Historic Van Gogh-Gauguin Letter Estimated $470,000 - $670,000 At Christie's

by Stephen J. Gertz

An astounding autograph letter co-written and signed by Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin to a third party discussing each other, their work together, paintings in progress, thoughts on a painter's association, and, amusingly, their exploration of the brothels of Arles, is being offered by Christie's-Paris in their Pierre Berès A Livre Ouvert sale on December 12, 2012.

It is estimated to sell for $470,000 - $670,000.

Van Gogh was a prolific letter writer; this is no. 716, found in the definitive, six-volume Vincent Van Gogh - The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition, a massive project begun in 1994 under the aegis of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and published in 2009.

Though undated and without location, internal evidence points to it being written on Thursday the 1st or Friday the 2d of November 1888 and posted from Arles.

Van Gogh fled Paris in early 1888 and sought refuge in Arles. After repeated requests, Gauguin joined him on October 23d; they shared the four rooms that Van Gogh had rented at 2, Place Lamartine, the Yellow House. The letter was written a week after Gauguin's arrival.

Written to French painter and writer Emile  Bernard (1868-1941), in English translation it reads in full:

My dear old Bernard,

We’ve done a great deal of work these past few days, and in the meantime I’ve read Zola’s Le rêve,1 so I’ve hardly had time to write.

Gauguin interests me greatly as a man — greatly. For a long time it has seemed to me that in our filthy job as painters we have the greatest need of people with the hands and stomach of a labourer. More natural tastes — more amorous and benevolent temperaments — than the decadent and exhausted Parisian man-about-town.

Now here, without the slightest doubt, we’re in the presence of an unspoiled creature with the instincts of a wild beast. With Gauguin, blood and sex have the edge over ambition. But enough of that, you’ve seen him close at hand longer than I have, just wanted to tell you first impressions in a few words.

Next, I don’t think it will astonish you greatly if I tell you that our discussions are tending to deal with the terrific subject of an association of certain painters. Ought or may this association have a commercial character, yes or no? We haven’t reached any result yet, and haven’t so much as set foot on a new continent yet. Now I, who have a presentiment of a new world, who certainly believe in the possibility of a great renaissance of art. Who believe that this new art will have the tropics for its homeland.

It seems to me that we ourselves are serving only as intermediaries. And that it will only be a subsequent generation that will succeed in living in peace. Anyway, all that, our duties and our possibilities for action could become clearer to us only through actual experience.

I was a little surprised not yet to have received the studies that you promised in exchange for mine. Now something that will interest you — we’ve made some excursions in the brothels, and it’s likely that we’ll eventually go there often to work. At the moment Gauguin has a canvas in progress of the same  night café that I also painted, but with figures seen in the brothels. It promises to become a beautiful thing.

I’ve made two studies of falling leaves in an avenue of poplars, and a third study of the whole of this avenue, entirely yellow.

I declare I don’t understand why I don’t do figure studies,6 while theoretically it’s sometimes so difficult for me to imagine the painting of the future as anything other than a new series of powerful portraitists, simple and comprehensible to the whole of the general public. Anyway, perhaps I’ll soon get down to doing brothels.

I’ll leave a page for Gauguin, who will probably also write to you, and I shake your hand firmly in thought.

Ever yours,
Vincent

Milliet the 2nd lieut. Zouaves has left for Africa, and would be very glad if you were to write to him one of these days.

[Continued by Gauguin]

You will indeed do well to write him what your intentions are, so that he could take steps beforehand to  prepare the way for you.

Mr Milliet, second lieutenant of Zouaves, Guelma, Africa.

Don’t listen to Vincent; as you know, he’s prone to admire and ditto to be indulgent. His idea about the future of a new generation in the tropics seems absolutely right to me as a painter, and I still intend going back there when I find the funds. A little bit of luck, who knows?

Vincent has done two studies of falling leaves in an avenue, which are in my room and which you would like very much. On very coarse, but very good sacking.

Send news of yourself and of all the pals.

Yours,

Paul Gauguin

The late Pierre Berès (1913-2008) was more than a collector. He was "The King of  French booksellers," as the New York Times' obituary noted, towering over the rare and antiquarian book trade in Europe for seventy-five years until his death at age ninety-five. He was also a legendary figure in the world of art. He began as an autograph collector but soon shifted his attention  to books. His meteoric rise in the world of rare bookselling was fueled by acquiring collections of financially unstable French aristocrats and American millionaires during the Depression.

He was "a man renowned for his taste and connoisseurship, his vast financial resources and his ruthlessness in the pursuit of the rare and the beautiful" (NY Times obit). “I do not seek, I find,” he once cryptically declared about his preternatural ability to ferret-out scarce and desirable rare books from their hiding places.

