Books Flags
Tear Gas
Masks et al

1.
Film Reel
Kenneth Anger
Scorpio Rising, vintage print 16mm
n.d., c. 1963–1964
£1,000
28 – 29 minutes
Provenance: The LSD Library 

The inscription written in marker pen on the reel reads: “To Julio / Kenneth Anger”. Signed on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition La Chambre des Cauchemars: Peintures Inconnues d’Aleister Crowley at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, possibly June 4, 2008. The collector Julio Santo Domingo carried the film reel with him to the opening, where Anger was present for a film screening. Scorpio Rising is a high-tide mark from the flood of twentieth-century Western esoterica. A short avant-garde, homoerotic film featuring bikers and swastikas, the film is a queer classic hailed by Juan A. Suarez as “the most representative film of the 1960s American underground cinema” (Suarez, 2002) and by David E. James as “one of the half-dozen most important rock’n’roll films ever made” (James, 2017). The film is one of the first to have a full rock’n’roll soundtrack, including Elvis Presley’s “(You’re the) Devil in Disguise”, Ray Charles’ “Hit The Road Jack”, and Martha and The Vandellas’ “Heat Wave”. 

2.
Publication
Stan Brakhage
The Seen – Remarks following a screening of The Text of Light, SF Art Institute
Nov 18, 1974/5
Zephyrus Image
£300

A mesmeric book designed to impart a kinetic effect, echoing the refractions of the subject of the crystal ashtray in Stan Brakhage’s film The Text of Light (1974). Upon receiving copies of the publication from Zephyrus Image, Brakhage described it as being like “a showering rainbow”. This book was dedicated to Black Mountaineer poet Robert Duncan and his lover, the artist Jess.

3.
Publication
Lenny Bruce
Stamp Help Out! And Other Short Stories
n.d., c. 1961–1962
£575
Provenance: The LSD Library

A self-censored copy of a self-published book. Features a label covering Bruce’s genitalia on a nude image of him on a toilet, with numerous holes punched throughout. Includes a loose Thermofax type copy of an annotated galley or printer’s proof and a smaller fragment loosely inserted. Rare, as a working document towards a potential new edition, possibly doctored by Bruce himself or someone close to him, with interesting notes on the galleys. Some say he was prone to censoring profanity when he got the legal heebie-jeebies. “The Pot Smoker” is a satirical fumetto about a fictional addict called Russell Dreck that mocks 50s’ anti-cannabis propaganda films and moralising pseudo-documentary reports. Illustrated with captioned found photographs and staged reconstructions of the lives of “the poor souls involved with this living death.”

4.
Pamphlet
The Exploding Galaxy
‘The Bird Ballet’, A Cosmic Dance Drama, The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road, London NW1
Oct 20. 22. 26. 27. 1967
£200

A rare score for an all-night happening called ‘The Bird Ballet’ at the famous Roundhouse in London, in which many performance artists who were part of The Exploding Galaxy took on the personae of 62 real or imaginary birds to perform an improvised ballet masterminded by David Medalla. The audience was encouraged to come and go as they pleased, or to sleep if they wanted to. Performances lasted 8 hours. One account suggests that rock groups such as The Soft Machine, Graham Bond, and the Crazy World of Arthur Brown provided accompaniment throughout. 

5.
Publication
Helmut Kentler
Gruppensex: Eine Bildreportage
1970
£1,500
58 leaves, 15 x 21 cm

An important erotic photobook from Denmark, published in the throes of a Seksuelle Revolution, designed as two “experiments” in “group dynamics” that were staged in Copenhagen in June 1969. 

The expert ethnographic photographs look more like images from a professional fashion shoot than from a sexology study, capturing acts of disrobing, horseplay, ‘encounter’, nervous conversation, kissing, digital foreplay, congress, postprandial embraces and joints, and headshots of joy and reflection. The photographers wander amongst the orgy, disrobing and joining in, amidst bowls of fruit and beer and wine bottles scattered around an ultra white room with a large bed made of futons or a huge gym mattress covered in white sheets. The publication is evocative of John and Yoko’s Bed-Ins for Peace staged in March and April of 1969, mere months before the experiment took place. Indeed, the floor-mounted speakers suggest that some kind of pre-recorded rock music was played during the sessions.

The participants were blindfolded before the first of two seven-hour encounters and then allowed a glimpse of one other before the follow-up session. After a fortnight, the subjects met again and were interviewed in a follow-up study about their experience and quoted in the text. If the pictures are true depictions, the group had become a sort of sexual monad by the end of the second session, pleasuring each other communally in a meld of bodies.

6.
Paper Mask
KOMMUNE I.
Mask depicting Shah Pahlavi of Iran
n.d., circa June 1, 1967
N.F.S. (part of a larger collection under research)
Original political demonstration prop
42 x 21.8 cm

An original political demonstration prop featuring a Xeroxed line drawing portrait of the Shah Pahlavi of Iran, pasted onto a rectangular folding paper bag from a German bakery called Schwab. This is a very rare and sought after item; a copy was displayed in the V&A’s You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966-1970 exhibition. The mask is perhaps one of the most important artefacts representing the turn of the West German student-based counterculture in the sixties away from ‘street theatre’ towards the use of violence against a capitalist West Germany. These masks were made by Kommune 1 to use as props for a demonstration against the visit of the Shah of Iran and his wife to Berlin on June 2, 1967.

The demonstration ended in tragedy when mask-wearing students provoked the Shah’s traveling Iranian praetorian guard into violently beating them, with police acquiescence and cooperation, over rather mild verbal ridicule, paint bombs and the like. Later that evening, another tragic event unfolded outside the Berlin Opera House when university student Benno Ohnesorg was shot at a demonstration by a plainclothes policeman called Karl-Heinz Kurras. This was a decisive and pivotal day in German history: the student movement, together with others, were almost instantly radicalized and took a step towards debating the use of direct violent action.

