Michael Cooper. Blinds & Shutters (1990) Part 2

The image above is Michael Cooper's shot for the Stones Satanic Majesties album. If you click on it goes to a good size and you can make out the faces of John, Paul, George and Ringo to the left and right within the gilt encrusted psychedelic decorations. Cooper was one of a handful of elevated souls who were friendly with both groups. His self portrait shows a wistul groover almost Edwardian in his striped blazer - like something out of Kind Hearts and Coronets or Mr. Polly. Terry Southern said of him -“Michael Cooper was a person of tremendous love and vision...I do not expect to see his like again.”

In 2002 we catalogued a copy and after a few months (and some haggling) sold the black and yellow opus for £400. We catalogued it thus:

Michael Cooper. BLINDS & SHUTTERS. Genesis/ Hedley, Guildfrord, 1990. 4to. 368 pages. 14" x 10" Hardcover leather/buckram in yellow and black in a matching hand made silk screened solander box. Limited edition of 5000 copies of which this is No.3087. A weighty photographic record of Michael Cooper's work. Michael Cooper was a 60’s beautiful person (obit 1972) and friend of the Rolling Stones, Robert Fraser etc., Every copy has at least 9 different autographs of subjects with Bill Wyman being the only constant. This copy is signed by David Hockney, Don Bachardy, Jenny Boyd, Spencer Davis, Terry Doran, Derek Taylor, Harry Nilsson, Adam Cooper, Bill Wyman and Colin Self and Ann Marshall. Solander box has liftable flap at centre - each copy having different small photo beneath - this has Marianne Faithful with bespectacled man. Book is about fine, box is slightly rubbed at corners o/w also about fine. A lavish production and the ultimate record of this gilded period.

No two copies are alike and the value depends on who signed your copy + the photo under the liftable flap (Beatles are best.) Here is a random list of signers from copies I have seen. It is unlikely to be comprehensive and we would welcome news of any other signers. A merry galaxy of 60's movers, shakers, posers, celebs and characters:

Bill Wyman, Colin Self, Neil Aspinall, Adam Cooper, Terry Doran, Richie Havens, Allen Jones, John Mayall, Richard Merkin, Billy Al Bengston, Gerald Malanga, Bridget Riley, Steve Winwood, Michael McClure, Sandy Lieberson, Spencer Davis, Dennis Hopper, Dean Stockwell, Harry Nilsson, Jenny Boyd, Jo Bergman, John Dunbar, Richard Hamilton, Anita Pallenberg, George Harrison, Pattie Clapton, Peter Blake, Francis Bacon, Donald Cammell, Anthony Caro, Allen Ginsberg, Astrid Kirchherr, Claes Oldenburg, Perry Richardson, Ringo Starr, Jurgen Vollmer, Klaus Voorman, Eric Clapton, Christopher Gibbs, Keith Richard, Nigel Waymouth, Ann Marshall, Marianne Faithfull, Larry Rivers, Brian Auger, Larry Bell, William Burroughs, Andy Warhol, Pattie Clapton, Jann Howarth, John Mayall, Bridget Riley, Terry Southern, Kenneth Anger, Don Bachardi, David Hockney, Graham Nash, Derek Taylor, Julie Driscoll, Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, Nicholas Monro.

Francis Bacon is possibly the Button Gwinnet of the pack, although it is said that the Warhol signature does most for the value of the book. Colin Self is the second most common and Peter Blake manages to get his oar in on most copies. I have heard of a limited edition of 250 copies lettered in roman numerals but it doesnt seem to differ in any way.

VALUE? The book can go for anything from £400 to £2000. A chancer on Amazon has one one at £2500 with Burroughs as one of the signers--he claims that WB signed very few. The number of people willing to fork out 50 hard won £50 notes to get at Burroughs signature is likely to be miniscule...Warhol's signature has a proven track record of turbo charging the book towards £2000. Beatle signatures are good, Keith Richards probably helps and Bacon is a name to conjure with.

OUTLOOK? Good. Even though there are 5000 out there they are actively traded and possibly growing in value. Ebay sees copies occasionally and multiple signed books tend to work with the punters there. Some people don't like Genesis books at all and they can be slow to shift unless you have the right ones, or the de luxe issues. They are seen as books for unsophisticated, celebrity obsessed arrivistes. For myself I am glad to buy them and also glad that the publishing company are vigorously knocking out new titles When buying them it is always worth checking with Genesis to see if they have any left. Blinds and Shutters is long gone however. The average age of collectors is about 40 and when these collector retire, move or die many copies may start to surface and some titles could prove a poor investment. Left is a photo of the unforgettable Talitha Getty leaviing a party with Stash (Stanislas) de Rola, princely son of Balthus. It is almost certainly not by Cooper, but the work of a nameless paparazzi, but it sums up 60s high style--these guys didn't get their kit from Gap. Photo removed by a noilly prat...as Logue said 'we will not argue about it in eternity.'

David Bailey's Box of Pin-Ups, 1965.

David Bailey. DAVID BAILEY'S BOX OF PIN-UPS. Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London [1965].



Current Selling Prices
$6000-$12000 /£3000-£6000

One of the victims of this recession has been photobooks. However like real estate in Britain and America they had become grossly overvalued and a correction was due. There were 3 big photo auctions in May and, whereas none bombed, results were lacklustre. Dealers tended only to be buying on commission and collectors only shelled out for stuff in exemplary condition.

