January 2023 Catalogue

60 Great Books - 33 - Bauman Rare Books Signed By Both Joyce And Matisse: Fine Copy Of The First Illustrated Edition Of Ulysses 31. (MATISSE, Henri) JOYCE, James. Ulysses. With an Introduction by Stuart Gilbert and Illustrations by Henri Matisse. New York, 1935. Large quarto, original gilt-stamped pictorial brown cloth, custom half morocco clamshell box. $35,000. First illustrated edition of Joyce’s landmark Ulysses, one of only 250 copies signed by both James Joyce and Henri Matisse, from a total edition of 1500 copies. Ulysses is one of the most interesting collaborations in 20th-century literature. “It was a great idea to bring them together; celebrities of the same generation, of similar virtuosity” (Wheeler, 15). The 26 beautiful full-page illustrations by Matisse accompany the text of Joyce’s Ulysses, including six soft-ground etchings with reproductions of the sketches on blue and yellow paper. “According to George Macy [this work’s designer], who undertook this only American publication of Matisse’s illustrations, he asked the artist how many etchings the latter could provide for $5000. The artist chose to take six subjects from Homer’s Odyssey. The preparatory drawings reproduced with the soft-ground etchings (Matisse’s only use of this medium) record the evolution of the figures from vigorous sketches to closely knit compositions” (The Artist and the Book 197). Without original slipcase. Slocum & Cahoon A22. Front inner hinge professionally and invisibly repaired. A beautiful, fine copy. “The Matisse drawings inside [Ulysses], of course, are the most priceless of its offerings—doubly so because, for all their beauty, they’re a tragicomedy of quasicollaboration.” —The Marginalian

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