7.
Poster
Atelier Populaire Comité d’Action XIVe
‘Alibi Du Capitalisme, Participation Ne Pas Avaler, PPF’
June 1968
£750
45 x 62 cm

An original handmade poster in gouache, ink and felt pen depicting a yellow tube with pills spilling out that was pasted on to an accumulation of five or so layers of posters on a wall or Morris column. The text roughly translates as ‘Capitalist Alibi Voter, Participation, Do Not Swallow’. The ‘PPF’, if that is what the acronym is, suggests the Nazi collaborator Jacques Doriot’s anti-semitic, fascist Parti Populaire Français. Or, if the acronym is ‘PPP’, this could denote the much-used poster slogan ‘Peugeot Patrons Police’, referring to the deaths of two strikers from police bullets. The phrase ‘Do not swallow’ was often used on silkscreened posters produced by L’Atelier Populaire de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris to denigrate the mass media as liars and keepers of the capitalist order.

8.
Poster
École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts
‘C’est en Arretant (Sic) Nos Machines Dans L’unité Que Nous Leur Demontrons Leur Faiblesse’
May 1968
£250
63.6 x 44.7 cm

The text on the poster roughly translates as ‘It is by stopping our machines in unity that we demonstrate their weakness’, thus resonating strongly with Berkeley student Mario Savio’s address delivered at Sproul Hall four years earlier: “you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels”.

9.
Gas Bomb
Anon.
CN 10-ACX-62
n.d. , after 1965 before May 1968
NFS
Original bombe de lacrymogène/ tear gas bomb
18 x 8 cm

The text on the canister written in block capitals in black felt pen reads: “Gare de Lyon 24/5/68” denoting its use in a student-police confrontation in May 1968. Clouds of smoke and gas typify the gritty photo reportage of the events of this period. The item is as French as Gitanes and the Bleu de France decorating the canister.

10.
Bandana
Anon.
Une CRS
May or June 1968
£1, 200
B&W photo silkscreened in black on white cotton
43 x 47.5 cm

An atmospheric black and white image by an unknown photographer, taken from behind ‘enemy’ lines depicting the CRS (riot squad in this context) mustering on or blocking Rue de l’ancienne Comédie. The bandana is an indispensable part of the street fighting wo/man’s costume for anonymity, protection against gaz lacrymogène (tear gas) and of course, a ‘Viva Zapata’ like style (replaced in the 70s by the radical Middle Eastern chic of the keffiyeh).

11.
Bumper Sticker
Michael Myers & Stephen Vincent
‘Bodyguards Make Better Lovers’
n.d., c. 1974
£50
46.9 x 13.9 cm
Provenance: LSD Library

The gun was recycled from Michael Myers’ design for the upper wrapper of the Momo’s Press publication The Ballad of Artie Bremer that was themed after events surrounding the attempted assassination of Governor George Wallace in 1972. Stephen Vincent thought up the motto after learning of Susan Ford and Patty Hearst’s engagements to their bodyguards.

12.
Framed etching
Pierre Molinier
S.T. (Amoureusement)
1974
£500
Provenance: this copy loaned by Galerie A l’enseigne des Oudin, for Pierre Molinier at IVAM Centre Julio González, Valencia, 15 April – 21 June 1999, catalogue number 47, thence to JMSD and LSD Library.

13.
Flag
Partido Socialista Unificado
‘Cultura Es la Fuerza Revolucionaria / Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas Seccion Universitaria’ [Culture Is The/A Revolutionary Force / Unified Socialist Youth University Section]
n.d., c.1936-1939
£4,500
97.5 x 109 cm

An original banner dating from the Spanish Civil War, featuring an outlined red star appliqued in white cotton tape on a field of red, with the party acronym of the Partido Socialista Unificado and the name of the Unified Socialist Youth written below. Made from doubled red cotton sailcloth, with the slogan ‘Cultura es la Fuerza Revolucionaria’ (Culture is the Revolutionary Force) written on the reverse. From a cache produced for the liberal, communist, rural workers unions, ambulance companies, motorbike couriers, industrial trade unions, regional and other socialist entities involved in the conflict (minus the Anarchists and POUM). These items were discovered in a garage or car parts warehouse near Barcelona, circa 2009. As a whole, they offer a map of the Popular Front in action.

Most authentic handmade flags, pennants and banners from significant political and social revolutionary movements of the twentieth century are rare. Those dating from the 1936-1939 period when the Popular Front was fighting the Rebels are very rare indeed. Perhaps 90% of flags that have appeared on the open market have been bought and sold by this cataloguer, albeit in one fell swoop. They seem to have been fabricated collectively by cadres of seamstresses and sewing machinists working in groups in the round, like quilters perhaps. This flag was made by or for an important youth section of the Catalan Socialist party.

14.
Jo Thomas
[Unknown Photographer]
Original photographs
Young European Kif and Hashish Smokers in Morocco
n.d., 1960s
£1,000
Set of 10, 24.2 x 29.8 cm
B&W, possibly gelatin prints, with sellotaped captions (made from clipped photocopies of a typescript) on versos in French, recently strengthened with archival tape.

We can find no trace of Jo Thomas, perhaps the eminent journalism professor and New York Times writer, who was covering this story, nor is it known where the photographs might have been published. The text and style, however, are reminiscent of the so-called ‘maverick’ magazine Le Crapouillot, which had published a special issue on LSD in 1967.  It is speculated that these photographs may have come into Julio Santo Domingo’s LSD Library along with original print production, art and manuscript material from the former editors of Le Crapouillot.

The verité style images depict hippyish long-haired young men and women “Au Cours de ‘parties de drogue’ collectives” (in the course of collective drug games), alone or in couples in Marrakech sat at café terrace tables strewn with empty Coke bottles and smoking chillums (“la pipe spéciale pour le chanvre indien qui est fabriqué en Afghanistan”/ the special pipe for Indian hemp that is made in Afghanistan), long, indigenous Kif pipes and/or “grosse cigarettes du haschich mélange au tabac, passent après chaque bouffée” (joints rolled with tobacco and dope and passed around after each hit). It is noted in the annotations that cannabis can make young women laugh and stumble. A simpler time is depicted from the early backpacking movement when thousands of students went to the nearest ‘exotic’ place from Europe accessible with a railcard, a ferry and a sweaty ride on the Marrakesh Express to smoke weak cannabis mixed with tobacco. One very evocative photo depicts a young group of Moroccan males sat in a circle in a Fes park smoking a Kif pipe, a view more usually associated with old men in cafés and at home.

