheet of Tyvek...or paper, and the stories to be unearthed and unleashed within and through the medium." Size: 8 x 44 inches when unfolded. 5.5 x 8 inches when folded. In fine condition. ARTB/081921. Fine. More

New York: Béatrice Coron, 2001. One of 12 copies. In this lovely book Béatrice Coron illustrates and decorates this poignant poem, "Sardines a l'Huile" (Sardines in Oil) by Georges Fourest. Fourest (1864-1945) was a well-known French writer and poet. His poem describes the sad fate of sardines in their oil filled tins and imagines them freed after death to ascend to a paradise for fish where they may swim and pray for us. Coron combines her papercutting artistry with handmade papers for this book. Ink jet printed. In a cloth covered binding with a cut-out to front cover to display the title. The rear pastedown has a surprising color diorama of fish swimming in the sea. A silver string with a tiny metal fish attaches the text pages to the binding. In fine condition. Measures 5 x 6 inches.  Coron describes her book work: "For the last 20 years, I have been exploring visual storytelling in artist books, paper cutting and public art. Collecting memories from individuals and communities, I stage narrative allegories in silhouette to create a dialogue with the viewer in playful fantasies. These visual chronicles record archetypal stories that transcend time and space. I have been fascinated by the relation of people to their space and the sense of belonging. Using papercutting where everything is cut from a single piece of Tyvek, the profusion of individual stories makes a coherent whole world." [From her website]. ARTB/081921. Fine. More

New York: Béatrice Coron, 2013. Paperback. Number 6 of 6 copies. This is an inventive book that renowned book artist Béatrice Coron did with her frequent collaborator, the poet Mick Stern. In his poem, Stern asked an onion, "Who am I?" The onion replies by instructing the seeker to look inside of the inside; peel away name and address; peel off family, country, religion; remove language, gender, and race; teling the seeker that he is left as a tear that dried on his mother's cheek as she chopped an onion. Coron's illustrates the poem by cutting an onion shape on each page that gets smaller as the pages are turned. The shape on the last page is the mother's tear. Coron describes her book work: "For the last 20 years, I have been exploring visual storytelling in artist books, paper cutting and public art. Collecting memories from individuals and communities, I stage narrative allegories in silhouette to create a dialogue with the viewer in playful fantasies. These visual chronicles record archetypal stories that transcend time and space. I have been fascinated by the relation of people to their space and the sense of belonging. Using papercutting where everything is cut from a single piece of Tyvek, the profusion of individual stories makes a coherent whole world." [From her website]. Hand-cut on textured white Fabriano paper. Housed in a yellow paper sleeve with a cut-out revealing the onion shapes of the book's pages. In fine condition. Size: 6 x 7 inches. Unpaginated [13 pages printed on verso only]. ARTB/081921. Fine. More

Maureen Cummins, 2021. Hardcover. Number 8 of 20 copies signed and numbered by the book artist. Maureen Cummins is a noted creator of artists' books. Her work is held in over one hundred permanent public collections internationally and has been included in exhibitions at the American Craft Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Rotunda Gallery (amongst others). She has received over a dozen grants and awards and has been an artist-in-residence at numerous venues, including the American Antiquarian Society and the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Maureen writes about this compelling work: "This edition is based on a unique book of the same title created for an exhibition of the artist's work, "ReReading Disaster," which was held in the spring of 2021 at Woodstock Artists Association and Museum. ReCategorized was inspired by, and made use of, original press photographs that depicted displaced war refugees. Most prints were purchased from Historic Images. The images in this edition were scanned and digitally reproduced and mounted onto handmade sheets of St. Armand black." The book explores the challenges faced by librarians in creating classification systems for materials, especially ones that involve human subjects. "While collecting documents about displaced populations for the Friends, Peace, and Sanctuary project, Cummins found herself intrigued by the backs of press photographs. These surfaces resembled twentieth-century collages, with pasted-down copies of printed articles, rubber stampings, and handwritten classifications for filing purposes. As she examined these texts and images, Cummins noticed not only the reporters’ red-baiting and jokey racism (the headline “Sun-thing in the air” was used to describe a displaced Vietnamese woman wearing a conical Asian hat), but another, more subtly disturbing pattern: descriptors used by cataloguers to identify subjects in the photographs, intended to facilitate easy retrieval, were later, as events progressed, crossed out and altered. For example, “KW-destinations,” “Vietnam-People,” “Germany-East-People,” and Pakistan- People,” became, respectively: “KW-Refugees,” “Vietnam-North-Refugees,” “Germany- East-Refugees,” and simply “Refugees.” In all but one of the twelve examples included in the book, the word “people” was changed to “refugee;” in other cases, nuanced descriptors such as “war” and “revolt” were eliminated, along with the names of destination countries and countries-of-origin. Like the experience of war and trauma itself, rich human lives were reduced to and defined by loss. For this edition, high quality digital prints, scanned from documents used in the original book, were tipped onto pages of St. Armand black, a deeply saturated paper handmade in France. The title page of each copy also incorporates a unique piece of printed matter pulled from a historical press photograph" [From the prospectus]. Bound in cream cloth with black cloth spine and title label to front cover. In fine condition. The book measures 11 x 15 inches. 32 pages, ARTISTSB/102121. Fine. More