"Rivals found him unscrupulous. In one celebrated instance he advertised in his own catalog some choice specimens that happened to belong to a competitor. When a client expressed interest, Mr. Berès told him to wait while he fetched the required volumes from his warehouse. Instead he raced to his competitor’s shop, bought the books and resold them" (Op cit, NY Times). If he was, at times, a scoundrel, he was the most elegant, charming, polished and sophisticated rascal to ever grace the rare book trade, in which scamps and scalawags can still be found but none with such savoir faire and cultivation. He was a consummate gentleman who seduced everyone he came into contact with and knew how to entertain them, routinely inviting buyers and sellers to his apartment on the Avenue de Foch for lunches and dinners after leaving them goggle-eyed at the literary and art treasures he displayed in glass cases and on the walls of his living room.

"Pierre Berès was a living legend on an international scale [and] also a character from a detective story: firstly because of his detective's flair and daring, secondly because of the mystery in which he liked to shroud his own persona, and lastly because of the subtlety of his business strategies that led him to store some of his finds and acquisitions...in his cellars to mature - sometimes as long as a half-century - like one would store fine wine" (Françoise Choay).

This letter was one of his prize possessions, marrying his two great loves, art and manuscripts. It is, arguably, Van Gogh's most significant letter, written at a key point in his career and about his most significant - certainly his most famous - relationship beyond that with his brother, Theo.

In an article, Les isolés: Vincent van Gogh, which appeared in the January 1890 issue of the Mercure de France and incorporated a passage from this letter, French writer and art critic, Gabriel-Albert Aurier (1865-1892), wrote of Van Gogh, "[he is] a dreamer, an exalted believer, a devourer of beautiful Utopias, who lives on ideas and illusions. For a long time he has taken delight in imagining a renovation of art made possible through a displacement of civilization: an art of tropical regions."

The two living side-by-side with incompatible temperaments, the atmosphere at chez Van Gogh soon turned tropical and Van Gogh and Gauguin's relationship began to wilt, Gauguin's domineering arrogance pushing Van Gogh over the edge. On December 23 1888 - less than two months after this letter was written -  a frustrated Van Gogh confronted Gauguin with a razor but in panic fled to a local brothel. While there, he cut off his left ear, wrapped it in newspaper and presented it to Rachel, one of the brothel's prostitutes, asking her to "keep this object carefully." He staggered home, where Gauguin later found him lying unconscious with his head covered in blood.

On January 2, 1889, a week after the incident, Van Gogh wrote to Theo from the Civil Hospital in Arles, letter no. 728:

My dear Theo,

In order to reassure you completely on my account I’m writing you these few words in the office of Mr Rey, the house physician, whom you saw yourself. I’ll stay here at the hospital for another few days — then I dare plan to return home very calmly.1 Now I ask just one thing of you, not to worry, for that would cause me one worry too many.

Now let’s talk about our friend Gauguin, did I terrify him? In short, why doesn’t he give me a sign of life? He must have left with you.

Besides, he needed to see Paris again, and perhaps he’ll feel more at home in Paris than here. Tell Gauguin to write to me, and that I’m still thinking of him.

Good handshake, I’ve read and re-read your letter about the meeting with the Bongers. It’s perfect. As for me, I’m content to remain as I am. Once again, good handshake to you and Gauguin.

Ever yours,

Vincent

Bygones be bygones...

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The Van Gogh-Gauguin letter, in the original French and English translation with footnotes, can be found here.

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Images courtesy of Christie's, with our thanks.

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Paul McCartney's Handwritten Lyrics To "Lovely Rita" Offered At $175,000

by Stephen J. Gertz

Paul McCartney's handwritten, working manuscript for the song Lovely Rita, from the Beatles' preeminent and triumphant album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band (1967), has come into the marketplace. The first rough draft, ten lines in ink on a sheet of lined paper from a steno pad, it is being offered by Biblioctopus of Beverly Hills for $175,000.

Within, McCartney rewrites the line,  "writing all the numbers in her little black book," to read,  "filling in a ticket with her little blue pen." In the final version as recorded the line reads, "filling in a ticket in her little white book." At the top is a note, "chorus."

Accompanying the manuscript is an unncorrected first state proof of the Sgt. Pepper album cover, varying from the released version with McCartney kneeling, the band instruments placed differently, and with two people amongst the cast of onlookers who refused to sign releases and were dropped from the final, published album cover.

Authentic Beatles manuscript material from Sgt. Pepper hold the records for rock n' roll memorabilia at auction. In 1994, a manuscript draft of Getting Better sold at Butterfield's for $249,200. In 2010, the manuscript lyrics to A Day in the Life sold at Sotheby's for $1,202,500.

