Bill Brandt: The Assemblages – First Edition 1993 [£180.00]
In the Sixties and Seventies, Bill Brandt made a series of ‘assemblages’ of found objects. This is beach combing work: pictorial collages of feathers, fish-bones, shells, sticks, pebbles and sundry other pickings, stuck onto painted boards, collected during his time in the Provence region of Southern France from 1959 onwards. ‘Although composed of fragments of reality – starfish, skulls, feathers, driftwood, bark, sea-weed, broken glass, bird wings, shells and rope – they are, paradoxically, the least naturalistic of all his work. The components are no longer simply what they were, but have been made unfamiliar by their arrangement: they have metamorphosed into the limbs and bones of fantastic animals, elements of bizarre dreamscapes, lines and shapes in Miro-esque patterns of hieroglyphics. Some, like the evil sprite created from a dried fish perched in a thicket of driftwood, and reminiscent of an Arthur Rackham illustration, are figurative. Others, such as the pattern of brittle-stars, have a striking formal beauty. Most resist explanation, though many suggest dream imagery.’ The book contains a combination of Brandt’s own black and white photographs of his assemblages and colour photographs of them by Graham Ford after his death. The book was selected as part of the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London – – – – – – – – – First edition with stiff photo-pictorial wrappers over soft boards in near fine condition (there are two sets over the books soft boards, one in colour and inside it one in black and white – I guess Brandt wanted you to have the personal choice of which you preferred) – colour photo-pictorial wrapper is in good condition, a little grubby with edge wear in places and has a small buckle at the top front and back with a 1″ closed tear at the top middle at the back – black and white photo-pictorial wrapper, soft boards and inside contents are in near fine condition.