Some surrealist items did well (the 1936 photo collage book 'La Septieme Face du Dé' by Hugnet made £10000 in it s Duchamp covers) and others badly --rude boy Hans Bellmer's not uncommon 'Les Jeux de la Poupée' failed to make its £40K reserve. Bailey's book turned up in 2 sales on the same day. Christies copy in a repaired box and lacking the cardboard throwaway insert made a punchy £4375. At Bloomsbury the gavel came down almost simultaneously at £1800 on a lesser copy ('missing lower cover and cardboard packing sheets stamped 'To be thrown away', the box with some marks and splits at edges.) Below is our original late 2007 report on this groovy book. It is hard to imagine the circumstances in which one would find a fine copy--but if one were found, even in these borassic times it would surely make £10,000+. Perhaps Lord Snowdon, the unsaleable photographer, still has his copy-- pristine because too nasty too touch with its pics of lowlife criminals and thugs. Possibly, like Churchill's Graham Sutherland portrait, it was destroyed.

PHOTOGRAPHY / 1960
Much sought after and valuable book from the mid 1960s before kaftans, bells, patchouli and psychedelia. I can remember as a teen seeing it in the shops and thinking it was expensive (£10?); there must have been quite a few printed and they got bought by the affluent and many got broken up and pinned up on walls of their kids -- the exact purpose for which they were intended. Of the few sets I have handled, quite often the photos had been taken down and put back in the box - with the pinholes at the corners as the evidence. In this auction description they have tape marks:

David Bailey's Box of Pin-ups. Description: A set of 36 portrait photographs (halftone prints), sheets 370 x 320mm., printed captions on versos, 15 (list available) with small tape marks at top corners, loose as issued in original box, upper cover with title, notes by Francis Wyndham and portrait of Bailey by Mick Jagger, lower cover with a repeat of Mick Jagger by Bailey, both cardboard packing sheets stamped "To be thrown away" present, the box with some marks and splits at edges, folio, Sixties style recorded and defined in a select gallery of movers and shakers from the worlds of music, fashion, art, photography, advertising, film and the stage. "Glamour dates fast, and it is its ephemeral nature which both attracts Bailey and challenges him." The text on the reverse of the image, penned by Francis Wyndham, cites Shrimpton as the inspiration behind this homage to visual culture: 'I want to do a book about images', said David Bailey, 'Jean's an image'.

This set made £4000 in 2004. There is some fetish about sets that retain the piece of thick card printed with the instruction to throw it away. A fine set made £20K in a photo sale in 2006 when 2 sixties obsessed and presumably bunced up punters went into full combat in a classic pissing competition. Some might consider the 60s way overrated and Bailey too. His work is noticeably absent from Martin Parr's seminal 'Photobooks 1 & 2'. Bailey has been accused of lack of taste and certainly anybody seen wearing a studded and pleated denim flat cap (as DB did in his documentary about Cecil Beaton) would have a job explaining himself to the taste police + his photos of Marie Helvin wrapped up in newspaper are a sort of limp response response to the pervo chic of Hemut Newton. His real strength has been as a fashion photographer drawing out stylish and sexual response from the beauties of the Love Generation. Also as a collector of photography he showed interesting and innovative taste--at CSK I recall seeing him buy a Van Gloeden of a svelte young girl--a rare item as the good Baron mainly concentrated on boys.



'Pin-ups' was art-directed by the caricaturist Mark Boxer, later editor of Tatler and briefly editorial director of Vogue, and David Hillman, responsible for Nova in its glory years. The subjects included Mick Jagger, Terence Stamp, Brian Jones, Kasmin, Jean Shrimpton, John Lennon & Paul Mccartney,Beaton, Rudolf Nureyev, Michael Caine, Hockney, Snowdon, the Kray Brothers and others. The strong objection to the presence of the Krays on the part of Lord Snowdon was the major reason no American edition of the "Box" ever appeared, nor a British second edition was ever issued. Gerald Scarfe, regarding the book as obsequious, responded promptly with ‘Gerald Scarfe’s Box of Throwups’ - a book I have never seen and which may be just a contribution or a ghost. Image below is of Bailey's muse - the pulchritudinous Jean Shrimpton aka 'The Shrimp.'

VALUE? Not impossibly rare - the print run was quite high because it was trendy material. However fresh, complete, unhandled examples with the box firm and intact are pretty scarce. Copies have made as little as $3000 in auction in the last 3 years and defective copies less, on the other hand they can climb to $10,000 and beyond. No copies at present on any internet bookmalls. People used to actually sell the pictures individually like some botanical breaker--think £100 a plate. Possibly to future generations the photos will be like Julia Margaret Cameron's highly prized photos of Victorian beauties and celebs. On the other hand the 60s era may be seen as less 'far out' and amazing when the boomers are no longer around to proclaim its ecstasies.

A Wonderful Time. Slim Aarons, 1974

Slim Aarons. A WONDERFUL TIME; AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT OF THE GOOD LIFE. Harper & Row, NY, 1974. (ISBN: 0060100168)


Current Selling Prices
$350-$650 /£250-£450


PHOTOGRAPHY
Large book (13 by 10 inches) - likely to be found on the white shelves of Long Island summer mansions and on glass coffee tables in the NY apartments of fashionistas, name droppers, decorators and photobook collectors. Aarons served as a combat photographer in World War II and was awarded a Purple Heart; friend of the famous, lanky and charming, he said "I'm not a master photographer. I'm a journalist with a camera." America's Cecil Beaton, but straight. Surprisingly the book is listed in Vol 2 of Martin Parr's essential 'The Photobook. A History.' Generally the discerning duo eschew coffee table style books and 'Society' snappers. Parr, however, detects a mild satiric note to the photos -'Aarons wields a sharp camera...' By the way, Bailey and Beaton are not to be found in Parr's extensive black books, which is a little harsh on poor Cecil...said to be a rather unpleasant man but with undoubted talent and skill.

