Gentile, Panfilo, Falzoni, Giulio

100 OPERE DI GIULIO FALZONI, ESEGUITE NEL CINQUANTENNIO 1915—1965 [INSCRIBED BY THE ARTIST]

Milano, 1966. Item #38799

1st Edition. Original Boards with Original Dust Jacket. 4to. (48) , [xxiv] — c [i. E. 100] pages ; 35 cm. In Italian. Title translates into English as, “100 Works of Giulio Falzoni, Made in the Fifty Years from 1915 to 1965.” Includes 100 reproductions of works by Falzoni with a introduction from Panfilo Gentile. “Gentile (1889 - 1971) was an Italian journalist, writer and politician… During the 1960s (at the end of Gentile’s career) he produced a succession of increasingly shrill political critiques, such as ‘Polemic against my own times’ … and ‘Mafia democracy’ …. Penfilo Gentile's down-beat evaluation was of modern democracies dominated by party machines, incapable of promoting real talent, and programmed to construct, especially in Italy, oligarchic dictatorship masquerading as political pluralism… (His) writing was characterized by Satre as ‘imposter philosophy’ and Herbert Marcuse called him a ‘livid polemicist. ’” (Wikipedia, 2017) In the introduction, Gentile praises Falzoni, writing, “Falzoni is now a successful painter. His success has been fully deserved, as it was obtained merely through the persuasive forcefulness of his art. We may there fore allow ourselves to be for once mildly optimistic… thinking that, all considered, the public’s tests is not so utterly perverted or mesmerized as to prevent it from rewarding serious, honest artists…” This is a very scarce 1st Italian Edition of Falzoni’s retrospective with the Gentile introduction. A later more widely distributed edition was published in New York in 1970. OCLC lists no copies worldwide. This copy is inscribed by Falzoni on the front end page to the owner of a New York City Art Gallery. A few tears to the dust jacket along the edges and spine. Overall dust jacket is in about very good condition and the book itself is in very good condition. Rare and Definitive. (ITART-1-19).

Price: $350.00