20th Century Books

A Master of Design For almost half a century, the architect Paolo Buffa has occupied the furniture design scene with a well-recognizable style: a limpid art, skilful and exquisite in...

Duke, Charlie and Dotty Duke. Moonwalker. Nashville: Oliver Nelson, 1990. First Edition. Signed and inscribed by Charlie and Dotty Duke on half title page. Original dust jacket and ...

George Bullock: Cabinet-Maker. London: John Murray Ltd., 1988. First edition soft cover. 160 pp. Exhibition catalogue held in London and Liverpool from February 24th to March 26th, 1...

AUTHOR: POE, Edgar Allan. TITLE: The Works Of Edgar Allen Poe. PUBLISHER: Boston: Jefferson Press, n.d., (c.1900) DESCRIPTION: 10 vols. in 5, 8-7/16" x 6-1/16", illustrated, titl...

Miniature Rooms, the Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago. Softcover book, published in 1984 by Abbeville Press. Printed in Japan, 168 pages.

This is a scarce soft covered catalogue "Le Regard D'Alan" which features twenty-light fittings designed and produced by Serge Mouille during his short career in this particular fiel...

Mapplethorpe by Robert Mapplethorpe, Introduction by Arthur Coleman Danto. Random House (NY) Published: 1992. Hardcover with dust jacket. "Robert Mappl...

Italian drawings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, by Suzanne Folds McCullagh and Laura Giles. Published in Princeton, NJ, Princeton Univ. Press, 1997. 1st Ed hardcover with dust jacket The third in a series of scholarly catalogs on the permanent collection of The Art Institute of Chicago, this book focuses on the museum's important holdings of Italian drawings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The catalog contains comprehensive entries on over 700 drawings, including preliminary studies for major compositions, cartoons, modelli, independent drawings, and copies after Renaissance and Mannerist masters. Featured are major works by some of the most significant artists of the time: Baccio Bandinelli, Federico Barocci, Fra...

The sought after first edition, first printing of Ralph Ellison's monumental award winning novel, his first and only work to be published during his lifetime. The first edition, fir...

Accompanies an exhibition at the MoMu Fashion Museum, Province of Antwerp from September - February 2013 A remarkable couturier, with a career spanning half a century, Madame Alix Grès...

by Line Vautrin & Patrick Mauries Line Vautrin is one of those archetypally French personalities - others are Cocteau, Piaf and Christian Berard - whose talents are compounded of dre...

Design in America: the Cranbrook vision, 1925-1950 by Robert Judson Clark. Abrams, in association with the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Metropol...

How to Create Your Own Painted Lady, a comprehensive guide to beautifying your Victorian home, by Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larson. Stated first editio...

A collection of twelve stories by Mark Twain, translated into French and amusingly illustrated in color by Jean Trubert (1909 – 1983) a well known and prolific comic strip designer a...

An Uncensored anthology gathered from many questionable sources. Illustrated by Joseph Wynn. Published by The Peter Pauper Press, Mount Vernon, New York, 1939. The only copy in leat...

Winterthur by Jay E. Cantor, the foremost museum of American furniture and decorative arts. Hardcover book with dustjacket, published in 1986 by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. of New York. 24...

Victorian Brick and Terracotta Architecture, in full color with 160 plates, edited by Pierre Chabat. Softcover book, first edition, published in 1989 by Dover Publications, Inc. of N...

AUTHOR: DULAC, Edmund. TITLE: Sinbad the Sailor and other Stories from the Arabian Nights. PUBLISHER: London: Hodder Stoughton, n.d., (1914). DESCRIPTION: ILLUSTRATED BY EDMUND D...

'Cram's Commercial Atlas' published by the George F. Cram Company. Rare in this edition and condition. Num. (col.) maps and plans, orig. embossed dec. buckram, large folio. Published...

"Pablo Picasso Retrospective" Paperback Book - Museum of Modern Art, New York, circa 1980s. The book is in good condition with no torn or missing pages and is 464 pages with hundreds...

5 Volume set Philip Johnson by John M. Jacobus. JR. Hardback. 128 pages. Kenzo Tange by Robin Boyd. Hardback. 125 pages. R. Buckminster Fuller by John McHale. Hardback 128 pages. Lou...

This limited luxury edition has a issue of 200 copies, this set is number 98. Each book has a handcolored frontispiece, with tissue guards, each volumen averages 300 or more pages, ...

Second Salubra collection by Le Corbusier - 1959 Very rare and collectible. Original sample book from 1959. With the original movable frames, which can be passed over the color car...

The Impressionists by Robert Katz and Celestine Dars. Hardcover book with dustjacket, published in 1998 by Barnes & Noble. Printed and bound in Spain, over 350 color pictures, 288 pa...

