ETHICS IN MODERN ART - Conway Memorial Lecture (First edition)

A first printing of the true first edition, in the original fragile dustwrapper. The book is a pocket-size small volume. Conway Memorial Lecture - delivered at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, W.C.1 on April 19, 1939. ***Near fine in blue cloth-covered boards with gilt titles to the spine and the front board. Blind-stamped borders to the front board. The gilt is still beautifully bright, having been protected by the dustwrapper. The boards are also very clean, with none of the usual handling marks expected with a book this age. The book feels unread. No bumps or creases. Page block edges clean without foxing. Internally the book is also near fine, with no inscriptions, but with an attractive bookplate on the front pastedown "Ex Libris Robert George Morton - Beacon Tor, West Kirby, Cheshire". The endpapers are slightly foxed and have some off-setting, but the interior pages are clean. No creases or tears. The binding is secure and not shaken. No splitting. Spine tight. ***In a very good cream dustwrapper, priced two shillings net on the front panel. Whilst the dustwrapper is largely complete, there are some small areas of loss at the top and tail of the spine, and the top edge of the front panel - but with no loss to the titles. Some light foxing and handling marks, but no serious creases or tears. ***Contents: A list of titles uniform with this lecture, four-page foreword by Herbert Read, the printed lecture, and atv the end of the book, a statement by South Place Ethical Society (of Conway Hall, Red Lion Place, W.C.1 - The Objects of the Society are the study and dissemination of ethical principles and the cultivation of a rational religious sentiment. ***170mm x110mm. 50 pages. ***'Miss Bowen has chosen an interesting subject, and one which has been conspicuously neglected for many years. The ethical aspect of art was one of gthe preoccupations of nineteenth-century writers, and from Ruskin to Tolstoy they all made a desperate effort to give art an ethical foundation. But, however variously they expressed themselves, they had only one notion of how this could be done. Art itself must be ethical--that is to say, the artist must have an ethical conception of life and must give clear expression to it in his works. ***If you want to express the difference between an organic progressive society and a static totalitarian regime, you can do so in one word: this word art. Only on condition that the artist is allowed to function freely can society embody those ideals of liberty and intellectual development which to most of us seem the only worthy sanctions of life.' (Quote taken from Herbert Read's foreword) ***First printing of the true first edition, in the original fragile dustwrapper. Uncommon. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.…