The book is mainly colour and black & white photographs showing the estates, interiors and lifestyles of the Rockefellers, the Duchess of Windsor, the Vanderbilts, Lilly Pulitzer, T.S. Eliot, Merle Oberon, Cecil Beaton, Mary Hemingway, Gloria Guinness, Mrs. William Randolph Hearst, Jock Whitney, Truman Capote, Cobina Wright, Howard Hughes, Fleur Cowles and numerous others. Clubs, seaside mansions, pools and vast estates -endless opulence.

Dust jacket notes read: 'A Wonderful Time captures magnificently the life of America's elite from coast to coast, in Bermuda, the Caribbean, and Acapulco. Drawing from thousands of pictures taken since World War II on assignments for Holiday, Town & Country, Harper's Bazaar, Life, Vogue, Travel & Leisure, and other publications, Slim Aarons has put together the best of them--many never before published--with a narrative of his experiences and impressions while photographing American aristocrats on their estates and at play at their favorite resorts...having a wonderful time.' Other places and hangouts included The Myopia Hunt Club, Sugarbush, Snowmass, Bermuda, Jamaica, Acapulco, La Jolla, Nassau, The Exumas, The Bath and Tennis Club, Aspen, Hobe Sound, Montego Bay, The Waldorf. A vanished world. A litany of leisure, privilege and wealth. Dominick Dunne land. Baby you're a rich man too...



VALUE? Possibly a little old game/ vieux jeu in its appeal especially in a time of financial apocalypse. However this may have added to its appeal as its price has recently started to rise with all the cheaper copies that were available a year or more ago having found buyers. This is a book that has sold for over a $1000 but a careful buyer should find one for half that. One seller who has entered the photobook world late and seems to think it's full off mugs to whom money is no object, wants well over a £1000 for a less than fine copy and may have to dream on.
Another Society photographer from a slightly earlier era who is also much wanted is Jerome Zerbe, especially his 1937 privately published work 'John Perona's El Morocco Family Album.' Amazon had a decent one at $1250 but it went. An unpleasant sounding copy is being sold on Amazon for $1300, however it's sale would benefit the Mennonite Central Committee. Another wacky seller who notes that it features New York's pre Jet Set sipping swanky cocktails in 'swank Zebra banquettes' has 4 as new copies at $1800 in custom 'Martini Spill Proof' Mylar. Probably a lucky warehouse find but not one where the luck is being passed on...

OUTLOOK? Better than 2 years back when I first covered this book. I suspect it was published in a large run so it is unlikely to become rare but it will always be wanted, especially with the imprimatur of Parr and Badger. In good times it will sell to the leisured and loaded and in down times it has a bitter sweet nostalgic appeal. The popularity of the TV show 'Mad Men' which covers this era may also be helping its appeal. One of the great coffee table books.

Martin Parr. Bad Weather, 1982 + the world of the Photobook (according to Parr).

Martin Parr. Bad Weather. Zwemmer, London 1982.

PHOTOGRAPHY
A mere 62 pages in soft wraps with 54 b/w photos. Text includes a commentary by cult status weatherman Michael Fish. Parr is a highly collected and gifted Brit snapper (born 1952) who at some point was inducted into Magnum to the disgust of vieux humbug Cartier Bresson who described him as being from "a different solar system." MP is also responsible for the droll collections of 'boring' postcards, now up to 3 books -they have practically become a franchise. Parr has a 'whim of iron' as Powell said of Betjeman. Both top photos from this superb book.

Current Selling Prices
$250-$450 / £200-£350

VALUE? Copies on web are mostly £200 +, seldom less. Signed copies are more expensive but Parr is the Edward Heath of signed photo books, signatures add little. 'Bad Weather' is the kind of book you might find at a boot sale under a cold British sky for buggerall - it looks like nothing. Its value has stayed at this level for 3 years now. One prominent dealer says of Parr '[his] influence in contemporary British photography is unparalleled, but it is his contribution to the understanding and importance of photographic literature that may be his most profound legacy.' They are talking about his magisterial 2 vol 'The Photobook' which sits on a shelf beside me as I type.




Looking at the 'photobooks' I have covered in the last 3 years there has been, in most cases, an ineluctable rise in price. Possibly this is now stalling but so far it is holding its own. One caveat--in my experience when you are selling photobooks on the net it is often hard to actually get anywhere near the supposed value of these books unless you have very sharp copies of known rarities. Many photobook collectors are not burdened with money and need serious discounts and even time to pay; the core of richer buyers (often NY based) are probably feeling less cushy than in 2007, a few may even have been wiped out. Also it is safe to say that many modestly pitched items sell rapidly and silently against the higher prices; some dealers actually need money coming in...

Here are some notes:-
Carnival Strippers by Susan Meiselas. (1976)
Was $600 about 2 years ago now at least $800 (up circa 30%)

Sumo. Helmut Newton. (1999)
Was $8500 late 2007. One of 10,000 signed and numbered by the photographer. A book so large that it comes with its own metal folding stand, engraved with the author's name. Still goes for about the same money, or as much as 25% less due to the state of the dollar. Some surrealists want $14000 and even $25000. Dream on!

David Bailey's Book of Pin-Ups, 1965. Sixties flared trouser cockney sparrow pointedly ignored by Parr ( they have probably had bidding wars as Bailey is also a great photo collector.) Was $7500 in mid 2007. A copy made $7000 mid 2008 but it had made $14000 in 2005. Probably standing still in price, not esp rare but hard to find complete (36 pics) and in good nick.

P.H. Emerson. Marsh Leaves. 1895.
$5000 mid 2007. Not really tested since but an unpleasant copy on ABE at slightly more than this seems to have sold in late 2008 and would now expect a decent copy to nudge into five figures at auction (with the juice etc.,) One of the greats.

The Book of Bread. 1903
Was $800 early 2007. 2 copies on ABE now -one at $3000 and one not so nice at $4000. Freakish book of which the mighty Parr wrote "one of the humblest, yet most essential of objects is catalogued as precisely, regorously and objectively as any work by a 1980s Conceptual artist" Not a book to buy at these levels but to find somewhere overlooked (in the cookery section.) Probably sells regularly at half these prices. It's appeal is essentially whimsical. 300% increase.