15.
Poster
Peter Saville & Brett Wickens
‘Eat Yourself Fitter at the Canteen’
n.d., from or after 1983
£675

An original ‘blank’ club night promotional poster for FAC51, The Haçienda filled in by hand in block capitals in black felt tip pen by Mike Pickering who has written “(Mike/Bar)” on the bottom right corner and “By Mike” on the reverse in Biro. By report, taken from the wall of The Canteen at The Haçienda. This copy holds significant cultural associations (Pickering was a Haç DJ and Factory worker who signed the Happy Mondays) and has an evocative and humorous inscription that references the song “Eat Y’Self Fitter” by The Fall from Perverted by Language.

16.
Book
Austin Osman Spare
A Book of Satyrs
1907
£3,500
First edition, published by London, Co-Operative Printing Society Ltd.
Edition: One of 300 numbered copies
Provenance: The LSD Library circa 2006

Signed by the author and designated with the Masonic symbol ‘∴’, this presentation copy was gifted by the author five years after publication to his future mother-in-law. The full inscription written in ink (?) reads: “to Mrs Shaw with Best wishes Aug 28th 1911”. An evocative association, Spare married Eileen ‘Eily’ Shaw on September 4, 1911, shortly after the book was inscribed. The ‘∴’ is a Masonic symbol for great longevity and a mathematical abbreviation for ‘therefore’. It might also refer to Aleister Crowley’s holy order, the A∴A∴, formed in 1907. The volume is essentially an emblem book full of densely woven imagery, profoundly indebted to G.F. Watts.

17.
Box*
Philippe Starck
Chez 3 Suisses
1994
£3,000
First edition
80 x 63 x 9 cm
One of only 500 copies
*Box contains: folder of loose folded architectural plans, blank notepad, facsimile scrapbook, VHS videocassette, hammer, rolled small French flag on pole, all held within recessed individual bays cut out of brown corrugated cardboard; each with a printed label, within a purpose-built hinged light oak box.

The visionary French designer Philippe Stark only permitted one numbered house to be built per box in France. If the box owner wanted to build two houses, a second box had to be purchased. The Starck House has an almost cult-like following, partly due to the satirical way it was marketed: the box was originally sold for 4900 French francs in 1993-1994 through a dedicated catalogue by a French mail-order company. Starck wanted to make cool, spacious houses available to people who, because of financial necessity, bought “a house that costs $100,000 that looks like bullshit” (Starck, 2007, Starck Speaks Politics, Pleasure and Play, The New Architectural Pragmatism: A Harvard Design Magazine Reader, 2007). Starck referred to the house as the “best architecture I ever made, definitely the most advanced. It doesn’t look like something by Jean Nouvel or Zaha Hadid – it looks a little classic for the most advanced prototype of the modern house.” (op. cit.)

18.
Photocollage Letter
Russell Tamblyn
GEE
n.d., c. mid-1970s
£2,000
Provenance: the letter is to fellow Semina Circle poet and activist Jack Hirschman.

Mail art by Russell Tambyln on thin yellow-beige card with a border and a 78-word handwritten letter on the verso. The artwork is signed and titled by the artist in pencil on the lower border. This item holds several significant associations: In 1971, Tamblyn’s Skyline Press published Jack Hirschman’s artist’s book entitled HNYC; In 1979, Hirschman published a homage to the filmmaker and artist Wallace Berman entitled Frammis, released to coincide with a retrospective of Berman’s work at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

The photo-collage depicts a robed, masked figure with the letter ‘G’ hanging from a chain around his neck, holding a finger to his lips in a silencing gesture. The central robed figure is taken from a symbological portrait of Aleister Crowley as ‘The Silent Watcher’ facing page 6 of Volume I, Issue 1 of the occultist’s zine The Equinox. The Official Organ of The A ∴ A ∴ The Review of Scientific Illuminism. Tamblyn is better known as “Riff”, the leader of The Jets in West Side Story (1957), and also appeared in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks (1990-91). After Dean Stockwell introduced Tamblyn to Wallace Berman he was inspired to move to Topanga Canyon to be near to him. He became a productive artist in a number of mediums including film, paint, assemblage and handmade postcard and mail art.

In his letter, Tamblyn reports that he has just arrived back from “doin’ a singin’, tap-dancin’, comedy gig” in Canada and that it was “really dull so every night after the show I came back to the apartment and did collages.” He finishes the letter with: “Dean’s in Las Vegas, Elizabeths in the Kitchen, & I’m on the John!” (i.e. Elizabeth Kempton, Tamblyn’s second wife).

19.
Book
Diter Rot a.k.a. Dieter Roth
[Daily Mirror] Gesammelte Werke, B.d. 10.
1970
£1,600

Book in the original illustrated paper wrapper with original yellow corrugated card cover, features one miniature Daily Mirror newsprint book inserted into a recess. From an edition of 1,000 copies with 200 deluxe copies, which were signed and numbered by the artist, with a further signature and date on the mini-book. This copy – a variant of a quadratbuch or ‘square book’ published by de Jong Hilversum 1961 and reconfigured as an artist book – is not signed or numbered and was presumably printed out of series. Published simultaneously in Cologne, London and Reykjavik by Edition Hansjörg Mayer. Unlike much of Rot’s output, no fridge is required for storing this iconic book/object/multiple.