At $175,000 Lovely Rita seems a lovely bargain.

This piece was last seen at Butterfield's on December 12, 1993.

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Of Related Interest:

Extraordinary John Lennon Letter To Eric Clapton: Join My New Band!.

Yoko Ono Collects Rare Books: The Booktryst Interview.
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The Princess and the Paparazzo: A Compelling and Important New Anthology On Ethical Photography

by Alastair Johnston

Daniel Girardin and Christian Pirker CONTROVERSIES; A Legal and Ethical History of Photography, Actes Sud/Musée de l'Elysée (Lausanne 2012, 312 pp., hardback, ISBN: 978-2-7427-9700-4 : 45 Euro)

Photography has always been controversial. First it was not considered an art, then its uses were questioned, and as it became a dominant part of our culture, battles were fought over aspects of its ethics and legality in a variety of contexts. (Most recently, on 4 December 2012 the New York Post published a front-page photo of a man on the tracks about to be hit by a subway train that raises ethical questions.) This book, the catalogue of a show at the Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne, reproduces and discusses many of the photographs exhibited. Consequently it provides the opportunity for a more thorough understanding of the show than might have been experienced and absorbed in a museum walk-through. Girardin is the exhibition's curator and his co-author Pirker is a Swiss lawyer who specializes in business and art law, and also collects photographs.

The book then is a discussion of how our taste and legal freedoms applied to photography have evolved since 1839. Images of naked children and dead people are two of the major battlegrounds in this history. Some photos were published for decades and then suddenly became illegal to view, while others were secret for a long time until they finally came to light. The adolescents of David Hamilton were celebrated in popular paperbacks like Dreams of a Young Girl (Collins, 1971) but today there would be outrage if they appeared in a magazine. Two photographers snuck into the bedroom of Bismarck in 1898, hours after his death, propped up his head on the pillows and took a photo which they then tried to sell to the papers. The family heard about it and acted swiftly: the negatives were confiscated and the photographers jailed (They had been offered the equivalent of $300,000 in today's money). But a copy survived and the image finally appeared in 1952 in a Frankfurter newspaper.

Remember this macabre joke? When Princess Diana died in August 1997, someone asked, Did you hear Diana was on the radio?

   Really?

   Yes, and all over the dashboard.

We know this because the crazed paparazzi in pursuit rushed into the tunnel to photograph the dying occupants of her limousine. When the photographers were charged with homicide, involuntary injury and failure to assist a person in danger, the very newspapers who were willing to shell out millions of dollars for their invasive photos of celebrities turned against them. But then a decade after they were acquitted, a photo of Diana dying appeared in the Italian press. This public lust never ends. Just this year there was the famous case of the paparazzo up a tree who snapped the topless Duchess of Cambridge for a French magazine. I didn't see the picture but assume her breasts look like others I have seen, and ironically the royal couple were next recorded in the South Pacific where they were greeted by topless natives at the airport!

Since its inception, manipulation of photography has been used to sway us. It's now common to doctor images in Photoshop, to remove unwanted parts, to extend pictures, to graft on parts of other images. Two of the most famous images of the roll-film era were staged: Robert Capa's "Death of a Republican Soldier," 1936, and Robert Doisneau's "Kissing Couple at City Hall," 1950, which respectively convey the horror of war and the power of love. I felt cheated when I discovered that Bill Brandt had staged the images in his "A Night in London" series (1938). He so wanted to be as good as Brassaï or Cartier-Bresson that he couldn't wait for the "decisive moment," so set it up. Doisneau, too, hired actors to pose for his picture, though the Capa mystery has never been fully explained.

Quite often there's no controversy until someone stirs things up. In 2007 the Blue Noses collective staged an exhibit in Paris, including a photo of two Russian police officers kissing, called "The Era of Mercy, 2005." The Russian Minister of Culture moved to ban the image as a "disgrace to Russia." The Gallery sued for defamation and the image went viral.

A bizarre recent turn of events in photo censorship involves smoking. Under French law certain photos of Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge Gainsbourg can only be published after retouching to remove their cigarettes. Sartre sans Gauloises, c'est incroyable!! Serge mis en nue? Sacre bleu d'Iliac! This is Stalinism! -- and yes the book does include a shot of Stalin accompanied by Molotov, Yezhov and others plus the same photo with the unfortunate Yezhov removed. (Yezhov was put in charge of the purges of the late 30s but when he was replaced by Beria he himself was tortured and executed. Moral: Never build a better Guillotine.)

