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Douglas Stewart Fine Books

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I promise you this. A collection of poems for Harvey Milk (signed presentation copy)

I promise you this. A collection of poems for Harvey Milk (signed presentation copy)

SMITH, David Emerson San Francisco : David Emerson Smith for the Poets and Artists, February 1979. Octavo, colour printed wrappers (light edge wear and toning), pp. [iii]; 29, stringbound, black and white illustrations. Presentation copy, signed and inscribed inside the upper wrapper 'To David, in homo-erotic boy love David Emerson Smith' and also inscribed 'Love & Eros, the universe is born & lives in ecstasy, Dennis Dunn' (one of the contributors). 'This collection of poems is in part a response to the homophobic murder of Harvey Milk and George Moscone (a passionate homophile). New York born Harvey Milk moved to San Francisco in 1972 where he opened a camera ship with his boyfriend in Castro Street. Disillusioned with the bureaucracy of the city and a history of police harassment of the gay community, Milk decided to run for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, launching campaigns in 1973, 1975, and 1977, where, after intense campaigning over several years and a gradual growth of community support, he was successfully elected as Supervisor. Milk?s election was a historic event both in San Francisco and the nation, with Milk becoming the openly gay man in the United States to win an election for public office. Less than twelve months after his election win, Milk would be assassinated by Dan White, a former fellow member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, an event which shocked the gay community and broader sense of civic order. While on trial for murder, White would be convicted on lesser charges, resulting in civil unrest and riots in San Francisco. Milk?s legacy as gay community advocate, City Supervisor and tragic victim of a political assassination would be vast and continuing, resulting to changes in the local political system and greater representation of the gay community and other community groups in local politics. A series of books and movies on the life of Harvey Milk has ensured the story of his life, death, and struggle for social justice remain of continuing influence, with Milk emerging as a legendary cultural figure both at home and internationally.
  • $85
Australian art pottery 1900 - 1950

Australian art pottery 1900 – 1950

FAHY, Kevin et al. Sydney : Casuarina Press, 2004. Quarto, gilt-lettered cloth in illustrated dustjacket, 362 pp. profusely illustrated. Limited to 2000 numbered copies (this out of series). An essential reference, a fine copy, practically as new. 'The result of a four year research project which has exposed a number of previously unheralded pottersand re-assessed the work of others. The first major publication in 17 years to explore this subject, it will quickly become a benchmark in Australian decorative arts publishing.Edited by Kevin Fahy, John Freeland, Keith Free and Andrew Simpson, Australian Art Pottery 1900-1950 includes nine thematic essays and over 118 authoritative biographies of the best art potters. The scholarly text is sharply focused by more than 480 colour images of carefully selected objects chosen from the best public and private collections of pottery in the country. Many examples are illustrated here for the firsttime. Reflecting a commitment to excellence, both the essays and biographies are prepared by 23 of Australia's most accomplished art historians, curators, critics and collectors. Essay themes include the Brisbane?s Harvey School by Glenn Cooke; Art Pottery and China Painting in Western Australian: A few Tall Poppiesby Dorothy Erickson; The Sydney Technical College Arts and Crafts School by Keith Free; Industrial Art Pottery an Early and Enduring Presence and Indigenous Reference in Australian Pottery: Appropriation, Adapation and Abstraction by John Freeland; The Emergence of Studio Pottery and the Folk CraftModernists by Noris Ioannou; Studio Pottery in Tasmanian by Glenda King; Melbourne Studio Pottery ofthe 1930s: The Melbourne Tech Group by Terence Lane; and Merric Boyd and the Murrumbeena Potteryby Joe Pascoe.' - the publisher
  • $135
book (2)

The artist with companions from the Astrolabe in the rainforest at Carteret Harbour, New Ireland (1827).