20.
Sticker
Michael Myers
Genuine Mormon
n.d., c. 1977
£50
Provenance: LSD Library

A sticker with text and dotted line printed in black on an original (slightly oversized) glossy ‘Crack-n Peel’ sticker format with rounded corners by Zephyrus Image in Utah. Kristin Haage, a friend of Zephyrus Image and former Utah resident, spoke to the Zephryus Image bibliographer Alastair Johnston about this item: “[Myers] had several other things… all this guerrilla stuff. We went round to all the Mormon sites – the temple, the genealogical society. They had these tables full of brochures and we added… to the piles of ephemera you could give away” (Johnson, 2003).

21.
Bag of pine nuts
Gary Snyder, Michael Myers, & Holbrook Teter
Gary Snyder Brand Pine Nuts… as eaten in Turtle Island. Try Ma Nominee’s favorite receipt: Lac du Flambeau!
1975
£575
Provenance: Zephyrus Image to the LSD Library.

This spoof bag of nuts containing two broken nuts was printed in San Francisco by Zephyrus Image and is an ingenious satire directed at Gary Snyder, one of the great Beat poets and an eminent literary voice speaking on ecological consciousness and Western Buddhism in the 70s. Snyder won a Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for his collection of poems entitled Turtle Island, which takes its title from the Native American name for the USA. The book is packed with campfire philosophy and wilderness lore. These packets of spoof nuts were largely distributed via ‘guerrilla’ actions by mixing them amongst other nuts in convenience stores along Geary Boulevard in San Francisco, stickered up at 25¢ apiece. Few packets survived beyond the point of sale as the purchaser would almost inevitably discard them. Some of the packets contained fragments of peyote and “two six-point em quads” (metal pressers used in letterpress typesetting) which are not very toothsome.

22.
Poster
Anton Heubler, Chief of Police
Office Chief of Police, St. Louis, January 17th, 1888. 100 DOLLARS REWARD for the arrest and detention, for extradition of Julius Klinz, age 23 years, 6 feet high… Uses morphine and carries a Hypodermic Syringe… Was born in Cologne, Germany… Gambles and is fond of Comic Opera. Charged with forging his employer’s name, Meyer & Bulte, of this city, for $1,000
n.d., c. January 1888
£1,500

A very rare wanted poster for Julius Klinz, featuring a black and white portrait signed by Klinz on the upper left corner, in a ruled box, issued from St. Louis, Missouri by The Office (of the) Chief of Police. Klinz was a baby faced morphinist who wore gold spectacles and a straw boater at a jaunty angle, looking much like a Princeton dandy without a care in the world. He allegedly came to America from Germany, where morphine was first named and synthesized, during the ‘Classic Era’ of narcotic use. He could be a character straight out of the pages of Jack Black’s You Can’t Win (1926), a tale of drug addiction amongst the rail-riding yeggs and fences of hobo America that was so much admired by William S. Burroughs (himself a hat-wearing, bespectacled dandy and Harvard alumni of good birth). Four years later, Klinz turns up as ‘Linz’ in the Police Gazette of Westminster, London on the run and charged with embezzling 18 shillings, described as wearing a “light grey suit, straw hat”.

23.
Poster
Michael Myers
Help Your Local Junkie Kick
n.d., c. 1970
£75
Provenance: LSD Library

This original fly poster with titles and a linocut illustration in green was published by Zephyrous Image in San Francisco. The poster features the most well-known image from the press. The titles are written in a weird ‘growing’ tendril font, which is echoed by the finely executed and detailed, phantasmagoric illustration below.

24.
Boxed Audio Cassettes
Various Authors
Behavioral Sciences Tape Library
n.d.
£200
Provenance: LSD Library

72 cassette tapes with labels held within six double-sided recesses of white vacuum-formed thermoplastic cases in blue glossy cloth-covered boxes, published by Fort Lee, New Jersey by Sigma Formation, Inc. The tapes include ‘Intensive Therapy’ studies on subjects such as schizophrenia, ‘tomboys’, child psychology, existential therapy, the counterculture, drug abuse, and a study on marijuana by American sociologist Erich Goode.

25.
Poster
Michael Myers – [International Harvester].
n.d., c. 1970
44.5 x 33 cm
£75
Provenance: The LSD Library

An original broadside in an unrecorded state with a central linocut in black within decorative green borders, a cannabis Sativa leaf on each corner and the International Harvester logo, printed on white paper. Published by Zephyrus Image in San Francisco.

26.
Book
Ludwig Harig – das fussballspiel, ein stereophones hörspiel [the game of football; a stereophonic play]
1967
32 x 33 cm
£500

This first limited edition of an artist’s book is one of 200 numbered copies signed by the artist on the colophon. The publication is formatted like a radio play script with a white plastic spiral-bound spine. Published in Stuttgart by Edition Hansjörg Mayer.

27.
Card
Maurice Henry – MM. Les Internes du Centre Psychiatrique Sainte-Anne vous prient bien vouloir assister au vernissage de la peinture murale collective exécutée par BOTT, CONDOY, DELANGLADE, DOMINGUEZ, FERNANDEZ, MAURICE HENRY, HEROLD, MARCEL JEAN, LOBO, MANUEL
14.2 x 10.7 cm
£425.00

28.
Book
Dieter Roth, Arnulf Rainer – Ratiobrief 1 – 3 [Wichtiger Geschäftsbrief / Importanter Businesbrief] (all published)
1976
296 x 210 mm
£1,000

First edition, printed photocopied text, holograph facsimile musical and other annotations and drawings in black ink, with a staple through the loose leaves in the upper left corner. Only 200 copies were published. The very rare zines were published simultaneously in Stuttgart, London and Reykjavik by the famous publishers Editions Hansjörg Mayer. This is Dieter Roth and Arnulf Rainer’s little-known satire on bureaucracy and junk letters, designed as a questionnaire with a series of questions and statements based on official versions. Each issue becomes progressively more bureaucratically nonsensical than the previous one until the questions, caveats, annotations, answers and doodles become a reductio ad absurdum.

29.
Book
Charles Radcliffe & Christopher Gray
Heatwave Number 2.
1966
4 to
£500

The rare sole edition of a two-issue Situationist serial illustrated throughout with mimeographed line drawings, including one published in London. The editorial, illustrated with a skull and crossbones, asserts that “we are living through the break-up of an entire civilisation”.

