Rare books from Michael Fagan Fine Art & Rare Books

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.

Paris: GLM, 1935 Quarto 24.5x18 cm., wrappers, 20(1)pp., loose as issued. No. 791 of 1000 copies on velin of 1220 overall. A very successful collaboration of poet and photographer, with extraordinary sensuous photos of Eluard’s wife Nusch coupled with page design incorporating the poetry cycle therein. It is rightly acclaimed as one of the greatest surrealist publications. This is a fine, crisp copy, in custom clambshell box bearing hand-tooled leather spine.

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: Jan Fromek, 1929 Octavo, original wrappers bound in full calf boards, top edge gilt, 123(v)pp. No. 68 of 150 copies on antique paper, from an edition of 300 numbered copies. Selected poems from Lautréamont's proto-surrealist classic, translated into Czech by Jindrich Horejší with Karel Teige's and Philippe Soupault's collaboration. The first illustrated edition to reach publication, with twelve 2-color lithographs by Jindrich Štyrský. It includes a 30-page postscript by Teige who also designed the cover, typography and plates. The book was released in the early spring of 1929 and sold out before it was censored by authorities a few months later. The belated censorship and confiscation attempts resulted in an uproar. This is a landmark publication and a fine document of the creative ferment of the Czech avant-garde. It signaled a shift of focus in the movement of the Poetism spearheaded by Teige, Toyen and Nezval in the Devetsil movement to embracing… Read More

Paris: GLM, 1939 Small octavo 16x11.5 cm, wrappers, 10pp. No. 304 of 500 on velin blanc. As new, an uncut copy.

Prague: F.J. Muller, 1935 Octavo 21x15 cm., wrappers, 144(2)pp. Cover with drawings by Josef Sima, frontispiece by Picasso. Nezval's famed chronicle of a mental disorder serving as a basis of self-inquiry laced with a surrealist exploration of woman/ muse. Translation by Vitezslav Nezval, M. Hlavka and B. Vanicek. Josef Sima and Nezval were both close friends with Breton and fellow surrealists. Includes the illustrations and markings that appear in the French text. Fine full cover design with metallic ink by Sima. OCLC finds 5 North American library holdings for this work.

Belgrade: Izdali Desetodnevo, 1924 Quarto 24x17 cm., wrappers, Numbers 1-8 (all published); illustrated. A surrealist literary journal. The title is roughly equivalent to the French témoignage, a loaded surrealist term for testimony. Svedocanstva emerged as the first surrealist journal in Yugoslavia, and stands with the single-issue Nemoguce (L'Impossible) as the chief outlet and documentary source for surrealist activity in the Balkans. Contributors include Yugoslav authors Marko Ristic, Milan Dedinac, Alksandar Vuco, Mladen Dimitrevic;, Milovoje Stepanovic;, Milan Dedinac, Tin Ujevic, in addition to editors Matic, Vuco and Petrovic; some exchanges with French surrealists Breton, Henri Nouveau inter alia, illustrations by Surrealist artists including Picasso which he contributed specifically for this journal. Issue no. 1 from November 1924 with the article Nadrealizam is considered the starting point of Serbian surrealism. This number also include Breton's first Manifesto and the first news about… Read More

Scarce, important Polish interwar periodical of the artsQuarto 24x17 cm., original wrappers in cloth, 656pp. Skamander was one of the most important literary journals of interwar Poland. It appeared from 1920-28 and 1935-39. Five leading poets composed the core of the editorial team: Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, Jan Lechon, Julian Twim, Antoni Slonimski, Kazimiersz Wierzynski. In the initial period, the magazine's profile was closely related to the activities of the Skamandrites - it was their tribune, opposing other literary groups of that period. The situation changed after 1935, when the scope broadened to include visual arts, theater and drama and new writers, including Gombrowicz and Bruno Schulz. The Schulz masterwork Sanitorium Under the Hourglass premiered over time in its pages. We offer here the complete year of this premier literary and artistic journal (12 numbers in ten issues) which showcased Polish modernism in all the arts. The present volume features first appearances of works by Gombrowicz… Read More