Rayner, J.L. and G.T. Crook, editors The Complete Newgate Calendar; Being Captain Charles Johnson's General History of the Lives and Adventures of the Most Famous Highwaymen, Murdere...

Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929. First trade edition, first issue. In the original first-state dust jacket and publisher’s black cloth boards. Presented in a new archival ¼ leather and cloth clamshell case, with raised bands, gilt tooling, and titles to the spine. Presented is a first trade edition, first issue of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. The book was published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in New York, in September of 1929. This first printing is presented with its original first issue dust jacket. The dust jacket, as designed by Cleonike Damianakes Wilkins, is considered by many to be one of the greatest of the 20th century and rivals even The Great Gatsby in its collectibility. Set during World War I, A Farewell to Arms tells the story of a young American Lieutenant serving as an ambulance driver in Italy struggling through love and war. The story is told through first person narration detailing many aspects of war that would have been very familiar to readers at the time, as the book was published only 11 years after the 1918 armistice. The simple, direct tone his character uses when giving his unromanticized account of the war later defined Hemingway’s writing style. A Farewell to Arms is loosely based on Hemingway’s own experiences. The author briefly served overseas as an ambulance driver in the Italian Army, sustained injuries, and met a nurse who he eventually proposed marriage to but was declined. The novel’s post-war disillusionist subject assigned Hemingway to the “Lost Generation” of Modernist artists. A Farewell to Arms was Hemingway’s most successful publishing venture to date. Charles Scribner's Sons issued seven impressions of the novel in the short time between September and December of 1929, with over 100,000 volumes sold. The novel secured Hemingway’s place as a popular American author and became his first bestselling book. Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was an American author and journalist. His distinctive writing style, characterized by economy of words and dry understatement, strongly influenced 20th-century fiction, as did his life of adventure and his public image. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Hemingway published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works during his lifetime; a further three novels, four collections of short stories, and three non-fiction works were published posthumously. Many of his works are now considered classics of American literature. The book’s striking dust jacket design was illustrated by the artist Cleonike Damianakes Wilkins, who worked under the pen name of Cleon. Wilkins was known for her distinctive fusion of Art Deco and Hellenistic styles. She designed the dust jackets for Hemingway’s earlier The Sun Also Rises in 1926 and his later publication In Our Time in 1930, as well as Conrad Aiken’s Great Circle, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s All the Sad Young Men,and Zelda Fitzgerald’s Save Me the Waltz. Wilkins was chosen by Hemingway’s celebrated editor at Scribner’s, Maxwell Perkins. In order to differentiate Hemingway’s tale from other, competing WWI novels on the bookshop shelves, Perkins sought to widen its appeal through the dust jacket. The resulting design was Wilkins’ interpretation of Sandro Botticelli’s epic oil painting “Venus...

A vintage "Calder's Universe" art book by Gloria Jean Lipman, circa 1980. The book is in good vintage condition (several small tears to the dust jacket) and measures 10.25"W x 11"H....

Men Too Wear Clothes by Dorothy Stote Hardcover with original dust jacket. Frederick A. Stokes Company. 1st edition with introduction by Lucius Beebe and Drawings by Nina Granada.

Piero Fornasetti lived and worked in Milan from 1935 until his death in 1988. during this long career he established an enduring reputation as a designer with a style that was all hi...

Rare hardback coffee table book featuring the jewelry of artist, Alexander Calder. By the Calder Foundation, published in 2007. First edition, 288 pages. "Calder's jewelry has the s...

Treasures of the Vatican: St. Peter's Basilica, The Vatican Museums and Galleries, The Treasure of St. Peter's, The Vatican Grottos and Necropolis, and The Vatican Palaces by Maurizi...

Atelier International catalog in original printed plastic ring binder, with tabbed sections for Seating, Armchairs, Tables, Storage, and Office Furniture. The roster of designers fea...

Frank Lloyd Wright Books - Set of 2. Years with Frank Lloyd Wright, Apprentice to Genius by Edgar Tafel. Softcover book, published by Dover Publications, Inc, of New York in 1979. I...

'Celtic Illuminative Art in the gospel books of Durrow, Lindisfarne, and Kells' by the Rev. Stanford F.H. Robinson, M.A. Published 1908. 51 plates, eac...

29 Volumes. Mark Twain. The Writings. "Underwood Edition" Bound in full red morocco, top edges gilt, raised bands, ornate gilt on spines and covers, green endpapers, illustrated thro...

Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940. First edition, first printing. Octavo. Publisher’s beige cloth boards, first issue dust jacket. P...

The Moroccan Pottery, french edition. Hardcover large book 1st edition 1974. La Poterie Marocaine André Boukobza. 1974, 160 pages André Boukobza Photos with Artifacts. The work of...