30.
Poster
SAN FRANCISCO DIGGERS. How Do You Want To Live? Free City Convention – May Day – Carousel Ballroom – Market & Van Ness – 7pm – Brings Some Food – A Vote For Me Is A Vote For You.
36.5 x 23.5 cm
1967
£100

Illustrated poster with a détourned San Francisco City & District emblem in black and red, encircled by stylized titles in red on cream paper. Published by the Diggers printer/publishers and tractarians known as the Communication Company for Mayday 1967. The Diggers emerged from an anarchist street theatre and mime troupe that in effect invented freeganism, organising free housing, clinics and giving away rescued food. The item is not available on www.diggers.org and is quite rare.

31.
Letter
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Letter from Birmingham Jail
First separate edition
Stamford Connecticut, The Overbrook Press
1968
£200
Fine condition
Small 4to., in original stiff printed wrappers, with titles and device in black on front cover, one of only six hundred copies printed for private distribution. Scarce, seven or so copies in US institutions (though some may be ebooks), one of those in the Martin Luther King Collection on Non-Violence in the Beloit College Libraries. No copy at Harvard or Columbia, which otherwise has the publisher’s entire archive.

Apparently the first separate printing in book form of, arguably, the most important written document of the Civil Rights era. This being a limited edition from an eccentric white-owned private press. Written on April 16, 1963, it is an open letter by Martin Luther King Jr. the media-savvy leader of The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, from a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama, where he was incarcerated for not securing a licence to parade (protest).

It is also known as ‘The Letter from Birmingham City Jail’ and ‘The Negro Is Your Brother’ and was printed at the time in a variety of national magazines including The Atlantic Review, with King including a version of it in his 1964 book ‘Why We Can’t Wait’. It was produced in reply to 8 white religious leaders who criticised the use of direct action against segregation in the streets of Birmingham, Alabama. King tacitly evokes the Gandhian strategy of pacifist disobedience, Christ’s “extremism”, Rosa Parks’ bravery etc. He openly denounces “white moderates” for their unwitting role in enabling segregation, thus:

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season”. Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection”

32.
André Breton
ЛЮБОВНАЯ ЛОДКА АЗБИЛАСБ О БЫТ.*
(Liubovnaia lodka razbilas / The love boat has crashed against everyday life)
*Title blocked in holograph Cyrillic
560 x 125mm
4ll
long galley proofs
£3,000
Crisp condition
Provenance: Bibliothèque Paul Destribats
4pp (foliation in marking up crayon), printed text on rectos, numerous corrections, strikethroughs, typographical excisions and replacements, and other holograph marginalia and corrigenda by the author. Largely marked up in blue ink, as well as green and red inks and blue crayon, signed in the plate by Breton.
N.p. (Paris), n.p., (Librairie José Corti), n.d. July 1930

This printed proof with corrections was presumably Breton’s final preparatory work for the text’s appearance in the first issue of ‘Surréalisme au Service de la Révolution’ (Surrealism in the service of the revolution), a periodical issued by the Surrealist Group in Paris between 1930 and 1933, on pages 16-22.

The text is a rather beautiful meditation and homage to the suicide of Soviet poet, playwright, artist, and actor Vladimir Mayakovsky. The title is derived from the last line from Mayakovsky’s poetic suicide note, written a few days before he died on April 14, 1930.  The title was published in the French translation and appears as an asterisked note in the printed text midway on the first galley. The French version is far more evocative and poetic than the English translation:

“La barque de l’amour s’est brisée contre la vie courante”
(The love boat has crashed against everyday life)

Though the essay is written as a vibrant homage to the dead poet, Breton’s proofing is rather less sentimental: he writes “lâche” (lose/let go) in one section in a thickly outlined box and adds a new section in a sort of inked balloon, one of two such major full sentences that altered the text considerably.

Breton had initially used the Spanish word “ABRAN” (open) to start the text, stating that he began writing at 9:15, followed by a line of seemingly random letters that have been aggressively boxed and crossed out with directions in the right margin and a line suggesting the holograph title above. In dense text, he digresses on the disordered flow of the news of the death of the poet and sanctifies poetry and love under communism. Mayakovsky is characterised as torn between his devotion to the collective cause and his individual fate.  An important text, here still in the throes of creation, examining the split between the creative life of a Surrealist and the political demands of the outer world.

33.
Book
Georges Hugnet, Eugène Berman (Illustrations)
Le Droit De Varech Précedé par Le Muet ou Les Secrets de la Vie, Illustrés de Cinq Lithographies de Eugène Berman
From the Edition De Tête of the first edition
£1,500
Crisp condition, endemic browning on spine
Provenance: Jean Petithory, Paul Destribats
From the Edition De Tête, the BNF copy seemingly from the trade edition.  A rare appearance in commerce, note that the two family copies from Christie’s Hugnet sale in 2015 were from the tranche of 65 on Vélin d’Arches and number 104 from the trade tranche of 400 on Alfa.

Tall 8vo., half-title, leaf with manuscript, title, section title, [1p.], pp-14-234, table, tirage leaf,  5 b&w hors texte lithograph plates interspersed throughout the text.  In the original card covers and overwrapper, titles and a device in black. Number 10 of 10 from the edition de tête with a page of manuscript from the text by the author, this, one of 500 numbered copies from a  complete run of 502 copies, with 25 copies on Hollande Van Gelder numbered 11 to 35, 65 on Vélin D’Arches numbered 36 to 100; all these first 100 are signed by both author and illustrator and contain Berman’s 5 lithographs. 400 copies without illustrations are on Alfa, numbered 101-400. There were also two copies legally deposited. Paris, Éditions de La Montagne, Presses de la Union Treize, February 8 1930.