Robert Frank. The Americans. (1959)
$7000 early 2007. In 2008 it made $15K (fine in slightly used d/w) and $32K (F/NF) and was bought in at $3k in an unpleasant jacket. All at Swann NY except the $32K which was at Christie's NY where it was described as 'A FINE COPY OF FRANK'S MASTERPIECE, and rare in this condition. (Quotes Parr) "The most renowned photobook of all... none has been more memorable, more influential, nor more fully realized... it changed the face of photography in the documentary mode".

El Morocco Family Album. Zerbe, 1937.
$1000 in early 2007. Bad copies now at $1100 better at $1700, a chancer at Amazon wants $2400. Society photography, social document tend to be beneath the Parr radar, below Parr- as it were.

Takashi Homma. Tokyo Suburbia, 1998.
$850 early 2007. Can now be had at under $700 and from Japan at slightly less than $600 as 'supply and demand' takes over. His 'Babyland' from 1995 can be had for less than $300.



Bruce Weber. Bear Pond, 1990.
Was $400 early 2007.
Still $400 and on some days less. Parr still has no time for Weber.

A Wonderful Time. Slim Aarons, 1974.
Was $250 early 2007. About the same price now, sometimes a bit more for F/F copies, suspect they occasionally go cheap on Ebay. Pictures of the very rich enjoying themselves could now be a little de trop for some. In Parr - he normally eschews social snappers. (Image below)



Ballet. 104 Photographs. Brodovitch, 1945.
Legendary photobook. $3500 in early 2007. Early 2008 a superior copy went through Ebay at $3500 or a bit more, rather used copy on ABE now at $3950, carriage trade dealer wants an unfriendly $9500 for a very nice example, a similar copy can be had at $4950 and top of the pile a midwest Video shop wants $11000 for the least good of the 4 copies for sale. As often happens the worst copy is the dearest (the mad hatter principle.) Book has gone ahead by as much as 60% in 2 years but is proving less scarce than was thought. "...One of the most cinematic and dynamic photobooks ever published..." (Parr)

Outlook? . Not an area I would like to wade into with credit cards flying right now, but there may be further life in the market especially with the incunabula of photo and proven geniuses like Emerson and Sander. The problem with most photobooks is you don't get much for your money. Their value derives from their iconic significance, sometimes $3000 gets you a small thin glossy book with a few printed b/w snaps. As one wag once observed (paraphrasing Veblen) 'modern art is a rich man's way of making poor people feel stupid.' So in this spirit the fact of a book looking insubstantial and even insignificant is no bar to its being valuable--in fact it helps. The 'mere man' cannot possibly appreciate this stuff. You demonstrate wealth and status by possessing it and recognising its true value. This may change - as it has before.

Carnival Strippers by Susan Meiselas.

Susan Meiselas. CARNIVAL STRIPPERS. Farrar, Straus, Giroux, NY 1976.

PHOTOGRAPHY.
Desirable photo book, not uncommon but seldom shows up as a first, jacketed hard back. Cover is silver. In the early 1970s Meiselas travelled with some small New England and Southern "Girl Shows", including the Club Flamingo, the Star and Garter & the Club 17. Pictures and text from 100+ hours of interviews. Not a salacious book, somewhat noir and poignant, some photos are said to shock. A journey into the darker side of American life. A great photographer, she won the Robert Capa Gold Medal, the Leica medal for excellence, and The Photojournalist of the Year etc., Her book 'Nicaragua' is in Parr's definitive 'The Photobook' and this book is in in Andrew Roth's Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century.'

Current Selling Prices
$800-$1200 / £500-£800

VALUE? Hardback copies in jackets are avaiable at $1000+ but are attainable at less, one hopeful wanted $750 for the paperback, but it can be found at under $200. Kind of book you might find in a slightly curled jacket at a flea market (priced at $10 for its sleaze factor) if you got there at dawn. It has gone up in value over the last 2 years as a hardback. Hard to know whether photobooks are still a good investment bought at these levels. Their values, which crashed in the 1980s have gone up and up and a correction is almost inevitable especially in a market that is otherwise troubled. Will examine this question further as I have records of values of photobooks from 2/3 years ago.

A re-issue appeared in 2003 which has a CD of some of her interviews and added new pix - it can be bought signed at $150 or less. The publishers (Whitney Museum of American Art in association with Steidl Verlag of Göttingen Germany) say this of it:

"From 1972 to 1975, Susan Meiselas spent her summers photographing and interviewing women who performed striptease for small town carnivals in New England, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. As she followed the girl shows from town to town, she portrayed the dancers on stage and off, photographing their public performances as well as their private lives. She also taped interviews with the dancers, their boyfriends, the show managers, and paying customers. Meiselas's frank description of the lives of these women brought a hidden world to public attention. Produced during the early years of the women's movement, Carnival Strippers reflects the struggle for identity and self-esteem that characterized a complex era of change....essays by Sylvia Wolf and Deirdre English reflect on the importance of this body of work within the history of photography and the history of feminism."

Sumo. Helmut Newton, 1999.

Helmut Newton. SUMO. Taschen, Cologne, 1999. ISBN: 3822863947

Current Selling Prices
$7000-$12000 /£3500-£6000





PHOTOGRAPHY / EROTICA
Last time we sold a copy this was our description:

'Elephant Folio. 480 pages, photos throughout in colour and b/w. 50 x 70 cm (20 x 27.5 inches) and weighing approx. 30 kg (66 lb.) Monumental, staggeringly big and heavy limited edition signed on the title page by Helmut Newton & edited by his wife June Newton (aka Alice Springs) Nudes, fashion photographs, celebrity portraits and erotica. The result of a Benedikt Taschen project at one time said to have circa fifty people working on it, with a cost of over 3 miliion dollars. The book is in fine condition in fine d/w in its original packing box complete with special nickel plated table/ stand designed by hip interior designer Philippe Starck and commisioned by Newton's friend publisher Benedikt Taschen. Nota Bene--this book weighs over 30 kilos and therefore additional shipping costs will have to apply. Literally the ultimate coffee table book.'

