EX LIBRIS 10:
DADA -- ONCE AND FOR ALL

Arthur A. Cohen and Elaine Lustig Cohen

Cohen, Arthur A. and Elaine Lustig: EX LIBRIS 10: DADA -- ONCE AND FOR ALL . NYC: Ex Libris, 1983. First edition. A fine, uncirculated catalogue in stiff, wrappers and a printed dust jacket: one of the rarest Ex Libris Catalogues. Catalogue design and typography by Tamar Cohen.

8 x 10 illustrated catalogue with 70 well-illustrated pages of 336 items for sale. A very useful reference volume and sought-after artifact from Cohen and Elaine Lustig Cohen's legendary bookstore Ex-Libris.

Including period examples of printed material and graphic documentation related to typography, poster design, reviews, brochures, books, photographs etc etc by some of the leading artists of the movement and it's influences including Aragon, Hans Arp, Baargeld, Andre Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Eluard, George Grosz, Hannah Hoch, Raoul Hausmann,, John Heartfield, Hugnet, Huelsenbeck, Jarry, Mesens, Picabia, Joostens, Christian Schad, Kurt Schwitters, Tristan Tzara, Van Doesburg, Janco, Coeur a Barbe, Der Dada, Mecano, Merz, Stieglitz, and many others.

Begun in a Zurich club in 1916, Dada¹s controversial nature was intended by its creators. A notable aspect of Dada¹s emergence is its timeliness: artists in several cities seemed to feel the need for the movement simultaneously, giving way to its materialization in several German cities, as well as Paris and New York, at roughly the same time. As artists in these cities became increasingly frustrated with the futility of World War I, they used shock value to protest mainstream art and society as a whole, which had become, in their minds, numbed by war. Even the name used to describe the movement was chosen for its lack of meaning. After several artists arbitrarily chose the word ³dada,² meaning ³hobbyhorse,² from a French-German dictionary, the word became a sort of vehicle for which other contributors to the budding movement could create meaning. Fittingly, it was the first time that artists, not critics, had chosen a name for their movement.

Ex Libris catalogues have proven themselves to be a consistently invaluable reference for folks interested in 20th-Century Modernism and the related art movements of the Bauhaus, Futurism, Dada & Surrealism, Avant-Garde, Graphic Design, Architecture, Theater, Poster Design, Expressionism, Modern American and European Art Movements, and any other ISM that might tickle your fancy. But if you've read this far, you already knew that, didn't you?

Ex Libris Rare Books was founded in 1973 by Elaine Lustig-Cohen and her husband Arthur A. Cohen (1928-1986). She was a graphic designer of no small renown, and he was a theologian, novelist, art and literary critic, who wrote extensively on Modern Art. The couple dealt in important and rare printed material and graphic documentation of International 20th-Century art. Much of their early inventory is now in Museums and international private collections. Many items that in these illustrated catalogues are impossible to find today, making these catalogues invaluable to collectors, dealers and scholars alike. They remain exceptional research tools overflowing with important objects and information, include scholarly listings, descriptions, photographs and (1980's) prices of all kinds of early 20th-Century ephemera including posters, letterheads, magazines, reviews, brochures, books, stationery, correspondence, posters, advertisements and much more. You have been warned.

Price: $200.00
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