Elizabeth Phillips Rare Books

11/13/2015

I highly recommend the Frank Stella retrospective at the new Whitney Museum. His early work is wonderful and rarely seen, and his breadth as an artist impressive. I love his famous quote: "What you see is what you see." I had the pleasure of attending the opening with Rachel Stella, and meeting a favorite artist, and gifted printmaker, Jasper Johns.

10/23/2015

I've just gotten in the rare wedding invitation for Iliazd and Helene Iliazd's marriage, designed by Iliazd, with the outrageous drypoint Picasso gave to his dear friend and collaborator. I've been looking for one for 30 years so am thrilled to have finally found this.

09/25/2015

I've just received an advance copy of a fabulous new book on Soviet photobooks, recently published by Steidl. It's beautifully illustrated with a great text by Mikhail Karasik. DAP in the USA will be distributing it soon. It weighs a ton and it's chock full of incredible books and images! https://steidl.de/Books/The-Soviet-Photobook-1920-1941-0612151931.html

The Soviet Union was unique in its formidable and dynamic use of the illustrated book as a means of propaganda. Through the book, the U.S.S.R....

09/07/2015

Loved the Yoko Ono show at the MoMA. Too bad it closes today! She was and is a remarkable and innovative artist, whose bottom line message is PEACE. I especially loved her all white chess set. Impossible to stay adversarial for long with both sides playing with identical pieces!
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/arts/design/yoko-onos-1971-moma-show-finally-opens.html?_r=0

A retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art could build new appreciation for Yoko Ono’s career as an artist.

04/04/2015

I highly recommend the fabulous MoMA exhibition: Modern Photographs from the Thomas Walther Collection. I was delighted to see at the end of the show Rodchenko’s spectacularly designed deluxe issue for the Soviet periodical USSR in Construction, 1935, with the stunning foldout parachute. Both the regular and the deluxe copies were on view — from the MoMA’s collection, which they acquired from me!

02/09/2015

I'm thrilled to have in stock the elegant Iliazd/Picasso collaboration Chevaux de minuit (Midnight Horses). Paris, 1956. It's one of the great Iliazd editions.

01/28/2015

If you're going to be in the Bay Area February 8-11, check out the wonderful Codex Book Fair where book artists and fine press printers from around the world will be exhibiting. http://www.codexfoundation.org/

12/13/2014

"Matisse: The Cut-Outs" at the MoMA is a dazzling and fabulous show no art lover should miss. And for those of us who love books made by artists, seeing the original maquettes for JAZZ is amazing.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/20/shapes-things

Peter Schjeldahl on “Matisse: The Cut-Outs,” a new show at MOMA that “will give you as much aesthetic pleasure as you can stand and then some.”

09/25/2014

Great bumper sticker on a car in NYC.

09/23/2014

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_edgy_optimist/2014/09/independent_bookstores_rising_they_can_t_compete_with_amazon_and_don_t_have.html

The recent news of the opening of an independent bookstore on Manhattan’s Upper West Side was greeted with surprise and delight, since a neighborhood once flush with such stores had become a retail book desert. The opening coincides with the relocation of the Bank Street Bookstore near Columbia Univ…

04/18/2014

We're exhibiting next at the Annual Conference of the Art Libraries Society of North America in Washington, DC exploring the theme, "Art+Politics."
The conference will be held at the Grand Hyatt in downtown Washington from May 1-5, 2014.
https://www.arlisna.org/washingtondc2014/index.php

03/12/2014

Great show on Italian Futurism at the Guggenheim. Some terrific books are on exhibit including Depero's bolt book and the metal books by Marinetti and Munari. http://galleristny.com/2014/02/italian-futurism-1909-1944-reconstructing-the-universe-at-the-guggenheim-museum/

In 1909, F. T. Marinetti’s “Founding and Manifesto of Futurism” declared, “We will glorify war … militarism, patriotism … and scorn for women.” A new show at the Guggenheim Museum featuring the art of the Italian Futurists between 1909 and 1944, with nearly 360 artworks by more than 80 artists, is a...