In a polished leather and cream cloth-covered slipcase and uniform portfolio with gilt titles on spine, signed by H. Mercher in gilt on a pastedown of the portfolio. A signed, inscribed and dated presentation copy from the author to Jean Petithory. The full inscription, written in a bold hand in black ink on the half-title, reads:

“á Jean Petithory, dont l’amitié attentive m’est un bien précieux d’un coeur reconnaissant, Georges Hugnet, 24 juin 1964”. (“To Jean Petithory, whose attentive friendship is a precious gift to me of the grateful heart, Georges Hugnet, June 24, 1964”).

A wonderful association copy from the finest part of the edition with an original fair copy manuscript of page 205 by Hugnet, in its original state, loose in a good enclosure by a named French binder (a friend of Hugnet’s and his binder of choice). Petithory was an important avant-garde bookseller and Galleriste of the Librairie Galerie Les Mains Libres, who published Man Ray’s ‘Résurrection des Mannequins/Cadeau’ in 1966.  The great bibliographer Paul Destribats formed The Bibliothèque des avant-gardes, from which this book came, over a sixty-year period. Berman, who provided the illustrations, was an exiled Russian artist who is perhaps better known as a stage and costume designer for the great ballets of the twentieth century, a natural outlet for his neo-romantic painting style. Hugnet also collaborated on books with the German artist Hans Bellmer and many other great names from the Surrealist tendency.

34.
Publication
Vie Voluptueuse Entre Les Capucins et les Nonnes par la Confession d’un Frere de l’Ordre
[The Life Voluptuous amongst the Capuchins and Nuns by Confession of a Brother of The Order]
Second  edition. 12mo., frontispiece, 1 plate, Il., pp-2-96 plates in contemporary marbled pasteboards, gilt-stamped red leather label on upper board, gilt decorations on spine, handwritten classmark label on foot of spine and inside front pastedown, all edges red. Cologne [France], chez Pierre Le Sincere, 1759
£400.00

Commercially and institutionally rare clandestine printing. Three copies on Worldcat with one copy in the British Library. Dutel A-1167, Gay 1353 III, Kearney 1839, this edition not in Pia.  A strongly anticlerical libertine book that was highly illegal, hence the false Cologne imprint. One of the plates depicts a Capuchin monk and a nun caught in flagrante delicto. A colleague in the French trade suggests the author to be Chavigny de la Bretonnière, a monk of the congregation of Saint Maur. The Marquis de Sade is said to have held a copy of the first edition in his library.

Backstrip is chipped and cracked, gilt largely missing from spine, chipped classmark, with old bookseller notes in pencil on front pastedown. An unsophisticated copy possibly from a libertine or religious library. On the front inside pastedown, ‘37’ is written in sepia ink in an eighteenth-century hand, which accompanies the library label on the foot of the spine.

35.
Book
(DALI)
Deharme, Lise
Cahier de Curieuse Personne, Paris, Editions des Cahiers Libres, 1933
8vo. (172 x 112 mm). 50 leaves, inserted leaf with frontispiece; pp. 93, (iii)
£2750

Salvador and Gala Dali’s copy with a presentation from Lise Deharme. Half-title with ‘Du Même Auteur’ and list of works verso, leaf with monochrome frontispiece portrait of Deharme by Valentine Hugo verso, printed title with copyright verso, leaf with quotation and Deharme’s verse, leaf with ‘Table’ recto and verso, final leaf with justification and achevé d’imprimer. Original publisher’s pink printed wrappers with titles in black to front cover within ruled borders, title to spine and publisher’s vignette to rear wrapper. 

From the first edition limited to 310 copies, with this unopened copy one of 300 on ‘Ingres rose’ paper and with a presentation in purple ink from Deharme to Salvador and Gala Dalí on front free endpaper: ‘Pour le seul peintre / Dalí / Avec: l’admiration profonde / de son amie / Lise / Pour Gala tendrement’.

Lise Deharme, who published her first book ‘Images dans le Dos du Cocher’ in 1921 (her second book ‘Il Etait une Petite Pie’ with illustrations by Joan Miró is often – erroneously – described as her first) under her maiden name Lise Hertz, was a muse to the Surrealists and editor of Le Phare de Neuilly, a periodical published in the Paris suburb of Neuilly. Immortalised by Breton in ‘Nadja’ as ‘la dame au gant’, Deharme was a prolific poetess and novelist. ‘Cahier d’une Curieuse Personne’ was her third published book.   

36.
Book
(DALI)
Penrose, Valentine
Herbe à la Lune, Avec une Préface de Paul Eluard, Paris, Editions G[uy]. L[évis]. M[ano]. 1935
8vo. (189 x 142 mm). 38 leaves, inserted leaf with errata; pp. 73, (i)
£3000

Salvador Dali’s copy with a presentation from Valentine Penrose. Half-title, printed title, leaf with Eluard’s preface recto and Penrose’s verse, final leaf with achevé d’imprimer and justification; the errata leaf is also included, loosely inserted. Original publisher’s cream printed wrappers with titles in black to front cover.

From the edition limited to 320 copies, with this unopened copy one of 300 on ‘Hélio’ and with a presentation from Penrose in blue ink to the half-title: ‘à Salvador Dalí / admiratif hommage de / V. Penrose’.

Also included loosely inserted is the errata slip for the publication.

Valentine Penrose (1898 – 1988), née Marcelle Bouée, was the glamorous wife of the English Surrealist poet, painter and photographer Roland Penrose. Muse to the Surrealists, model for Man Ray, Valentine Penrose also appeared in Bunuel’s film L’Age d’Or (1930) as a spirit. Profoundly influenced by Eastern spiritual thought, Penrose was also a talented poet and collagist. This, her first collection, was followed in 1937 by ‘Sorts de la Lueur’ and ‘Poèmes’ and in 1951 by ‘Dons des Féminines’, also with a preface by Eluard. In 1936 she left her husband to live on an ashram in India with fellow poet and Surrealist Alice Paalen. 

