Cubists and Post-Impressionism

Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co, 1914. Some scuffing to binding, a few plates lightly offset, partly cracked at center but binding strong; a few splits and light wear to slipcase. Rare with the original slipcase. 8vo. 245 pages. Complete with 23 color reproductions of Cubist and Post-Impressionist Paintings, all mounted on card; and 46 half-tone illustrations. Original cloth-backed printed boards, top edges gilt; slipcase with printed paper spine label. First edition. The lawyer, art collector, author and critic Arthur Jerome Eddy was a key figure in the first generation of Modern Art collectors. This, his most important book, is the first American work to promote these artists, and the first work to promote Wassily Kandinsky. Much of the information in the book was gained from the artists themselves, as Eddy was actively studying and collecting their works. Kandinsky had only been represented by one painting in the Armory Show the previous year: four are illustrated here ('Village Street'; Landscape with two poplars; Improvisations nos. 29 and 30). Other artists illustrated and discussed are: Boccioni, Brancusi, Cezanne, Derain, Duchamp, Gauguin, Gris, Klee, Leger, Lendbruck, Matisse, Picabia, Picasso, Rousseau, Russolo, Segonzac, Van Gogh, Villon, and Vlaminck. Eddy opens his text with the proclamation that "Since the exhibit at the Columbian Exposition (1893) nothing has happened in the world of American art so stimulating as the recent INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF MODERN ART," i.e. the famed Armory Show. In 1931, a portion of Eddy's collection was donated to the Art Institute of Chicago. It remains an important part of the core of its collection of Modern Art. The work was reprinted in 1919, and while that second edition is easily traced in the market, this first edition is scarce, especially with the slipcase.