Other doctored photos include the "Raising of the Red Flag on the Reichstag, 2 May 1945." After the famous (re-enacted) photo by Joe Rosenthal of American GIs raising the stars and stripes on Iwo Jima (since replicated by firemen at the site of the World Trade Center attack), the Russians thought it would be a good publicity move to stage a photo of their flag going up over Berlin. Yevgeny Khaldei, a press photographer, was flown to Berlin with a large homemade flag to get the shot. He photographed it in several locations, most notably over the Reichstag. But back in Moscow a small problem arose: the officer holding the flag clearly had watches on both wrists, an undeniable sign of looting. The photo was retouched before Tass published it.

There are plenty of shocking images in this book, from Nazi concentration camps to an American one (Abu Ghraib). The horrors of Bergen-Belsen were photographed by the British Army in April 1945, before the end of the war, but they believed that if the photos were published it might lead the Germans to try to cover up their atrocities or speed up mass-murder to cover their crimes. Also, the book asks, can you really depict the unspeakable in a photo and how does that alter our perception of it? As a macabre sidelight there is a shot of Lee Miller in Hitler's bathtub. (I wonder if this was hung next to Gary Gross' image of Brooke Shields in the bath?)

Walter Benjamin wrote that "a photograph is technically reproducible indefinitely," so why should an excellent posthumous print from a photographer's original negative be considered a fake? Obviously there is the fetish value of the vintage print at stake here: a Diane Arbus photo printed by her sells for hundreds of thousands (her "Viva at Home" sold at Sotheby's for $194,500 in December 2011) while for a (relative) pittance you can get a reprint (Arbus's iconic "Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C.," a Neil Selkirk print, sold at Phillips de Pury, New York on October 2, 2012 for $74,500.). The same goes for many other artists like August Sander or Edward Weston. You can get a good deal on a Lee Friedlander print of an E.J. Bellocq glass plate whereas a Berenice Abbot print of an Atget plate will cost you twice as much.

In the case of Man Ray a collector spent a fortune ($2.3 million) on vintage prints that had impeccable provenance but turned out to be later prints. Not only did the collector get his money back but the prints were destroyed. However this calls into question the authenticity of dozens of similar excellent Man Ray prints now in museums. And there was a case in the US where Walter Rosenblum (who had control of the Hine archive) was printing Lewis Hine photos on old paper and adding the Hine studio stamp to the back to make them appear vintage. The slump in the value of Hine's exemplary work makes an interesting footnote to this story.

One segment I found informative concerned the work of Lehnert and Landrock. Before the First World War the Bohemian Lehnert practiced photography in Tunisia, documenting Arab life. He and Landrock lived in Cairo in the late twenties, and pursued a vision of Orientalism with Pictorialist postcards which they manufactured and sold through their firm, Orient Kunst Verlag in Leipzig. As you may know Islam forbids representation of religious figures. So how curious it is to see a 1998 Iranian poster claiming to be a portrait of the young Mohammed the Prophet of Islam. The image, it says, "is from the brush of a Christian monk, the original being currently conserved in a museum in Rum." I don't know who drank the rum, or the Scriptural Kool-Aid here, but it is based on a Rudolf Lehnert photo. One supposes the Iranians inserted the Christian monk to get around the proscription.

The saddest image in here (for me) is Frank Fournier's portrait of Omayra Sanchez, taken in Armero, Columbia, in 1985. A volcano erupted: there was a mudslide that killed 24,000 people. Young Omayra was trapped in a collapsed building. There was no crane to lift the heavy metal beams that had trapped her and crushed her legs. Frank Fournier took the photo of her as the world's media filmed her impossible plight and watched her die. His portrait won the World Press Photo prize in 1986. The catalogue notes, "For some, the mediatisation [sic] of Omayra's death was obscene. It illustrates the mercantile spiral in which information is trapped today, the escalation to which it is obliged, between sensationalism and voyeurism." Fournier made the ethical decision to take the picture in the hopes he could raise awareness about the lack of preparedness and denounce the shortcomings of some governments in dealing with disasters which have often been predicted. But the book argues "the commercial aestheticization of suffering and misery" (a charge leveled against Sebastião Salgado) is merely a rephrasing of the artist's attempt to create an aesthetic in their work, to reach the public, which can be seen going back to Dorothea Lange, who was booted out of the FSA for staging her photos of the misery of migrant farmworkers. It posits that true documentary photography has to reject any sense of aesthetics or style in order to be neutral.

The images involved in many famous legal cases are included here: Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ"; Art Rogers' "Puppies" (appropriated by Jeff Koons); the screaming naked Vietnamese girl, photographed by Nick Ut in 1972, her skin scorched by Napalm, can never be forgotten. A news photo of the execution of Kurdish rebels in 1979 won the Pulitzer Prize for journalism, anonymously. The photographer who had been assigned to cover the execution was afraid to come forward. Once the image was spread around the world the Ayatollahs tried to pin it on someone and arrested and shot a soldier who had been present. Two other photographers who lived outside Iran claimed authorship before the true author, Jahangir Razmi, came forward in 2007 to claim his 1980 Pulitzer Prize.