37.
Book
(DALI)
Paalen, Alice
A Mème la Terre. Paris, Editions Surréalistes, 1936
12mo. (144 x 98 mm). 52 leaves; pp. 98, (iv)
£3000

Salvador and Gala Dali’s copy with a presentation from Alice Paalen. Half-title, printed title and Paalen’s verse, leaf with justification and final leaf with achevé d’imprimer. Original publisher’s blue-printed wrappers with titles in magenta to front cover.

From the edition limited to 235 copies, with this unopened copy one of 200 on vergé and with a presentation on the half-title from Paalen in black ink: ‘à Gala Dalí / à Salvador Dalí / très sympathique hommage / d’Alice Paalen / “inattendu comme le / visage du retour”‘.

Alice Paalen (1904 – 1987), née Rahon, Surrealist poet and painter, married the Austrian Surrealist Wolfgang Paalen in 1930. She participated in Surrealist activities during the early 30s and had a significant liaison with Picasso before the publication of her first collection of poetry (‘A Mème La Terre’) in 1936, the same year that she went to India with fellow poet and Surrealist Valentine Penrose. Further collections followed (‘Sablier Couché’ in 1939 and ‘Noir Animal’ in 1941) before she turned her attention to painting. 

38.
Book
HAUSMANN, Raoul
Courrier Dada, Suivi d’Une Bibliographie de l’Auteur par Poupard-Lieussou, Paris, Le Terrain Vague, 1958
8vo. (192 x 142 mm). pp. 157, (1)
£4500

Illustrated with monochrome hors texte plates throughout. Original publisher’s printed wrappers with illustration after Haussman in black and titles in red. The édition de tête with Haussman’s original gouache, limited to 50 copies on ‘papier Roto-Creme’ with an original colour gouache by Hausmann, signed and dated in ink; the ordinary edition of the book has no limitation.

This collection of texts by Hausmann includes ‘Dada est plus que Dada’, ‘Dada contre de l’Esprit de Weimar’, ‘Antidada et Merz’, and ‘L’impossibilté du possible’. 

39.
Book
HUELSENBECK, Richard
Dada Almanach, Im Auftrag des Zentralamts der Deutschen Dada-Bewegung, Berlin. Erich Reiss Verlag, 1920
8vo. (182 x 135 mm). pp. (i), 156, (i)
£950

First edition of Richard Huelsenbeck’s Dada Almanach. Illustrated with eight monochrome reproduction photographs on glossy paper recto only, numerous dada typographic caprices throughout. Later black cloth-backed burgundy buckram, original pictorial front wrapper mounted to front board.

‘Dada undoubtedly seduced the extreme radical wing of Berlin’s artists and intellectuals, with its energy and subversive attitude to art, its ribaldry and iconoclasm … ‘. (Dawn Ades)

40.
Book
BELLMER, Hans
Sade, Marquis de
Mon Arrestation du 26 Août, Lettre Inédite Suivie des Etrennes Philosophiques, Paris, Jean Hugues, 1959
8vo. (152 x 104 mm). 26 leaves including bifolium with Bellmer’s etching; pp. 43, (i)
£7500

Half-title, title, original burin engraving as frontispiece by Bellmer, signed in pencil, leaf with ‘Note de l’Editeur’, text of Sade’s letter ‘Mon Arrestation’ (dated ‘Mi-Septembre 1778’), text of ‘Etrennes Philosophiques’ (dated 1782), final leaf with justification recto. Sheet size: 149 x 96 mm. Full black polished calf by Leroux with his signature in red, dated 1990, front and rear boards with a tooled design heightened in silver and red surrounding the outer edges and flowing over the spine, title to spine in silver, black polished calf doublures, red suede endpapers, original wrappers and backstrip preserved, calf-backed red suede-lined chemise with title gilt to spine and matching slipcase. de Sade illustrated by Bellmer and bound by Leroux.

From the edition limited to 184 numbered copies on vergé de pur chiffon, with this one of 52 édition de tête copies with Bellmer’s signed frontispiece engraving; a further 16 hors commerce copies ‘de présent’ were also issued with the etching.

de Sade’s text, a letter written to his wife from the ‘donjon de Vincennes’ after his arrest on 7 September 1778, was present in the collection of Maurice Heine and was hitherto unpublished. Lely chose to accompany the letter with another, the ‘Etrennes Philosophiques’, written by de Sade under the pseudonym ‘des Aulnets’ and addressed to Mlle. Marie-Dorothée de Rousset. Lely describes the importance of the latter: ‘ … elles [les etrennes] représentent le premier crayon des idées philosophiques dont les ouvrages ultérieurs de Sade nous offrent un si luxueux développement.’ (see the ‘Note de l’Editeur’).

Issued by Jean Hugues as Volume III of the series ‘Le Cri de la Fée’, the other two volumes were illustrated by Alberto Giacometti (Volume I: ‘La Folie Tristan’) and Max Ernst (Volume II: ‘Le Poème de la Femme 100 Têtes’ with text by Ernst), edited by Gilbert Lely. All of the volumes were published in 1959.

40.
Photographs
BRUS, Günter
“Der helle Wahnsinn” für Aachen: “Die Architektur des hellen Wahnsinns”
(“Sheer Madness” for Aachen: “The Architecture of Sheer Madness”)
Essen, 1968 (2013)
£7500

10 original black and white photographs (each c.30 x 46 cm) with minor size differences. Each signed on verso by the photographer. The concentration on Brus’ own body as action space in combination with a reduced implementation of objects, is discernible in his actions of the late 1960s. This type of action was taken to radical heights by Brus in “Der helle Wahnsinn” für Aachen: “Die Architektur des hellen Wahnsinns”.

The first time Brus actually injured, and thus opened, his body was in 1968 during this infamous action at the Reiff-Museum in Aachen, the building of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule. He had been invited by the Faculty of Architecture, which is referred to in the title “Der helle Wahnsinn” für Aachen: “Die Architektur des hellen Wahnsinns”. Wearing everyday clothing, the artist performed in a circular arena created by the onlookers. At the beginning Brus lay on the floor in foetal position, in front of him a plate with the contents of a cracked chicken’s egg which, while jerking convulsively, he sucked in and spat back out. In the further course of the action Brus urinated in a bucket, and using a razor blade sliced through his shirt inflicting a bleeding wound on his chest.