Somebody bought it in 2004/5 from Switzerland, we were glad it wasn't America - postage could have been up to $800. It needs 2 people to lift the package with its coffee table enclosed and it is of enormous dimensions 'putting the elephant back into elephant folio' as one wit observed. The post office won't touch it.

2 things to note about the book - it is not especially scarce as there were 10,000 produced and at one time it was remaindered as low as $500. Secondly the Starck table doesn't really work and often collapses with its sharp edges seriously affecting the books condition. There are usually a few nasty copies online at lesser prices that have been in a Starck collapse. Nice idea though and a sort of visual pun - the book as coffee table.

Newton's work is portentous rather than pretentious and in the trend driven world of photo collecting no one so far has blown the whistle on him, so his status is good. Talking of pretentious - the fashionista Karl Lagerfeld said of him "Cool for him is the exact opposite of Romantic and Sentimental two words that don't belong in his vocabulary.---- The secret of its potency (his art) lies in a mixture, which is hard to define, of distance and availability.."

His photographs were described by JG Ballard, as ’stills from an elegant and erotic movie, perhaps entitled ‘Midnight at the Villa d’Este’ or ‘Afternoons in Super-Cannes’, a virtual film that has never played at any theatre, but has screened itself inside our heads for the last 40 years’. …Ballard puts him in the in formal Surrealist tradition of Delvaux or Magritte rather than photo heros such as August Sander or Cartier-Bresson - 'certainly his models constantly seem lost, surprised, or entranced, his exotic backdrops oddly incongruous, as if we are suddenly being afforded a glimpse of a bigger narrative whose contours we can only guess at.'

Taschen, something of a blagueur claims that it is the biggest and most costly book ever produced. Can't dispute that at the moment but I have a feeling the big Audubon Birds is bigger and surely in the history of books someone spent more on producing a book?

VALUE? Hard to find one anywhere for less than £3K at present and it would be best to find one nearby where it can be picked up in a car or van. One with 'severe damage' (see reason above) can be found at a stroppy $3500. A few chancers (mostly relisters) want $10,000 to $12000 for one but are best avoided utterly. Amazon USA has several at $6500 with no provision as far as I can see for charging more than nominal postage, in fact postage is free if bought in the next 28 hours!.

Ours made £3000 on ebay, it can make a little less there but it appears to be still an object of desire. With 10,000 out there it is going to be traded until Armageddon comes.



STOP PRESS. Jan/08. 'Sumo' has risen in value and the cheapest copy I can find is at $8500 (Ebay shop) with all other copies $12000 or more with one crazy guy looking for $30000. One interesting copy at $14000 claims to be 'one of 200.' This is a book to buy on Ebay or in a shop, for the moment only economic meltdown is going to soften prices to the price level where I did the entry above (March 2007). Last word with Benedikt Taschen, no stranger to hubris, hyperbole and hype:-

"...Binding the book was another major challenge. Never before has a book of this size and weight been printed. SUMO is a vision become paper, full of so much labour and so many memories. An adventure. A project that has resulted not only in a book that makes us proud and happy, but also a new friendship. I used to admire Helmut Newton for his work. Today he is a friend. Helmut Newton's SUMO is destined to be the most successful book of the 21st century. It's my favourite book already."

I have seen books bigger than this--L.A. dealer Eric Chaim Kline hauled a book three times this size to last years ABAA fair in San Francisco. Some Audubons are bigger and I swear I saw a book the size of a door in a botanical dealer's stock in Manhattan. That being said this SUMO is probably the biggest book to have been sold in regular bookshops for many a year.

P.H. Emerson. Marsh Leaves. 1895

P.H. Emerson. MARSH LEAVES. David Nutt, London, 1895.

Current Selling Prices
$4000-$8000 /£2000-£4000

PHOTOGRAPHY
As I live in East Anglia and occasionally scout the remaining bookshops I am always on the lookout for photobooks by P.H. Emerson (1856 - 1935). He is something of a local hero and his 'bootiful' photos of the Norfolk broads in the Victorian era are still well known in the area and often exhibited. They even had a show at the Getty in Malibu recently.

I have turned up about half a dozen of his books in 20 years (not all in Norfolk and Suffolk) and only one was asleep (i.e. not priced by someone who knew what it was.) Three of them have been 'Marsh Leaves'. I described the last one that came through (2005) thus:

"Large tall 8vo. (11.25 inches x 7. 50 inches). pp vi, [2] 165.Original publisher's decorative light blue cloth. Illustrated with 'sixteen photo-etchings from plates taken by the author.' Major photobook with 60 short prose pieces and 16 photos both by Emerson, as Martin Parr says 'as a fusion of text and imagery it is entirely successful.' Covers somewhat worn and soiled with some staining at front top and corner, spine browned and a little mottled, spine ends sl frayed; sound vg- with clean text and photos in excellent state. It is said 300 copies were printed."

It sold quite quickly to the States at £1600. Our copy was a variant, the copy above with leather spine and white decorated boards is preferred. The book, and several other Emersons, is covered by the magisterial Martin Parr in 'The Photobook: A History 1.' He writes of Emerson's affinity with Whistler:

"...the mood, if anything is much bleaker than Whistler's. 'The expression of a landscape is as mutable and as fleeting as the flash in a woman's eye,' Emerson writes in the book's text, but it is a cold and distant woman indeed that he embraces in Marsh Leaves. Most of the images are minimalist to the point of nothingness - a distant tree or boat, the smudge of a distant shoreline...most were taken during winter or on damp, misty mornings. It is one of the most beautiful books about isolation and solitude, perhaps death, ever made, and Emerson's spare evocative pictures were seldom equalled by the later Pictorialists.'

