Talbert Ben (7 results)

Stapled Wraps. Condition: Very Good. Stapled wraps, has slight bumps to spine ends and corners with faint creasing around corners, very faint sunning to spine with a touch to other edges, some rubbing to covers, and a touch of edgewear, otherwise a solid VG copy.

Pamphlet. First edition. Features a dynamic cover illustration by Ben Talbert done in b&w with touches of red. The sets and costumes were also designed by Talbert. Talbert was an accomplished Pop and assemblage artist closely aligned with Wallace Berman and the LA avant-garde. He died of alcohol poisoning at age 41. Barely perceptible touch of toning to edges, very near fine.

Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 118 pages. 9.00x6.00x0.27 inches. In Stock. This item is printed on demand.

A UNIQUE NOTEBOOK AND ASSOCIATION COPY, that of Hal Glicksman, curator of a number of important exhibitions in Southern California during the 1960s and 1970s, and a key figure in the contemporary American art scene. Quarto (15-3/4 x 13-1/2 in.), 18 newspaper and magazine clippings altered by the artist into erotic tableaus through collage, erasure, and pencil or pen, one piece mounted on matboard with a protective sheet of paper in a pocket in the front cover, others inserted into 15 transparent display sleeves with black paper backing, some altered simply by drawing heavily over existing half-tone print; in others, the existing print has been erased to make space for a new image. Bound into a commercial black leatherette ring binder. Ben Talbert (d. 1974) was a transgressive artist in L.A. during the 1960 and 1970s and a key member of Wallace Berman and Ed Kienholz's (crucial figures in the history of post-war California art) Semina Group. His work was shown at the David Stuart Gallery in Los Angeles, including a 1972 exhibition that was closed by the police as obscene. He was also exhibited in a major show with Berman and Kienholz at the Pasadena art Museum as well as a solo show curated by Walter Hopps. Talbert's assemblages are still well known and were recently shown in exhibitions at the Whitney and at Santa Monica Museum. He gave the notebook to his close friend and former roommate Hal Glicksman in 1973, as Glicksman's included signed statement to that effect notes. Contents:A. Inside front cover. An unaltered half-tone. Poor Cindy must have suffered. B. The verso the matboard bears instructions by Talbert for some other project in black crayon.1. L.A. Times, Sunday, 11/8/64. Heavily erased and reworked.2. "Boy's Club," Washington Elementary School, Santa Monica. This, astonishingly, may be unaltered. The half-tone pattern appears consistent throughout under 10X magnification.3. "Worldly Look." Color collage.4. Steam plant. The Independent (?).Heavily erased and reworked.5. "Grenade Removed." L.A. Times, Friday, 12/23/66. Unaltered.6. "Okay, Now What?" Erased and redrawn.7. "Maze of Pipes." L.A. Times, Sunday, 10/11/64. Heavily erased and redrawn8. "Men's Fashions." L.A. Times, Sunday, 11/8/64. Color collage.9. "More Power." The Independent (blue ink)? Santa Monica? Appears unaltered.10. Southern Counties Gas Company envelope. Pen and ink drawing.''11. "Next Year Things Will Be Different." Independent, 11/5/64. Erased and redrawn.12. Charles of the Ritz. Color collage.13. "Invite a Man. . . ." Vogue, 10/1/64. Color collage.14. "Soviet Arms." The Washington Post, Tuesday, 11/8/70. Unaltered.15. "Blow Beautiful." Heavily erased and redrawn.16. Bill Keane, "Life in Ours House." This Week, 1/7/62. Pencil additions.17. L.A. Times fashion insert (from verso). Heavily erased and redrawn.

The exhibition was a retrospective of Talbert's erotically-themed work, a recurring motif for which he was well known. The poster features a striking b&w illustration showing an image of a prostitute on a playing card surrounded by money, dice, and an eight ball. Talbert was an accomplished Pop and assemblage artist closely associated with Wallace Berman and his circle. He died of alcohol poisoning at age 41. Trivial touch of occasional edge wear, else fine ( 25" x 19").

Wonderful illustration by Talbert featuring a naked woman, a light bulb, a woman's shoe, a rose, and a screaming face, all representing various film genres. Talbert was an accomplished Pop and assemblage artist closely aligned with Wallace Berman and his circle. He died of alcohol poisoning at age 41. Very near fine (25" x 19").

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Three composition books. Small quartos. Modest wear, mostly near fine. Heavily illustrated by the artist Ben Talbert, one of the most important artists in the Los Angeles circle that revolved around Wallace Berman and his publication *Semina*. Berman and his circle were at the forefront of avant-garde cultural and artistic experimentation on the West Coast, in effect, the western equivalent of Andy Warhol and his Factory workers, with sensibilities representing the Beat and early counterculture movements. These notebooks are from Talbert's most important period, and the most important period for his circle, when he was directly influenced by and collaborating with Berman, and most of the artworks presage Talbert's most cherished and representative themes nudes, intense sexuality, S&M scenes, and handwritten and illustrated plans for installations, assemblages, collages, or sculpture. Several drawings and plans are initialed and dated, although most are not, as normal for sketchbooks. Related material laid in include several nude and mildly sexual photographs of Talbert and a woman named Gayle, presumably his wife or girlfriend, used by them as Christmas Greetings, other clothed photographs of the couple, a handmade Valentine from Gayle to Talbert, several vintage color photographs of Talbert's framed work, a couple of different invitations to memorial retrospectives of his works (after his death in 1975 from a drug overdose at the age of 42), and several additional drawings by Talbert on a variety of different sizes of paper. The sketches, ranging from fully detailed drawings to impressionistic nudes, are executed in a variety of media: pencil, pen and ink, marker, gouache, colored pencil, watercolor, and a few in ball-point pen. There are 69 pages of reasonably fully executed drawings bound in, plus an additional five laid in, for a total of 74 pages of drawings. There are 21 pages of handwritten and illustrated plans for installations, plus another two laid in for a total of 23 pages. There are about 14 pages of drawing exercises bound in, where Talbert attempted to draw every conceivable object (often more than a dozen objects to a page). There is one additional drawing mounted and used as a greeting card that we are reasonably certain is by Talbert, as it is similar to his style and preferred subject matter (a spurting penis), but whose inscription: "Sam Luv, Tony" gives us pause. While the drawings are appealing and interesting, the plans for Pop installations, assemblages, and sculptures are fascinating, especially considering the time in which they were conceived. They include chastity-belts shaped and illustrated as police badges, and many variations on altered televisions, mostly with sexual twists and innuendos. Talbert's work was the subject of a retrospective exhibit at the Andrew Roth Gallery in New York in March of 2007. This is previously unrecorded material, representing vital and important work for an overlooked but important artist in the most interesting period of his career.