With this deliberate but reduced gesture that had a strong impact on the audience, Brus broke through the usual parameters of body language and opened up his body in a way that was perceived as shocking, even pathological by current cultural norms.

The sole photographer of this Brus action was Henning Wolters, a co-organiser of the Festival der Neuen Musik in Aachen (July 1964), and a co-manager of the Galerie Aachen from 1965 to 1967. The photographs were not officially published at the time, and Wolters has only recently, in 2013, issued all 10 photographs together as a set.  

41.
Book
MARIEN, Marcel
Les Fantômes du Château de Cartes, Paris, Julliard, 1981
8vo. (200 x 132 mm) pp. 205, (ii)
£80

Marcel Mariën’s late Surrealist novel in original publisher’s colour glossy wrappers, with a presentation in blue ink following the half-title: ‘LES FANTÔMES DU CHÂTEAU DE CARTES [printed] / and Marcel Mariën / greet / John Lyle / very cordially’.

42.
Book
HERNANDEZ, Miguel
Evolucion / Evolution, (Paris), L’Art Brut, 1949, Febrero
8vo. (190 x 137 mm) 16 leaves
£4000

Miguel Hernandez’s very scarce Art Brut artist book. Leaf with printed title recto and first poem ‘Dibujo Numero Uno’ verso, the following recto with original linocut and 14 further ‘Dibujo’ poems each with facing original monochrome linocut, final verso blank. Printed text in double columns in Spanish and French throughout, the ‘Bibujo’ poems numbered 1 – 15 and ‘Uno’ to ‘Quince’; sheet size: 185 x 135 mm. Stapled as issued in original salmon pink paper wrappers, front cover with linocut illustration and title.

Although the book was published without an explicit limitation, it seems likely that the edition was small; Dubuffet’s ‘LeR DLa CaNpaNe paR DUBUFe J’ published a very short time prior to ‘Evolucion’ and in a very similar format, was issued in an edition of only 165 copies.

Miguel Hernandez (1893 – 1957) was a militant pacifist and anarchist who began to draw and paint during his many incarcerations for political dissidence. Not to be confused with the Spanish poet of the same name (who died in 1942), Hernandez fled Spain with his wife for France where both were interned as refugees. Separated, his wife was returned to Spain and Hernandez never saw her or the country of his birth again. In Paris, Hernandez continued his militant activities, edited ‘España Libre’ and was among the first authors or artists to be published by Jean Dubuffet’s Compagnie de l’Art Brut founded in 1948. Hernandez’s first solo exhibition was held at the Galerie René Drouin in the same year.

‘Son oeuvre est habitée par des images de l’Espagne, du monde ouvrier et paysan, inscrites dans des spirales angoissantes, ou des femmes fantomatiques.’ (see abcd-artbrut.net)

This scarce collection is of particular rarity and we can trace copies at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Bayerischer Staatsbibliothek and Yale only; at auction we can locate only André Breton’s copy with a presentation from Hernandez (part of lot 638) sold by Calmels Cohen in 2003. 

42.
Book
MESENS, E[douard]. L[éon]. T[héodore]
Troisième Front, Poèmes de Guerre Suivi de Pièces Détachées Illustré par l’Auteur
(Third Front & Detached Pieces Translated by Roland Penrose & the Author, London, London Gallery Editions, 1944)
8vo. (210 x 148 mm) 24 leaves; pp. 47, (i)
£3750

Benjamin Péret’s copy with a warm presentation from Mesens and an additional manuscript with two of Mesens’ poems from ‘Alphabet Sourd Aveugle’. Half-title (with Mesens’ presentation), ‘by the same author’ verso, printed title with biography verso, leaf with ‘Table’ recto and ‘Contents’ verso, section titles ‘Troisième Front / Third Front’ and  ‘Pièces Détachées / Detached Pieces’ and Mesens’ verse in English and French on facing pages illustrated with 5 monochrome illustrations by Mesens (the first double-page and negativised for the translation, i.e. the French image is a negative of the English positive), the final illustration is an artistic interpretation of a musical score titled ‘La Partition Complete / The Complete Score’; printed text in the original French and English translation throughout. Original publisher’s turquoise printed wrappers with titles to front cover and spine in black, yellow printed dust-jacket with matching titles to front cover and spine, advertisements to rear cover and flaps.

From the edition limited to 500 numbered copies on unwatermarked Arnold & Foster paper signed by Mesens, this inscribed ‘H. C.’ in red ink and with Mesens presentation in blue and black ink to the half-title: ‘A mon très cher Ami / Benjamin Péret, / [ce livre qui lui fût déjà / envoyé au Mexique / pendant la guerre], avec / le cachet de garantie / de mon admiration de / toujours. E. L. T. M.’

Also included, loosely inserted, is a folded sheet of cream paper with the watermark ‘EXTRA STRONG’ (274 x 214 mm) from the ‘Hôtel Canterbury’ in Brussels, the verso with Mesens’ two manuscript 7-line poems ‘I’ and ‘L’ in black ink (each line of each poem begins with the title letter – a transcription is available on request) with the note ‘(1930 – “Alphabet sourd aveugle”).’ beneath. A further note beneath a ruled line reads: ‘La letter I a été réimprimée dans ‘Petite Anthologie poétique du Surréalisme’ (page 107 – Editions Jeanne Bucher, Paris 1934) et dans ‘Antologia del Surrealismo’ (page 246 – Editioni [sic] di Uomo – Milano 1944). Sur ces deux réimpressions / le mot ‘IMMENSE’, qui termine le poème fait défaut.’

The first volume in the ‘London Gallery Editions’ series ‘Collections of Recent French Poetry’, edited by Mesens, translated by Roland Penrose and Mesens. Illustrated throughout with diagrams, drawings and a musical score.