Le Bookiniste

[Art] Russian Samizdat Art: Essays by John E. Bowlt, Szymon Bojko, Rimma and Valery Gerlovin

Doria, Charles [Editor]

New York: Willis Locker & Owens Publishing, 1986. First Edition, First Printing.

Small Quarto (9 1/4 x 6 1/4 inches; 235 x160 mm), 210 pages, in publisher's original red cloth, with a red portfolio containing six prints, all housed in a slipcase decorated in red, black, and white.

Important reference book on Russian unofficial art, along with a portfolio featuring six beautiful prints (230 x 150 mm each) from an edition of 125.

Two of the artists who have contributed prints, Rimma Gerlovina and Valery Gerlovin, have written a lengthy chapter about their own experiences and discuss the lives and works of the other artists whose prints appear here.

Each print is numbered (6/125) and dated (1986) on the verso, and five of the six are signed by the artists. The six Russian conceptual artists represented here are: Vagrich Bakhchanyan ("Flag"); Michael Chernyshov ("Turret," numbered and dated but unsigned); Rimma Gerlovina ("Flat Cube"); Valery Gerlovin ("Out of the Wall"), Henry Khudyakov ("The Big Cig"), and Komar and Melamid ("Venice From the Book Text").

Each print is protected by a tissue guard. Edition printed by Nenad Bozic.

The publishers issued trade editions of the book in hard cover and soft cover. But the limited edition with the six prints is uncommon. SCARCE.

CONDITION: All contents clean and bright, a bit of soiling to the rear of the slipcase, some tissue guards in the chemise creased. A Fine copy overall. Item #1458
ISBN: 0930279034

Price: $475.00