EL LISSITZKY & H. ARP. Die Kunstismen... Isms of Art. Erlenbach, [etc.]: 1925. Fine copy + another

From the Dobo collection.

The first 36 lots in this sale are from the collection of Francis Dobo (1908-1998)

EL LISSITZKY & Hans ARP. Die Kunstismen [1914-1924] … Les Ismes de l’Art … The Isms of Art published by El Lissitzky and Hans Arp. Erlenbach, Munich & Leipzig: Eugen Rentsch Verlag, 1925. Quarto (10 ¼ x 7 7/8 inches; 260 x 200 mm). Pp.1-48. Parallel text is in German, French, and English. 78 illustrations. Original boards, the upper cover with constuctivist design in red and black (by El Lissitzky?), backstrip and lower cover printed in black (light re-touching to the backstrip and joints), contemporary/original tan paper dust-jacket (jacket tanned, split in two, with some voids).

[with:] a copy of the 1968 authorized reprint edition, published by Arno Press of New York. Black cloth.

An exceptional copy of the first edition of a beautiful work that is clearly fragile: the dust-jacket looks to be original. Although neither book is signed, these both come from the library of Francis Dobo: it is worth noting that Dobo was an executive at the Arno Press.

This slim volume provides examples of each of the 'isms" mentioned: these include cubism, futurism, expressionism, abstract art, metaphysics, suprematism, simultanism, Dadaism, purism, Neoplasticism, merz, prooun, verism, constructivism, and abstract film.

Francis Dobo: the “epitome of a 20th Century intellectual” Hungarian born Francis F. Dobo (1908-1998) was an important figure in the world of publishing, contemporary literature and photography for over half a century. He was lifelong friends with the renowned Hungarian masters of candid photography, Brassaï and André Kertész, first in Hungary and later in Paris in the 1930s. It was in Paris he encountered Henry Miller, Louis-Ferdinand Celine and Raymond Queneau: he corresponded and supported Miller from then on, and subsequently became Queneau’s U.S. agent.  Love of books and literature seems to have been a family trait: his uncle was Gabriel Wells (1861-1946), one of the two most important rare book dealers of his generation. The present selection includes a small number of books which belonged to Wells, with the rest being a cross section of the best of the contemporary literature which was such an important part of Francis’ life. William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Arthur Koestler, Christopher Isherwood, Norman Mailer, Franz Kafka are all here !