Copyright laws are discussed with (among others) two famous images: Alberto Korda's 1960 portrait of Che Guevara that today is as much an icon as the Shroud of Turin (Secundo Pia's 1898 photo of the latter is also present); and Richard Avedon's "Dovima with Elephants," 1955, which was the subject of a lawsuit in 1991. An individual sold the photo at Sotheby's for almost 20,000 pounds, saying he had received it from a former editor at Harper's Bazaar. Avedon claimed that though he had given the print to Harper's it was understood that they would have the rights to print the image once, and the copyright and the print would remain his property, even if they did not return it. Harper's lawyer claimed that the submission of the photo implied a transfer of ownership and the court agreed with them. (According to Stephen Perloff, editor of The Photograph Collector, Avedon's "Dovima with Elephants" brought $56,250 -- slightly under low estimate -- at Phillips de Pury, New York on October 2, 2012. But "Dovima with Elephants, Evening dress by Dior, Cirque d'Hiver, Paris, August 1955" went to an absentee U.S. dealer for $266,500, at Christie's the same week. Size matters: the second print was jumbo size, we presume.)

What's missing from this collection? There are at least three photos that never made it to the exhibit: First, "Candy Cigarette" by Sally Mann. This is a sweet image of the photographer's 7-year-old daughter holding a sugar cigarette and standing like a sophisticated adult (or maybe it's just her natural poise given that her mother was always taking her picture). The image appears in Immediate Family but caused such a stir and, with the howls of child abuse from the religious right over Mann's nude photos of her children, left such painful memories that Mann no longer wishes to exhibit or discuss this and similar works.

Then there is "The Wedding of the Diors" by Richard Avedon. For a Christian Dior ad campaign Avedon staged a mock celebrity wedding that included a Jackie Onassis lookalike in the shot. Onassis won an injunction against the company for invasion of her privacy by using a lookalike, so the photo cannot be shown, even though it is not Onassis in the picture. As Piker says, "The winner's point of view in court is not necessarily the right one, but his arguments were more convincing."

Also we learn about the case of Thomas Condon of Cincinnati. He had access to a morgue and staged photos of corpses with a snail, an apple and a key. But unlike Joel-Peter Witkin (who also used body parts in his photography), Condon was found guilty of disturbing the dead and sentenced to 18 months in prison and his photographs can never be shown. (A web search confirms this.)

These missing images therefore define the frontiers of what this book is about. The control of imagery has become a power issue in our society. Two big companies, Corbis and Getty, sell reproduction rights to the millions of photos they control. Often a photo that is in the public domain fetches higher prices for reproduction than a recent image because the extant prints are owned by museums or these photo agencies. And "whoever controls images controls minds," said Bill Gates, owner of Corbis.

Other images missing from the show include the work of David Hamilton who refused to participate. But this book called Controversies has created its own controversy. The Swiss edition of the book also showed Gary Gross's notorious bath-tub photo of Brooke Shields as a child from his booklet Little Women. (The image was made even more controversial after another appropriation artist, Richard Prince, mounted it in its own room at the Tate Gallery in London. Scotland Yard got involved and the picture was prohibited from further public view.)

Also missing from the English-language edition is a nude photo of Maud Hewes by Graham Ovenden, which was legally published in New York in 1992, and included in the exhibition. Their exclusion from the American market edition of the catalogue reinforces the fact that though they have been published, these images can still cause a stir for any number of reasons. The Right Wing Nutjobs in the USA love to get outraged over Guess Jeans ads, and we have to ask, Why are they so upset? If obscenity is in the eye of the beholder, they might be better off gouging out their eyes rather than impose their vision on everyone else.

The book is typeset in a pallid condensed sans serif typeface which is unappealing and hard to read, and there is no index. I give the design a B minus, but this is a compelling and important anthology.

(Note: Current print values mentioned are taken from Alex Novak's e-photo newsletter, published by i Photo Central.)
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Scarce Emily Dickinson Letter Comes To Auction

by Stephen J. Gertz

A rare three-page autograph letter by Emily Dickinson, written in pencil and signed  “Emily," is being offered by Profiles In History in its Property of a Distinguished American Private Collector sale December 18, 2012. 

It is estimated to sell for $20,000 - $30,000.

Written in Amherst during Autumn 1884 to Mrs. Samuel E. Mack, the reclusive American poetess expresses her pleasure in Mrs. Mack's recent visit and quotes from Last Lines, a poem by Emily Brontë.