VALUE? A copy in used condition sold for £1950 at Key's auctions (Norfolk) last year, a framed up set of the 16 photos made $14000 in California and at photo-mad auction house Swann Galleries in NY an impressive $19,200 was achieved this year, for a vellum copy described thus:

"...Illustrated with 16 photogravures after Emerson's atmospheric and proto-modernist photographs, with the original printed tissue guards. Tall 4to, morocco-backed pictorial cloth, rebacked; offsetting and discoloring on free endpaper, small gouge on rear pastedown; bookplate. deluxe edition, one of 50 copies on japanese vellum of a planned edition of 100."

Basically decent regular copies now command north of $5000, special copies $10K+. An inscribed 'Marsh Leaves' made $2000 in 1977 during the first boom in photo books. Condition is paramount and they are seldom limpid. I swapped a decent one with the late, much missed David Ferrow of Yarmouth for a car full of books in the mid 1990s, about two grand's worth. He had customers waiting - said to be well off Norfolk farmers.

Top price for any Emerson is this year at Swann - $84,000 for his 1886 'Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads' - 'Illustrated with Forty Beautiful Plates from Nature Executed in Platinotype.' It was helped by being one of 25 copies. Even the regular edition is a beautiful and sumptuous object and a stunning technical achievement. I have seen it in auction but, sadly, never owned one. A decent, complete copy had not been seen in the rooms since the late 1970s when it made $25K. The book, a definite break with the then current 'faux painterly' style, was reviewed at the time as "...an unanswerable refutation of those who say there is no art in photography." Ironically Emerson came to the conclusion that photography was not, and could never be, art and in 1890 published a pamphlet entitled 'The Death of Naturalistic Photography' in which he gave his reasons for this volte face. He never used the word 'art' again in relation to photography. In 2007 this may seem quaint but there are still those who support him. My own view is that it is an art, but Emerson (and possibly Thomas Frederick Goodall - his partner in some of the photos) is one of the few photographers who can be called artists. Photo below from (I think) "Wild Life on a Tidal Water' (1890) showing the river at Norwich at dawn.

The Book of Bread. 1903

Owen Simmons. THE BOOK OF BREAD.McLaren, London, 1903

Current Selling Prices$750 - $1500 / £375 - £750

FOOD AND DRINK / PHOTOGRAPHY
An illustrated guide to bread, quite technical. Worth quite alot of dough! Not especially uncommon but featured in Martin Parr's seminal collector's book ('The Photobook. A History. 1.') and so copies seem to have gone to ground. 12 chromolithographic large colour plates and 27 b/w photos of loaves, with titles such a 'Holes in Bread.' Rather beautiful photos (photographer unknown.) A sort of surreal objet trouvé or, as Parr says, reminiscent of 1980s conceptual art in its obsessive style and rigorous and precise cataloguing. Parr has a 'whim of iron' as Powell said of Betjeman.

VALUE? I sold a copy 3 years ago for a £100 probably to a food person. No copies on web for quite a while. A copy sold at Bloomsbury Book Auctions in 2001 at £50 and in 2005 a less nice one made £480 + a bit of commission ('the juice') making it a $1000 book, but I suspect that might be a freak result. At that sort of price the whimsy starts to fade. Watch this space. (written late 2006 but see below--whimsy on the rise!) [ W/Q ** ]

STOP PRESS. A copy in a special limited edition binding and signed by the author made £500 last year. This year (quite recently) the book was spotted in a lot at a UK provincial auction. There were 11 other books on bread and baking with it, some possibly nice but all post 1800. The lot made £3000 and I feel sure that a lot of that would have been because someone one went crazy for the Simmons book, possibly hoping to get most of the money back for the other books. Purely speculation - but it is likely that Simmons book is climbing into four figures. It is worth noting that books can often do absurdly well when lotted with a few other half decent books. They force the buyers to rate (and over rate) all the books in the lot at best prices and competition can be intense. Paradoxically the books would make less if singly lotted. Still no copies on any book mall...

Robert Frank. The Americans.

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El Morocco Family Album. Zerbe, 1937.

Jerome Zerbe. JOHN PERONA'S EL MOROCCO FAMILY ALBUM. Privately Printed, N Y, 1937.

Current Selling Prices
$800-$1400 /£400-£700

PHOTOGRAPHY / SOCIETY
An uncommon and much wanted book. Unknown or disregarded by Parr and Badger (also Roth) the deities of the Photobook. Zerbe was a gay socialite from the American Brahmin class and although Slim Aarons makes the cut, most socialite smudgers are ignored, possibly rightly. A book of 62 pages of half-tone photographs from the El Morocco nightclub, one of the prime locations for spotting celebrities and high society in New York City in the 1930s. Prohibition had just ended and nightlife was booming. The club was on East 54th Street in Manhattan and run by one John Perona and his son Edwin. Patrons of the establishment appearing in the album include an array of actors, socialites and notables including Gary Cooper, the Vanderbilts, Ruth Weston, Elsie de Wolfe, Serge Lifar, the Duke and Duchess of Leeds and Clark Gable. All were photographed inside the club, many seated in the signature zebra pattern upholstered booths. Jerome Zerbe was the official photographer of the El Morocco from 1934 to 1939.