Paris: Sebastien Hure, 1652. Uncommon edition of the author's writings. Francois de Sales (1567 – 1622) was a Bishop of Geneva and is revered as a saint in the Catholic Church. He became noted for his deep faith and his gentle approach to the religious divisions in his land resulting from the Protestant Reformation. He is known also for his writings on the topic of spiritual direction and spiritual formation, particularly the Introduction to the Devout Life and the Treatise on the Love of God. This edition from Sebastien Hure is an important one. It is a comprehensive compilation of the writings of de Sales, and includes engravings and decorated initials in the Introduction to the Devout Life (Introduction a la Vie Devote) and the Treatise on the Love of God (de l'Amour de Dieu). The letters offering spiritual direction are also a major portion of this volume. Bound in contemporary full brown leather. The leather is chipped, rubbed, worn, and bumped. Chipping along edges reveal the boards underneath. Raised bands and red label to spine. Front hinge has cracked open but text block is still tightly holding to the cords. Page ends were marbled but marbling has faded. Marbled paper pastedowns but marbled free endpapers presumedly missing. Light dampstains to the subject index. Browning and spotting throughout text but pages are still quite legible and relatively clean. Small stamp of Library Sulpician Seminary Washington, DC.Text is printed in two columns that are individually numbered.There are 2308 columns or over 1000 pages. A separate index of subjects of about 70 pages refers the reader to the relevant text column number. Very good. Measures 10 x 15 x 3.5 inches. Heavy book requiring extra postage. REL/102021. More

Sebastopol, CA: Deeply Game Productions, 2020. Hardcover. Number 4 of 20 copies. Signed by the book artist. From the preface: In the 19th and early 20th centuries a great many people were fooled into believing that "spirit photographers" were able to pierce death's veil to document the ghosts of lost loved ones. "These photographers, also known as mediums, used double exposures and other tricks to manufacture the supernatural encounters. Their popularity attests to the power of love and loss in people's lives then and now. The hauntings were real, even if the ghosts were not. We are haunted still, and not just by love and loss. This book makes visible some of what bedevils us - psychological demons; social & factual distortions; the force & folly of the culture around us." For this compelling book, the artist produced plates using paint, camera, and ink to create specters - haunting figures - immaterial subjects that comprise both fact and fiction, encompassing both the rational and absurd. The apparent spectral images in the plates are able to be identified using a fold-out guide that provides keys to the bedevilments that haunt each image. Key words (or "bedevilments") include: fake news, extinction, lonliness, police murder, rage, social distance, xenophobia, climate change, demise of democracy, etc.). The relevant key abbreviations are printed on the white page across from each of the images. The painted images in the plates were based on spirit photographs by Ada Deane, William Hope, Edward Wyllie, and others. Bound in dark blue cloth with silver titling to front cover. Letterpress printed using News Gothic and Century Schoolbook fonts designed by Morris Fuller Benton. In fine condition. Measures 8 x 11 inches. [38 pages] ARTISTSB/120321. Fine. More

Paris: F. Kellerhoven, [1861]. Hardcover. A beautiful book with chromolithographs that are based on the paintings at the Sainte-Ursule Church in Cologne. The text and plates in this work were previously unpublished. "Saint Ursula is a legendary Romano-British Christian saint who died on 21 October 383. Her legendary status comes from a medieval story that she was a princess who, at the request of her father King Dionotus of Dumnonia in south-west Britain, set sail along with 11,000 virginal handmaidens to join her future husband, the pagan governor Conan Meriadoc of Armorica. After a miraculous storm brought them over the sea in a single day to a Gaulish port, Ursula declared that before her marriage she would undertake a pan-European pilgrimage. She headed for Rome with her followers and persuaded the Pope, Cyriacus, and Sulpicius, bishop of Ravenna, to join them. After setting out for Cologne, which was being besieged by Huns, all the virgins were beheaded in a massacre. The Huns' leader fatally shot Ursula with an arrow" [Wikipedia]. Bound in three quarter red leather with marbled paper boards and endpapers. The leather is chipped, bumped, and rubbed. Edges of paper boards are chipped and worn. Hinges are tender but text block is tight. This book's appeal are the twenty-one gorgeous chromolithographic plates by Hangard-Maugé. The plates are in very good to near fine condition despite the foxing and offsetting to their tissue guards. Text pages are generally clean with aging to page edges and occasional spotting. Ownership signature dated 1945 on half-title and bookplate on ffep. Very good. Quarto. 218 pages. REL/101221. Very Good. More