Dickinson writes in full:

It was very dear to see Mrs. Mack. A friend is a solemnity and after the great intrusion of Death, each one that remains has a special pricelessness besides the mortal worth --- I hope you may live while we live, and then with loving selfishness consent that you should go ---

Said the Marvellous Emily Bronte

Though Earth and Man were gone And suns and Universe ceased to be And thou wert left alone,
Every Existence would Exist in thee--

Tenderly, Emily

Letters by Dickinson are extremely rare. This missive - oddly addressing her correspondent  in the first sentence in the third person  -  was published in the Letters of Emily Dickinson  edited by T.H. Johnson, no. 940, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), noting that Dickinson quoted the same poem of Emily Bronte in a letter to another friend, Maria Whitney.

The letter was last seen at Christie’s New York, 15 December 1995, lot 16, when, along with related material, it sold for $16,000.

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Images courtesy of Profiles In History, woth our thanks.
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Rare Edition of Lawrence Of Arabia $112,000 - $144,000 At Auction

by Stephen J. Gertz

A scarce "incomplete" Presentation copy of the Subscriber's ("Cranwell") edition of T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, one of only thirty-two of a total edition of 211 copies and inscribed at the time of publication to writer E.M. Forster, is being offered by Sotheby's in their English Literature, History, Children's Books & Illustrations sale on December 12, 2012.

It is estimated to sell for  $112,000 - 144,000 (£70,000 - £90,000). That's $16,000 - $20,571 per pillar.

The book, in which Lawrence wrote of the Arab revolt, 1916-1918, against the Ottoman Empire during World War I and his role in organizing and leading it, set in stone the  legendary adventures of Lawrence of Arabia that emerged from the war's news coverage and stoked the mythos that had grown around one of the most fascinating, complex, and enigmatic characters of his or any other time.

"In 1913 Lawrence wrote a book entitled Seven Pillars of Wisdom. It was designed to cover seven Middle Eastern cities,,,The manuscript was burned in 1914....Lawrence began writing his version of the desert war in 1919...A major portion, if not all, of this first edition was lost at Reading Station in late 1919. A second version was written in London 1919-1920 in a period of three months. Lawrence burned this in 1922...The third manuscript was written in London, Jeddah and Amman, 1921, and in London 1922. This third manuscript, some 330,000 words long, was donated to the Bodleian Library" (O'Brien).

Lawrence had a eight copies printed of that third version in 1922, the first English ("Oxford") edition. He reworked the text 1923-1926, during which time he loaned copies of the 1922 version to various people for critical comment,  E.M. Forster amongst them.

"E.M. Forster was one of the most influential readers of Seven Pillars of Wisdom during the time that Lawrence was cutting down the 1922 ‘Oxford’ text to the abridged version that he issued to subscribers in 1926. Forster offered far more than general praise and admiration. He provided expert criticism of specific writing faults. The two became friends and remained in contact until Lawrence’s death in 1935" (Jeremy Wilson for Castle Hill Press, E.M. Forster and T.E. Lawrence, upon the publication of the Lawrence-Forster letters).

Despite the enormous amount of time, effort, craft and artistry that Lawrence invested in writing this classic his inscription to Forster modestly reads: "Not good enough, but as good, apparently, as I can do."

This, the elaborate "Cranwell" or privately printed Subscriber's (second English) edition - a text of 280,000 words - was published in 1926. Of the total of 211 copies, 170 were complete and 32 were incomplete with three plates lacking, a version "presented to the men who had served with him in Arabia and who were not able to pay the high price asked for the complete issue" (German Reed). the complete issue priced at £31 10s, a princely sum in 1926. The final nine copies were "spoils," i.e. plates only. Each copy was bound differently with various binders employed: for Bumpus (by Riviere); Best; Sangorski and Sutcliffe (as here); Harrison; Charles McLeish; Roger de Coverly & Sons; and Henry T. Wood.

Presentation copy inscribed by the author to E.M. Forster,
“E.M.F.  from T.E.S. ['T.E. Shaw' Lawrence's post-War pseudonym]:
Not good enough, but as good, apparently, as I can do. | I.XII.26"
on preliminary blank together with later inscription from E.M. Forster
to Bob Buckingham, “R.J. Buckingham  from  E.M. Forster 20-1-68”.

No incomplete copies (aside from the nine plates-only "spoil" copies the rarest of the "Cranwell" edition) have come to auction within the last thirty-six years. One of the 170 complete copies sold earlier this year at Bonham's for $65,000 (incl. premium). Only a small handful of copies of the first ("Oxford") English edition of 1922 are in private hands. Should one miraculously find its way to market it will surely fetch upwards of $500,000.

