San Francisco: Julien Levy Galleries, c. 1941.

 

Octavo, one sheet folded, 4 pages with original silver gelatin photograph of de Lempicka's Still Life pasted down to front cover. First edition of this small exhibition catalogue from the Julien Levy Galleries, a road show version of de Lempicka's New York exhibit. In 1940, de Lempicka and Levy had planned an exhibition of paintings of "just hands", an exhibit which never came to fruition. One year later, in 1941, they successfully mounted her first US one-person show. This San Francisco exhibit was the traveling version of that show. Some thought Levy's surrealist stable of artists an unlikely match with de Lempicka, who saw herself in the line of classical French painters. Yet others saw this exhibit as a self-serving  exercise of a wealthy woman. The short essay by Andre Maurois was apparently arranged and possibly paid for by Lempicka herself. In any case, the exhibit brought crowds, including Pavel Tchilechev and Salvador Dali. Some very light adhesive staining to corners of photograph, a bit of lightening to the edges of the grey card stock, otherwise a fine copy of this scarce catalogue.

$350 -