The Rockwell's Complete Guide to Successful Gardening. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1965. First edition second printing hardcover with dust jacket....

The Georgian House by Steven Parissien. London: Aurum Press Limited, 1995. Hardcover with dust jacket. 240 pp. A book on the architecture of the English Georgian house that claims th...

Recognized during his lifetime as one of the great masters of ironwork - as evidenced by the close collaboration with the most renowned decorators of the time such as André Arbus, Ja...

Steinbeck, John. East of Eden. New York: The Viking Press, 1952. Octavo. First trade edition, first printing. In original lime green cloth boards with green titles to the spine and o...

This is the catalogue published in conjunction with a 1998 Quintana Gallery Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition of twenty-eight works executed between 1980 and 1988 by the late, great Je...

Edited by Andrea Branzi & Michele De Lucchi This book is a photographic record of an exhibition which was organised in 1977 to showcase "Italian Design in the Fifties", all manner o...

Sotheby's sale catalogue of the sale of 20th century objets and furniture from the collection of Karl Largerfeld dated 15th May 2003. The catalogue will prove to be of great value as...

Beautifully illustrated with full colour plates, and in the publisher's original vellum binding, this is a charming limited edition collection of the tales of Hans Christian Andersen...

This is a four volume boxed set of the sales catalogues produced by Sotheby's for the contents of this famed collection. The sale took place over 4 days in June 1999 and realized a total of $26.5 million. Many of the contents on the day of the sale had come from another famous home of this renowned collector Carlos de Beistegui...

The Bed and Bath Book, by Terence Conran, Hardbound with Jacket, First Edition – 1978. Suggests trend-setting yet functional designs for bedrooms and bathrooms to suit every area of...

102 Favorite Paintings by Norman Rockwell with an introduction by Christopher Finch. Hardcover book with dustjacket published in 1978 by Crown Publishers, Inc. of New York. Printed a...

AUTHOR: CHURCHILL, Winston TITLE: A History of The English-Speaking Peoples. PUBLISHER: London: Cassell and Co, Ltd., 1956-8. DESCRIPTION: ALL FIRST LONDON EDITIONS. 4 volumes. Bo...

Le Mobilier Français du XIX Siècle 1795-1889 Dictionnaire des Ébénistes et des Menuisiers (French Furniture from the 19th c 1795-1889 Dictionary of cabinet-makers and carpenters.) Pa...

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado. Hardcover 1st edition. Very good overall condition with clear Mylar protective cover added.

Le Corbusier, one of the world's most important and influential architects and accomplished visual artist, also created a vast oeuvre of interior and furniture designs. The chaise-lo...

50 Great Masterpieces by Frederic Remington, by Louis Chapin. Softcover book, large poster size, suitable for framing. An Artabras book, published by Crown Publishers, Inc. of New Yo...

A book on one of the 20th centuries greatest metalsmiths. Brandt was one of an extraordinary group of artist-craftsmen which included people such as Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Jean Puif...

Catalog of the seminal 1985 exhibition held at the DeLorenzo Gallery in New York City and the Counord Gallery in Paris. Printed in France by JR Impressions. Square 8vo, 170 pages wit...

By Jacques-Chalom Des Cordes & Veronique Fromanger des Cordes First edition and numbers 667 of this precious catalogue raisonne of animal sculptures by Rembrandt Bugatti...

AUTHOR: MILNE, A. A. TITLE: When We Were Very Young - Winnie The Pooh - House At Pooh Corner - Now We Are Six. PUBLISHER: London: Methuen Children's Books, 1977. DESCRIPTION: INS...

Pre-Columbian Art, New York: Phaidon Publishers, Inc., 1957. First edition hardcover with skip case. 285 pp. A vintage book cataloguing Robert Woods Blis...

Glass By Gallé by Alastair Duncan and Georges de Bartha. Harry N. Abrams, Inc, New York, 1984. 1st Ed hardcover with dust jacket. An important reference work, written by Gallé and Ar...

The stories of Indian princes and their jewelry and precious stones are brought together in this illustrated narrative tracing the rise and fall of India's leading royal houses through the dramatic fortunes of their crown jewels. Traditionally, precious metals and jewels have been, for Indians rich and poor, a repository of wealth and a status symbol. For the reigning families, jewels also had symbolic and religious significance. Also here are the original drawings by great European jewelers of the pieces they designed for their exotic and demanding clients. The text is both lively and scholarly, drawing from descriptions of such travelers as Marco Polo and Tavernier as well as Sanskrit dramatists extolling the riches of India. The core of this lavishly photographed book is the encounter between Indian princely magnificence and the best of European Jewellery designers in the 20th century when many of the Maharaja's travelled to Europe with trunks filled with traditional Indian jewels and unset stones...