In 1927, Lawrence published Revolt in the Desert, an abridgment of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, in a limited and trade edition that brought his story to a wider audience.

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[LAWRENCE, T.E.] Seven Pillars of Wisdom. A Triumph. [Privately Printed, 1926]. Quarto (251 by 188mm.). The subscribers' or "Cranwell" edition, one of 32 “incomplete” copies (from an edition of 211 copies) (annotated “Incomplete copy | I.XII.26 TES” on page XIX), presentation copy inscribed by the author to E.M. Forster (“E.M.F. | from | T.E.S. | Not good enough, but as good, apparently, as I can do. | I.XII.26.”) on preliminary blank together with later inscription from E.M. Forster to Bob Buckingham (“R.J. Buckingham | from | E.M. Forster | 20-1-68”) on preliminary blank, printed in red and black, frontispiece portrait of King Feysal after Augustus John and 62 (of 65) plates (mostly in colour) and other text illustrations after Roberts, Kennington, Nash, Nicholson and others, 4 folding coloured maps, decorative initials by Edward Wadsworth.

Original full tan morocco signed by Sangorski and Sutcliffe, tooled in gilt on covers, spine gilt in compartments, endpapers by Kennington, collector’s tan morocco backed folding box with thirty typed leaves and one handwritten leaf by Forster, occasional light spotting, one of the most complete of the “incomplete copies” but lacking plates ‘Waterfalls’ and ‘Mountains’ (within the plates following the text) and ‘Prophet’s Tomb’ (not listed, but noted by O’Brien).

O'Brien A040.

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Images courtesy of Sotheby's, with our thanks.
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Extraordinary John Lennon Letter To Eric Clapton: Join My New Band!

by Stephen J. Gertz

A spectacular, significant and revealing eight-page handwritten and signed  letter, undated but c. mid-late 1969, from John Lennon to Eric Clapton inviting him to team up in a new band, is being offered by auctioneer Profiles in History in its Property of a Distinguished American Private Collector sale on December 18, 2012. It is estimated to sell for $20,000 - $30,000.

Over a thousand words, it was written by Lennon on behalf of Yoko and him after the Beatles  split-up and Lennon and Ono were seeking an opportunity to create music of a more profound and artistic nature - and "revolutionary." Clapton had left Cream when it curdled, intent on pursuing a solo career. Lennon and Clapton had originally met in the mid-1960s when Eric was with The Yardbirds and they had remained friends.

Their careers were in a state of flux and John sensed a unique opportunity. "I’ve/we’ve long admired your music—and always kept an eye open to see what you’ve been up to lately. I really feel I/we can bring out the best in you."

The letter reads in full:

Dear Eric and

I’ve been meaning to write or call you for a few weeks now. I think maybe writing will give you and yours more time to think.

You must know by now that Yoko and I rate your music and yourself very highly, always have. You also know the kind of music we’ve been making and hope to make. Anyway, the point is, after missing the Bangla-Desh concert, we began to feel more and more like going on the road, but not the way I used to with the Beatles—night after night of torture. We mean to enjoy ourselves, take it easy, and maybe even see some of the places we go to! We have many ‘revolutionary’ ideas for presenting shows that completely involve the audience—not just as ‘Superstars’ up there—blessing the people—but that’s another letter really.

I’ll get more to the point. We’ve asked Klaus [Voormann], Jim Keltner, Nicky Hopkins — Phil Spector even! to form a ‘nucleus’ group (Plastic Ono Band)—and between us all would decide what—if any—augmentation to the group we’d like—e.g. saxs, vocal group, they all agreed so far—and of course we had YOU!!! in mind as soon as we decided.

In the past when Nicky  was working around (Stones, etc.) bringing your girl/woman/wife was frowned on—with us it’s the opposite, Nicky’s missus—will also come with us—on stage if she wants (Yoko has ideas for her!)—or backstage. Our uppermost concern is to have a happy group in body and mind. Nobody will be asked to do anything that they don’t want to, no-one will be held to any contract of any sort—(unless they wanted to, of course!).

Back to music. I’ve/we’ve long admired your music—and always kept an eye open to see what you’ve been up to lately. I really feel I/we can bring out the best in you—(same kind of security, financial or otherwise will help) but the main thing is the music. I consider Klaus, Jim, Nicky, Phil, Yoko, and you could make the kind of sound that could bring back the Balls in rock ‘n’ roll.

Both of us have been thru the same kind of shit/pain that I know you’ve had—and I know we could help each other in that area—but mainly Eric—I know I can bring out something great—in fact greater in you that had been so far evident in your music, I hope to bring out the same kind of greatness in all of us—which I know will happen if/when we get together. I’m not trying to pressure you in any way and would quite understand if you decide against joining us, we would still love and respect you. We’re not asking you for your ‘name,’ I’m sure you know this—it’s your mind we want!