US: Fine Press Book Association, 2002. Hardcover. Deluxe edition issued in hardcover. In original olive green cloth covered slipcase with decorative green paper covered side panels featuring illustrations of frogs. Includes supplemental portfolio of printed pieces. The portfolio for this issue includes pieces from the following presses: Arion Press, Bradypress, Bullnettle Press, The Hill Press, Lock's Press, Midnight Paper Sales, (M)other Tongue Press, Passim Editions, Robin Price, Sherwin Beach Press, Whittington Press, Yellow Barn Press. Clean and bright. 64 pages. BOB/102721. Fine. More

Moscow: Emil Goozairow, 2016. Emile Goozairow is a Russian artist who paints and draws, produces movies, and creates exceptional miniature handmade books that are printed on rare types of paper and published in limited editions. His techniques create unique designs that often are made with natural materials alone or in combination with relief decorations made from metal or polymeric clay. He creates books that he describes as "pop up," “kinetic carousel," “liporello” or “3D origami.” He also writes fairy tales, stories and mystical scenes. "A carousel is spinning, and golden sand like snow slowly falls. I saw a strange mysterious alphabet and all the characters fly into the sky ...." When each page is turned the revealed pages pop open with Emil's beautiful illustrations and text describing a fantastical dream. The covers are brown velvet with a relief polymer clay artistic design on the front cover. A wonderful and imaginative book. In fine condition. Measures about 2.25 x 3 inches. ARTB/102021. Fine. More

Paris and New York: Goupil & Co. and Charles Scribner's Sons, 1900. Hardcover. Number 376 of 1250 copies of the Memorial Edition. This handsome set provides a renewed understanding of Washington through the author's close examination of his letters and State papers, showing his relations to his contemporaries [Introduction]. Worthington Chauncey Ford (1858 – 1941) was an American historian and editor of a number of collections of documents from early American history. He served in a variety of government positions including as the chief of the Bureau of Statistics for the U.S. Department of State, at the U.S. Department of Treasury, and as chief of the manuscripts division at the Library of Congress. Ford was later the editor of publications of the Massachusetts Historical Society, which had elected him a member in 1900. He served concurrently as Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. Bound in three quarter red leather with red marbled paper boards. Light wear to edges of covers and spines but still very good. Hinges are tender but interior pages are in near fine condition. Numerous illustrations in both volumes of Washington, his wife, and various luminaries of the time. The end of each chapter has an engraved tailpiece. A slip of paper affixed to each front pastedown offers a note about the book's provenance: "This book belonged to Carl Schurz whose library I acquired September 5th 1924. Paul Steinbrecher." Carl Schurz (1829 – 1906) was a German revolutionary and an American statesman, journalist, and reformer. He immigrated to the United States after the German revolutions of 1848–49 and became a prominent member of the new Republican Party. After serving as a Union general in the American Civil War, he helped found the short-lived Liberal Republican Party and became a prominent advocate of civil service reform. Schurz represented Missouri in the United States Senate and was the 13th United States Secretary of the Interior. Paul Steinbrecher (1878-1937) was a prominent Chicago real estate executive and very active in the Republican party and Chicago civic life. He was known as an avid book collector. A distinguished biography in very good + to near fine condition. Volumes measure 7 x 10.25 inches. Volume I: 303 pages; Volume II: 308 pages including index. PRESIDENT/101321. Near Fine. More

Philadelphia: McCarty & Davis, 1834. Hardcover. This comprehensive compilation provides a memoir of Benjamin Franklin through his letters and essays on any number of subjects. Volume II also includes much information Franklin's scientific experiments and inventions, with twelve plates offering illustrations. Bound in full tan leather with gilt titling on spine labels. Volumes are chipped, rubbed, and bumped. Marbled endpapers and endpages. Text pages have browning and foxing throughout but are still quite readable and clear. Printed in double columns. Plates are foxed but are legible and intact. The one map of the Atlantic Ocean and the gulf stream extends slightly beyond the page edges. Still a desirable set of this relative scarce work. Volume I: 624 pages; Volume II: 517 pages. AMERBIO/100321. Good +. More