Watercolour and ink on paper,398 x 287 mm (entire sheet);contemporary inscription in ink to verso: 80.Vue du grand torrent et d'une forêt / Hâvre Carteret; the artist's own re-worked section (80 x 110 mm, irregular) carefully pasted on at lower left; short closed tear at right edge; extremely well preserved. A very early depiction of French explorers in the virgin equatorial landscape of Island Melanesia, painted by Louis-Auguste de Sainson, the official voyage artist on Dumont d'Urville's famous 1826-29 expedition in the Astrolabe. From a historical perspective, this painting is of great significance as a rare example of early nineteenth-century Pacific voyage art. More specifically, its rarity is underlined by the fact that there are no finished watercolours by de Sainson held in public collections in either Australia or New Zealand. Despite the best efforts of David Scott Mitchell, Sir William Dixson and Rex Nan Kivell - the latter of whom 'at one stage spent 35 years tracking down a painting ascribed to Louis Auguste de Sainson' in his quest fora 'prize acquisition' (Sasha Grishin,Paradise possessed : the Rex Nan Kivell Collection.Canberra : NLA, 1998, p. 6) - the only original works by de Sainson from the voyage of the Astrolabe held by an Australian institutionare the group of unsigned preparatory pencil sketches contained alongside many signed and dated sketches by Arago from the circumnavigation in the Uraniein an album in the SLNSW (Accession no. PX*D 150) purchased from Otto Lange in 1930. In France, theBnF holds 25 of de Sainson's finished watercolours (see further below). Yet in addition to its rarity, the painting also has a great intrinsic importance. For two reasons, it standsout from all of the other voyage paintings by de Sainson which were ultimately selected for publication as engravings in the Atlas to the official voyage account ofthe Dumont d'Urville expedition. The sheer complexity and density of the composition - an attempt to interpret the wild lushness of the jungle vegetation - instantly distinguishes it from the other works. Furthermore, this painting strives to capture a transcendent moment of contemplation (echoing Dumont d'Urville's own reflective commentary on his crew's experience at Carteret Harbour - see below) rather than to document a quotidian event or scene. The painting has a profound spiritual dimension: as a meditation on our place in vast and powerful Nature, evoking the wonderment of Europeans who are encountering the sublime beauty of the lush, tropical environment for the first time, it can almost be viewed as a philosophical statement by the artist. It is a work that bears the hallmarks of European Romanticism. French watercolour artist and draughtsman Louis-Auguste de Sainson was born in Paris in 1800. He commenced his naval career in 1825, and in February the following year he joined Dumont d?Urville's expedition to the South Seas as the official voyage artist on board the corvetteAstrolabe, on a monthly salary of 100 francs. He had been recommended to Dumont d?Urville for the position by Quoy, one of the expedition naturalists. During the three-year circumnavigation of the Astrolabe de Sainson was prodigious in his output, producing almost 500 drawings in total. From these works, selections were made for the Atlas volumes which were published in 1833 as part ofthe official expedition account, Voyage de la corvette l'Astrolabeexécuté pendant les années 1826, 1827, 1828, 1829, sous le commandement de M. J. Dumont D'Urville. Dumont d'Urville noted that '[de Sainson's] portfolio contains no fewer than 182 views, landscapes, scenes and pictures; 153 portraits, 112 plates of dwellings, monuments, costumes, arms and utensils, and 45 coastal profiles, sketches of trees, etc.? Although one of the aims of the expedition was to find the remains of La Pérouse (or, at least, firm evidence of the fate of the navigator and his crew, last sighted leaving Botany Bay in March 1788), its broader objectives were the carrying out of scientific research and exploration in the Pacific, including the charting of the coasts of New Zealand and New Guinea. The Astrolabe visited the western, southern and eastern coasts of New Holland, the upper South Island and east coast of New Zealand, Tonga, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and the chain of islands to its east (later known as the Bismarck Archipelago). Early in July 1827 theAstrolabe sailed northwest from the island of Bougainville, the northernmost of the Solomons, and on 17 July anchored in Carteret Harbour, on the western side of New Ireland near its southern tip. Carteret Harbour (now called Lamassa Bay) is in the St. George's Channel which separates New Ireland and New Britain. It was in this safe haven that the expedition was able to procure urgently needed supplies of wood and water. Although the Astrolabe's crew saw evidence of a recent visit to the area by the local inhabitants, including a human skeleton still in a state of decomposition, they encountered no-one. During the week-long sojourn the incessant rainfall was the most torrential any of the expedition members had witnessed. On 24 July the Astrolabe weighed anchor and continued on a northwestly course through the St. George's Channel, making for the Admiralty Islands. On board ship in the early hours of that morning Dumont d'Urville reflected: 'All around me everything was deeply asleep ? I silently reviewed in my mind the many tribulations our corvette has been through. How many times had these bodies stretched out all around me escaped being drowned at sea! . What could be more precarious than the lives of these men submissive to the will of one of their fellows and obliged to let themselves be dragged anywhere he liked to take them, through gales and dangerous waters and among even more dangerous reefs!? Over 200 of de Sainson's original pencil drawings made during the voyage of the Astrolabe are held in the Archives de Francein two port