Zerbe was one of the first society photographers, now known as paparazzi. He was interviewed by oral historian Studs Terkel for his major work on the 30s, 'Hard Times.' In the interview it emerges that celebriies came to the El Morocco in order to be photographed, as Zerbe told Terkel:-

The social set did not go to the Rainbow Room or the El Morocco until I invented this funny, silly thing of taking photographs of people. And the minute the photographs appeared in the paper, then they came.
Terkel: In short they became celebrities at that moment.
Zerbe: Yes, yes, that's right. So, I would send my photographs not only to the New York papers. I sent them to the London Bystander, to the Australian -- I've forgotten what the name now was -- there was a paper in Rio; I sent them all over the world. So people would come in to the El Morocco and I would get a note saying, "The Duchess of Sutherland has just arrived and would love to have her photograph taken." [laughs]

Unlike later parazzi he never had to hide in the bushes to get shots of the rich and famous. “Once I asked Katharine Hepburn to come up from her place at Fenwick, a few miles away, and pose for some fashion photos for me,” Zerbe recalled in his book Happy Times. “She arrived with a picnic hamper full of food and wine for the two of us. I snapped her just as she came to the door.”




Zerbe was a Navy photographer during World War II. According to the 1951 cocktail recipe book 'Bottoms Up' Zerbe is credited with inventing the vodka martini. He was rumoured to have had an affair with Cary Grant and was known as a celebrated society "walker". He was the author of several other books of photographs, including Happy Times, which includes his photographs from the El Morocco years with text by New Yorker writer Brendan Gill (easily found in nice condition at less than $40). Among Zerbe's other books were People on Parade (1934) and The Art of Social Climbing (1965) both worth about £80, the former more in a jacket. He also did a book with Cyril Connolly 'Les Pavillons' which is sometimes collected as a Connolly item but is worth no more than $80 last time I looked. Zerbe was the longtime companion of the society columnist and writer Lucius Beebe- he wrote the introduction to several of his books and was known as 'the last of the boulevardiers.'


Zerbe had a vast collection of photographs, which a biographer estimated had 50,000 images in 150 scrapbooks. They were thought to be lost or possibly dumped in a skip but it turns out they are part of an extensive private photography archive owned by London based collector Fred Koch, the eldest son of industrialist Fred C. Koch. Koch is a great collector covered in another piece 'Billionaire's Book Club.'

VALUE? No copy on web, a non web mall dealer had a slightly worn copy on sale last year -as I recall the price was about $1200. The only auction record for Zerbe was for his work with Cyril Connolly, the net has thrown too many copies of that book up for it to ever enter auction records again.

By 1992 the El Morocco had become a topless bar. [ W/Q *** ]

Takashi Homma. Tokyo Suburbia, 1998.

Takashi Homma. TOKYO SUBURBIA. Korinsha Press, Tokyo, 1998.

Current Selling Prices
$600-$1000 /£300-£500

PHOTOGRAPHY
The book appears in thick card cover about the size of a phone directory, with photos printed on a thickish stock. No jacket. Homma's photo book of the Tokyo suburbs and the kids growing up there is much wanted. It is covered approvingly in Parr & Badger (Photobook 2, 2006). His previous book, somewhat in the wake of transgressive photographer Nobuyoshi Araki was called 'Baby Land' (1995) a lesser effort full of the pouting-young-girls-in-white-panties so much admired by Japanese smudgers.

'Suburbia' is a small masterpiece -- you really need the 20 page English language booklet that goes with it (especially to achieve true fiscal value) - it includes an annotated subway chart showing the location where each photo was taken and extended captions to some of the photos - these written by architect Momoyo Kajima with an essay on Suburbia by sociologist Shinji Miyadai. Homma won awards for the book. Homma manages to make "kogai" (suburban "newtown" housing developments) and the 'bed towns' seem slightly cool or at least he raises the possibility of seeing them as intriguing and worthy of inspection.

A photo critic in 'Archis' observes:-

'...Beyond the apparent frivolity and mischievousness, there is another, unironic, message: that everything — that is, every thing — has potential aesthetic properties. In this sense, perhaps the best point of reference for these photographs is John Cage’s composition 4′ 33″; scored as silence, it requires the listener to pay close attention to a random slice of environmental noise. Homma works with a similar arbitrariness — he could have pressed the shutter half an hour earlier or later.

Homma deliberately leaves the edges of many photos uncropped with all the consequent intrusive elements, although it is not a hard and fast rule- he is said to regard Catier Bresson's pride in never cropping a photo as “photographic narcissism.” Of course it is fairly well known that HCB quietly ignored his own dictum.

VALUE? Araki is of course where the big money is, with collectors of New Japanese Photography paying $5000+ for his first book (Sentimental Journey 1971, 1000 copies printed) but I have seen prices as high as $1300 for decent but not flawless copies of Homma's Suburbia. Cheapest on ABE is $900, a reasonable copy with no mention of the leaflet went through ebay at $500 in Feb 07 and one sits in an Ebay shop at $1050 with 3 offers on it. Don't quite understand all that offer thing, I guess the more offers the better. Probably vaguely on the rise, there are 20 million potential punters in the suburbs around Tokyo for a start. No one is calling the top of the photography market just yet. [ W/Q * ]

Bruce Weber. Bear Pond, 1990.

Bruce Weber. BEAR POND. Bulfinch Press/Little Brown, NY 1990.  ISBN: 082121831X

Current Selling Prices
$350-$750 / £200-£400

PHOTOGRAPHY
Landmark collection of black-and-white photographs from the skull capped maestro of the gay, the fashionable and the rippling muscle. In the line of Horst, Hoyningen Huene and the ineffable George Platt Lynes. Weber did a lot of memorable advertising for Calvin Klein and pretty much established the new brattish image of the old firm of Abercrombie and Fitch.

