Belgrad, Daniel (Olson, Charles; Glover, Albert et al.)

The Culture of Spontaneity: Improvisation and the Arts in Postwar America with: Ephemera

ISBN: 0226041883
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998. First Edition. Hardcover. "The Culture of Spontaneity is the first comprehensive history of the postwar avant-garde. Daniel Belgrad beautifully integrates such diverse moments in American culture as abstract expressionism, bebop jazz, gestalt therapy, Black Mountain college, Jungian psychology, beat poetry, experimental dance, Zen Buddhism, Alfred North Whitehead's cosmology, and the anti-nuclear movement. Belgrad shows how a startling variety of artistic movements actually had one unifying theme: spontaneous improvisation...Focusing on the works of many key cultural figures such as Charles Olson, William Carlos Williams, Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Peter Voulkas, Merce Cunningham, Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and LeRoi Jones, Belgrad substantially revises our understanding of the most significant voices of the period and convincingly argues that the art of spontaneity constituted the cutting edge of postwar American thought." (from front & rear flaps) A sweeping study on the interrelations, common themes & methods of American avant-garde/countercultural arts- painting, music, dance, poetry & literature- that exploded with daring creativity after the Second World War. For our Third Mind purposes, there is much insight into the lives & works of the Founding Fathers of the Beat Generation- William S. Burroughs, Allen Gilnsberg, Jack Kerouac et al.- as well as the key figures of other Beat-related/adjacent movements, especially Charles Olson (1910-1970), the Great (physically & intellectually) American Black Mountain-&-Beyond Poet's-Poet-Mentor-Philosopher-Sphinx who is our favorite Maximus Obscurantist, a cult onto himself. Author Daniel Belgrad is an acclaimed author & academician at the University of South Florida. With many black-&-white reproductions & a special section of artworks in color. Hardcover in unclipped dust jacket, first edition, first printing as indicated by number sequence at copyright page. From the collection of Albert Glover (b. 1942), the foremost living authority on Olson who was a student of & anointed by the Maximus Master himself during the 1960s. Glover's stately bookplate is affixed to front paste-down; & we found & have retained, between pgs. 214-215, a small card with information printed at recto regarding the volume Abstract Expressionism: Other Politics (1997) by Ann Eden Gibson, & this statement cursively hand-written in bold black ink at verso: "Albert-/ In light of the titans.../ this./ (signed) G(?)." We presume the note is addressed to Glover, by an unknown acquaintance. Also, between final page of color artwork portfolio & pg. 117 is a colorful bookmark with stickers that include the letters spelling out the name "Mike." A rich & rewarding collectible of American cultural scholarship in its rarest contemporary form, with the utmost-distinguished, relevant association & provenance. Book in relatively fine-to-very-fine condition with only light wear, fading & some tiny bumps, creases including a few instances of miniscule loss of grey cloth at edges & corners of front, back covers & spine esp. lower edges/corners; a touch of rubbing & mild spotting to edges of text block. Interior very fine with only tiny bumps at corners of a few page leaves. Dust jacket fine-to-very-fine with a bit of rubbing to front, back covers, spine & flaps; a bit of wear & some tiny bumps, creases at edges & corners of same esp. at spine-edges, corners with very minor loss of paper, surface paper. Ephemera very fine with one light crease across middle length of card where once-folded; slightest edge & corner wear to both items. Fine-Very Fine / Fine-Very Fine. [Item #8331]

Price: $60.00