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an elaborately populated tableau) at the end of Flaming Creatures , the lead role of which Smith had created especially to commemorate the work they had done together in still photography: ‘It was a part that would have allowed the fulfilment of any impressionable, imaginative, ambitious young woman’s fantasy: to be a Star in a Great Work of Art, to be a Dietrich to [Jack’s] von Sternberg’ [Zazeela] . . . but the artist- muse relationship changed abruptly when in June 1962 Zazeela began an intense relationship with . . . La Monte Young, Smith writing with equal measures of pain and acrimony in his journal: ‘The heart is a small room. When one person enters someone else must leave’” (Verevis). Octavo, 20pp. Original wire-stitched white wrappers, yellow titles and black silk screen decoration by Marian Zazeela to wrappers, yellow pages. With 19 original monochrome photographs (55 × 55 mm) hand-cut from contact sheets and pasted one to a page: 18 by Smith, 1 of Smith by Ken Jones (rear pastedown). Pencilled price to front wrapper, a little toning, small mark to rear wrapper, soft creasing to corners. An excellent copy, well-preserved. ¶ Constantine Verevis, Flaming Creatures , 2019, available online. £19,000 [154874]
Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary , and several other works by Shelley. Library Hub locates copies in only the British Library and Eton; WorldCat adds a single location, at Harvard. Duodecimo. Original yellow wrappers printed in black. Light wear to spine and chips at wrapper tips, yet still holding firm, some bumping and fraying at page extremities, a very good, well-preserved example. ¶ Stephen C. Behrendt, “Shelley and His Publishers”, in The Oxford Handbook of Percy Bysshe Shelley , 2013; H. Buxton Forman, “The Vicissitudes of Queen Mab ”, in The Shelley Society’s Papers , Part I, 1888; William St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period , 2004. £650 [154675] 159 SMITH, Jack. The Beautiful Book. [New York: The Dead Language Press / Piero Heliczer, 1962] BEAUTIFUL IN YELLOW First edition, this copy with the rare variant yellow-printed wrappers, of the only autonomous collection of Smith’s photographs to appear in his lifetime. This is one of a projected edition of 200 handmade copies, of which perhaps only 60 were produced. Given the scarcity of this title, it is absent
from many significant institutional holdings and the circumstances of its production. These photographs – the sole contents of the work – were produced mainly during the course of extended shooting sessions in Smith’s Lower East Side apartment. Most date from the autumn of 1961 to June 1962, though a few are earlier, including the final “signature” photograph, a portrait of the artist on the steps beneath the Brooklyn Bridge taken by filmmaker Ken Jacobs. This title, as well as being the only autonomous collection of Smith’s photographs to appear in his lifetime and the germination of his cinematic magnum opus, Flaming Creatures , marks the break in his relationship with Zazeela at a point where their collaborative brilliance was reaching its apex. The books were put together by Smith and Piero Heliczer in the late spring or early summer of that year, over the course of three nights, with photographs by Smith and screen-printed covers based on Zazeela’s design. “The Beautiful Book included poses by several ‘models’ – Mario Montez, Francis Francine, Joel Markman, Arnold Rockwood, and Irving Rosenthal – who would often appear in Smith’s early photographs and films (including Flaming Creatures ), but above all it showcased artist-model Marian Zazeela. Later in 1962, Zazeela would make a ‘cameo’ appearance (in
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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