i cannot believe i found this book! 1936 book on Surrealism / Dada by Julien Levy - a book designed by Joseph Cornell

while my friends were into the Celtics, Patriots and starsky and hutch, i was reading books about botany and modern art history, Marcel Duchamp and the dadaists, and watching strange flicks by Salvador Dali - where huge, black ants streamed out of a hole in someone's hand by the hundreds. I've found a few things over the years, but only very rarely. i know that works like this book are extremely rare. in 1936, there probably weren't more than 1000-2000 people in the country who had even heard of surrealism/dadaism. i found it last night at my favorite bookstore in san francisco - Forest Books on 16th st in the mission. the book is a surrealist explanation of surrealism / dadaism as told to americans through print, plays, film, paintings, drawings, spontaneous outbursts, poetry. The pages are colored - bright pink, yellow, green and white and all of the illustrations are wonderfully printed in black and white, many of them are of little known works by Magritte, Arp, Duchamp, Cheval, Atget, Breton, Bunuel, Cornell, Ernst, Giacometti, Dali, Ray, as well as a few i've never heard of. i'll post some more photos in another post. and the Marx Bros' Animal Crackers is mentioned as having been influenced by the movement. i'm very happy to have found this book - i can barely believe it!