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63 FOPPA, Alaíde, & Margarita García Flores (founders). Fem. Publicación feminista trimestral. Mexico City: Nueva Cultura Feminista, 1976–78 The first Latin American feminist magazine First editions of the first eight issues of Fem , which tackled everything from contraception, abortion, sexuality, and domestic violence to critical essays on art, theatre, film, and literature produced by women. Original issues of Fem , especially unbroken head-of-series runs such as this, are uncommon on the market. Fem was published in print from 1976 to 2005; it became one of the three most widely read independent feminist periodicals in Latin America, alongside debate feminista and La Correa Feminista . The first issue was published under the direction of Guatemalan poet Alaíde Foppa and Mexican lawyer Margarita García Flores. Contributions and editorial support came from university professors, anthropologists, literary critics, community organizers, authors, and journalists. It was written in a jargon-free style and priced accessibly. Daily concerns over health and wages were discussed as much as broader feminist perspectives on political and economic issues. “It accomplished what few publications devoted to social problems are able to do, maintaining a healthy balance between academic and popular analyses of historical events, social movements, grassroots organizing, and feminist literary efforts” (Biron, p. 154). It continues to publish online. Eight consecutive issues, square octavo. Original colour-printed pictorial wrappers. Covers a little soiled but remaining quite bright, contents evenly toned and clean, some leaves unopened, with very occasional nick at edges. Overall in very good condition. ¶ Rebecca E. Biron, “Feminist Periodicals and Political Crisis in Mexico: ‘ Fem , Debate Feminista , and La Correa Feminista ’ in the 1990s”, Feminist Studies , vol. 22, no. 1, 1996, pp. 151–69. £1,850 [161938] 64 GARTSIDE, Mary. An Essay on Light and Shade, on Colours, and on Composition in General. [Together with, titled in manuscript:] Addition to the Second Edition. London: printed for the author, by J. Davison, and sold by T. Gardiner, 1805 & c.1808
the first book by the woman who redefined colour Inscribed copies of the first edition and supplement of “one of the rarest and most unusual books about colour ever published” (Loske), each a remarkable survival in the original boards and wrappers respectively, the former complete with beautifully bright examples of Gartside’s colour blots, unique to each copy. The Essay is inscribed by the author in ink “With the Author’s best Respects” and the supplement “With the Authors Respects to Mr Barrow”. Referencing Isaac Newton’s experiments with prismatic refraction and analysing the 18th-century theories of Gerard de Lairesse and William Herschel, Gartside’s work predates James Sowerby’s A New Elucidation of Colours (1809), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Zur Farbenlehre (1810), and another important colour theory work by a woman, Emily Noyes Vanderpoel’s Color Problems (1902). “The tints (white, yellow, orange, green, blue, scarlet, violet and crimson) roughly follow Newton’s prismatic spectrum, with the addition of white. These plates are full page, freely painted watercolour ‘blots’, showing the named tints at various degrees of saturation . . . Until much later in the 19th century there is no other example of a colour system that is as inventive” (Loske, p. 50). The Essay is one of three books on colour privately published by English colour theorist Mary Gartside ( c .1755– 1819). Little is known of her life, but she taught classes to women and exhibited botanical drawings at the Royal Academy and similar venues. Gartside printed a brief instructional pamphlet, An Essay on Light and Shadow ( c .1804), shortly before the appearance of this, her first book (1805). Art historian Alexandra Loske estimates a print run of between 150 and 200 copies. A second edition appeared in 1808, published by William Miller and renamed An Essay on a New Theory of Colours . Miller informed purchasers that the six plates therein were “mounted and coloured by and under Miss Gartside’s immediate eye”, providing some insight into the extremely labour-intensive production of her work. The Addition comprises the text leaves of the “Preface to the Second Edition” (pp. [4]–10) and the “Application of the White Blot to a Group of White Flowers” (pp. [45]–62). The latter section was written as an explanatory accompaniment to the watercolours; it is therefore paginated continuously with the end of the Essay , and the first page of this copy is annotated in pencil in the upper margin: “in Binding these are ^each of them^ to face each Blot”. The first edition of the Essay is notably uncommon in commerce: we can trace just two copies at auction, neither inscribed, one in contemporary calf and the other in original
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boards, and neither accompanied by the Addition . It is more common in institutions: 17 copies are listed by WorldCat and Library Hub. Because of the supplementary nature of the Addition , the leaves presumably gathered on printing and given
to those already in possession of the first edition, it is not easily traceable as a separate title in commerce or institutions. Two works, quarto. 1) Essay : uncut in original yellow paper-backed pink boards, printed decorative oval centrepiece encircling lettering on front board. With engraved title page, 2 uncoloured stipple-engraved plates, 1 hand-coloured copperplate prismatic wheel, 2 printed tables with 7 hand- coloured squares each, and 8 watercolour “blot” paintings (numbered 1–8: no number 6, instead two numbered 7 [“Blue” and “Violet”]). Extremities worn, boards soiled, contemporary initial in ink at upper corner of front board (“B”), small leaf of related manuscript notes laid in (on colours, prisms), contents crisp, title and a few leaves foxed as usual, occasional light offset from plates and soiling, a couple of short closed tears at leaf edges. 2) Addition : uncut in original drab paper wrappers, stab-stitched, manuscript label pasted on front. Wrappers creased and nicked, foxed. Housed together in a custom dark red cloth flat-back box. An extremely well-preserved pair. ¶ Abbey, Life , 127; Kemp, Science of Art , p. 293; Schmid, Practice of Painting , p. 113. Alexandra Loske, Colour: A Visual History , 2019. £35,000 [156929]
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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
LOUDER THAN WORDS
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