Sometimes considered 'a late-modern erotic photography classic' especially by dealers trying to sell it. Published as a hardcover original only, with poem by Reynolds Price. It deals with the beauty of nature, dogs, and the masculine form, his three big interests. The place was the Adirondacks, the dogs Golden Retrievers and the guys buffed models from mondo fashionista. To quote a dealers catalogue:

'The underlying "message" of the work is Man's perfect harmony with Nature, which was prompted by a particularly crucial moment in American history: When the book first appeared, Bruce Weber's intention was to provide whatever solace and comfort an artist/photographer can give in the face of the devastation of AIDS. All of the proceeds from the sale of the book were donated to the AIDS Resource Center in New York City. It seems unlikely that even he could have imagined that "Bear Pond" would become an instant classic ... At their very best, the images in "Bear Pond", almost all of them full-frontal male nudes, have not been surpassed, not even by the photographer himself.'

Weber's work is completely ignored by Parr in his essential, but earnest 2 vol 'The Photobook' -- Parr tends to eschew the fashion guys, the gays and the swinging London crowd--there is no Bailey, Beard, Beaton, Horst, Hoyningen Huene or Platt Lynes. What's that all about? Weber's 1986 'O Rio de Janeiro' makes it into Roth's 101 books. 'Rio' which has girls as well + a lot of Jiu Jitsu can be had in fine/fine for a little less than $1000.



VALUE? Quite hard to find a really nice copy with d/w but not at all scarce at present, some asking over $1000 but findable at a great deal less. A signed copy was seen at $2500, seems to have vanished, unlikely to have sold, another signed tops the list of 25 firsts on ABE at $1680. Pretty nice firsts in jacket can be had for about $600. Second editions (which they often are) seem to go for around $400. [ W/Q ** ]

Ballet. 104 Photographs. Brodovitch, 1945.

Alexey Brodovitch. BALLET: 104 PHOTOGRAPHS. Augustin, NY 1945.

Current Selling Prices
$3000+/ £1500+ Want level 50- 75 High

PHOTOGRAPHY / BALLET
Legendary photobook. Text by Edwin Denby. Rare collection of Brodovitch's photographs of Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo from the 1930s. Kerry Purcell said of it --'one of the most successful attempts at suggesting motion in photography, and certainly one of the most cinematic and dynamic photobooks ever published.' Using a 35mm Contax he developed techniques of blurring and graininess that would become mainstream in the 1950s and 60s.

AB (1898-1971) Russian born photographer designer, started his career in France and in US ran the highly influential Design Laboratory, producing what is sometimes said to be the century's best design magazine Portfolio (1950 to 1951, 3 issues only.) As Art Director at Harpers Bazaar he ruled the roost amongst NY's fashionistas and snappers for about 20 years from 1934 to 1958, coldshouldering Diane Arbus and promoting Art Kane, Penn, Platt Lynes etc., When he was dismissed and later after the death of his wife Nina, he hit the bottle. There is a celebrated portrait of him (left) on crutches after a fall, by his close friend Avedon. 'Ballet' produced in 500 copies was his only book.

VALUE? Seldom shows up on the web but has appeared at auction in NY, mostly at Swann photo sales where between 1997 and 2002 it made $1200 to as high as $3500 for jacketed copies. A copy surfaced at Christies (d/w not wonderful) in London 2006 somewhat over-catalogued; it seems to have worked, the buyer having had to pay £2160 ($4000) to get it home.

Some photos by him Ballet (Boutique Fantasque) 1935-37 made between $20K and $45K each at Swann in NY but with a few bought in at $8000 or less, so a valuable but volatile market. A couple of not fine issues of his Portfolio at between $500 and $800, the latter with with the publisher's original stereoscopic glasses laid in, are listed at present but no Ballet 104. The book in nice shape would probably go higher than its recent record because it is uncommon,less common than the 500 limitation would suggest - presumably many being held by costive collectors.

Madonna. Sex. 1992.

Madonna. SEX. New York: Warner Books, 1992.

SEX/ PHOTOGRAPHY / FASHION
The great bibliomane Thomas Dibdin said that a person should have 3 copies of his favourite books, one for reading, one for collecting and one for lending to friends. If Dibdin had fancied Madonna's silver book 'Sex' he would have kept the collectable one in virgin state, i.e. unopened.The minute someone slits the silver mylar foil the book halves in value. This is basically true of all collectable books, they are not for reading and should ideally look like they are still sitting in Borders. The only problem with Madonna's book is that I suspect it will one day rust or oxidise or possibly self destruct. Its porn-as- fashion mode, with tattooed baldies and torpid bondage is a little vieux chapeau 15 years on and the book has demonstrably peaked. It will always be a curiosity, like the metal book produced by MOMA or Warhol's 'Index Book' with its mouldy balloon. Genuine signed ones are good, and the UK edition by Secker is said to precede the New York edition so has some caché. [Want level 50-80 High]



Current Selling Prices
$250-$400 /£120-£200 ISBN: 0446517321

VALUE? There are alot about. We put one on ebay a couple of years ago and it was kicked off as smut, it seems to be now acceptable again. Some dealers have several copies but still call it scarce. I guess having done the full on hyperbole description ('flawless, spectacular, as new, never opened') it's easy to just keep adding copies. Even a 'factory - sealed' copy can go through on ebay at around a $150 when there are a lot about. It must have the CD - 'in it's original mylar pouch. Celebrities photographed with Madonna - include Naomi Campbell, Isabella Rossellini, Big Daddy Kane & Vanilla Ice. Talking off celebs our very own Kylie Minogue did a sort of reply to Madonna's book in 1999 - and it is holding it's value ($100?). Produced by Damien Hirst's publishers Booth-Clibborn Editions in London. It's pink in an illustrated slip-case and less relentlessly sleazy than 'Sex.' At one point there were hundreds of 'hurt ' copies around, possibly the survivors of a forklift crash, so fine copies are uncommon.