Prague: F. Borovy, 1921-44; 1946-48, 1921 Quarto, octavo, various original bindings (boards, cloth and wrappers). Zivot (Life) was an important art journal, various editors, running from 1921 to 1948 except for 1945. In 1922 under the editorship of architect Jaroslav Krejcar and Karel Teige, it became briefly a flagship of the avant-garde and arm of Devetsil, and that annual is much sought-after with important articles and graphics heralding the Devetsil movement. There it announced Czech art and design to be in synch with the leading experiments in international modernism. Some years were released as annuals alone, others came in segments of ten issues. The journal’s subtitle ranges from „Art Review“ to „Review of Art & Literature“ to „Papers on the Fine Arts and Artistic Culture“ with a few further variants. Aside from the 1922 edition, it was generally dedicated to all aspects of art history, with emphasis on more recent developments but as a continuum with… Read More

Tokyo: Han Geijutsu, 1934 Quarto 28x20.5 cm., wrappers, 20 leaves, edition of 400 copies. Han geijutsu was a periodical which featured graphics by contemporary Japanese artists from 1930 to 1936. This issue is devoted to Onchi Koshiro, with a two-color woodcut cover and twenty woodcuts, all starkly modernist and abstract. No library holdings for this issue found outside of Japan. This copy with light foxing on front cover, interior near fine.

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).

Octavo 20x14 cm., wrappers, 61(4) pp. 512 copies. Fabry´s book debut. Cover design and typography by the author. Rudolf Fabry (1915-1982) was a poet and surrealist artist, the first to be acknowledged in Slovakia and one of the most significant in both fields. The present work was the first surrealist novel in Slovak and it also is rated the author's most important in terms of form and content. It has been reprinted in postwar editions in different formats. This first edition is uncommon on the market; Worldcat indicates it is held by two institutions worldwide (UCLA, BL).

The only full publication of this legendary journal of the Slovak avant-gardeLarge quarto 34.3 x 25 cm, cloth, 1496pp. The reprint* of the legendary, most radical journal of the Slovakian avant-garde which appeared from 1924-26 and 1931-37 (here all published). It began as an artistic venture by the Davisti group of artists, writers and intellectuals spearheading the latest Slovak arts and literature. Always leftist in persuasion with Vlado Clementis as publisher, it went to a more political direction after three years and leaned to Soviet policy. Clementis himself was in and out of favor with Moscow. He objected to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, exiled in Paris and London during the war. Returning afterward he became Czechoslovak Foreign Minister in 1948 and in 1952 was arrested with Slanský, from that he was convicted and hanged. He was rehabilitated in 1963, which enabled this production to go forward by the Slovak Academy of Sciences with his name now acceptable..
During its first period it… Read More

Portfolio of original woodcuts by Josef Váchal
Woodcuts to Mystics and Visionaries. A Cycle of Woodcuts from the Period of 1911-1913. Folio in wrappers (21-5/8 x 15-3/8 inches), prints are 8-1/4 x 8-1/4 inches. Five woodcuts saluting the life of mystics and seers: Strom Života (The Tree of Life), Cornelius Agrippa, Jakob Boehme, Angelus Silesius and Katařina Emmerichová, all loose as issued, in paper folio with titles and artist's signature on rear cover. Each print bears Váchal's blind-stamp. These were selected from the original printing of ten images under the title Mystikové a visionaři. A number of books and catalogues attribute one image from this set to William Blake, from the mistaken attribution in the great 1994 Váchal memorial exhibition. That refers to another of the original ten and we offer it separately; please inquire. The edition itself, without note of limitation, comes from a later date than the first release in 1913 and was released sometime around 1923. This later… Read More

Chernov's first published collection of poems written earlier in Ukraine from 1921 to 1923. Chernov (1899-1933) was a Ukrainian Futurist who initially wrote in Russian. He spent a year in Vladivostok during years of peregrination across Russia and ended up in India where he contracted tuberculosis and was forced to return, settling in Odessa. From there he worked with his fellow Futurists, now writing in Ukrainian and writing prose and poetry. He was part of the Nova Heneratsiya and Avangard group activities in Kharkiv until his death. His work was withdrawn and banned in 1934 and much of his work only released after 1992. With a fine constructivist cover by Pavel Liubarskii (1891-1970), graphic designer from Khabarovsk who allied with Futurists while studying in Moscow, then returning to the Russian Far East where he collaborated in the productions of Taifun and Tvorchestvo journals, issuing expressionist prints and holding exhibitions. He was highly influential in the Green Cat group of experimental… Read More