Yoko and I are not interested in earning bread from public appearances, but neither do we expect the rest of the band (who mostly have families) to work for free—they/you must all be happy money wise as well—otherwise what’s the use for them to join us. We don’t ask you/them to ratify everything we believe politically—but we’re certainly interested in “revolutionizing” the world thru music, we’d love to 'do' Russia, China, Hungary, Poland, etc. 

A friend of ours just got back from Moscow, and the kids over there are really hip—they have all the latest sounds on tape from giant radios they have. 'Don’t come without your guitar' was the message they sent there are millions of people in the East—who needed to be exposed to our kind of freedom/music. We can change the world—and have a ball at the same time.

We don’t want to work under such pressure we feel dead on stage or have to pep ourselves up to live, maybe we could do 2 shows a week even, tentatively (nothing definite) goes like this:

I know we have to rehearse sometimes or other, I’m sick of going on and jamming every live session. I’ve also always wanted to go across the Pacific from the U.S. thru all those beautiful islands—across to Australia, New Zealand, Japan,--wherever, you know—Tahiti—Tonga—etc, so I came up with this.

How about a kind of 'Easy Rider' at sea. I mean we get EMI or some film co., to finance a big ship with 30 people aboard (including crew)—we take 8 track recording equipment with us (mine probably) movie equipment—and we rehearse on the way over—record if we want, play anywhere we fancy— say we film from L.A. to Tahiti, we stop there if we want—maybe have the film developed there—stay a week or as long as we want—collect the film (of course) we’ll probably film wherever we stop (if we want) and edit it on board etc. (Having just finished a movie we made around our albums ‘Imagine’ & ‘Fly’—it’s a beautiful surreal film, very surreal, all music, only about two words spoken in the whole thing! We know we are ready to make a major movie). Anyway it’s just a thought, we’d always stay as near to land as possible, and of course, we’d take doctors etc, in case of any kind of bother. We’d always be able to get to a place where someone could fly off if they’ve had enough. The whole trip could take 3-4-5-6 months, depending how we all felt—all families, children whatever are welcome etc. Please don’t think you have to go alone with the boat trip, to be in the band. I just wanted to let you know everything we’ve been talking about. (I thought we’d really be ready to hit the road after such a healthy restful rehearsal.)

Anyway, there it is, if you want to talk more please call us, or even come over here to N. York. We’re at the St. Regis, here til Nov. 30 at least (753-4500- ext/room 1701) all expenses paid of course! Or write. At least think about it, please don’t be frightened, I understand paranoia, only too well, I think it could only do good for you, to work with people who love and respect you, and that’s from all of us.

Lots of love to you both from, John & Yoko.

Lennon's reference in his greeting to "Eric and" and later to  "you both" and "you and yours" refers to Paula Boyd, 17-year-old sister of Pattie Boyd, George Harrison's wife, with whom Clapton (a friend of Harrison) was involved in a thus far unrequited love affair painful for all concerned. Patty was the someone behind Harrison's Something; Paula subbed for Patty until she learned that the lady behind Clapton's  love-sick plea, Layla, was her sister. That's not the half of it; the entire saga is one of rock's greatest soap operas.

"'Becoming American' won't stop the pain..."

A few years ago I had a marvelous first edition association copy of Arthur Janov's The Primal Scream inscribed in March 1970 - within nine months of the letter under notice - by Lennon to Clapton pass through my hands with similar references, "Eric +" and "you and yours." Paula Boyd was, apparently, She Who Must Remain Nameless. Here, John reached out to his close friend once again to offer support during a time of personal turmoil for Eric. Nine months after the inscription's date Paula got the message and left Clapton..

Clapton played with The Plastic Ono Band in December 1969 during its Live Peace in Toronto performance but did not become a full-time member.

This historic letter from rock n' roll's most progressive voice and towering icon to the greatest guitarist of his generation is a draft. The content of the final version is unknown.

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Images courtesy of Profiles in History, with our thanks.
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Of Related Interest:

Yoko Ono Collects Rare Books: The Booktryst Interview.

Paul McCartney's Handwritten Lyrics To "Lovely Rite" Offered At $175,000.
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Where Childrens Books Were Sold

by Stephen J. Gertz

Premises of John Harris, formerly of John Newbery, 1770 forward.

Tabart & Co, 1800 forward.

From a book published by A.K. Newman in 1829.

Stall at a fair, c. 1878.

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All images and captions, including headline, from English Children's Books 1600 to 1900 by Percy Muir (1954).
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