Henry Music. Poems by Nancy Cunard, Richard Aldington, Walter Lowenfels, Samuel Beckett, Harold Acton - photo 1
Henry Music. Poems by Nancy Cunard, Richard Aldington, Walter Lowenfels, Samuel Beckett, Harold Acton - photo 2
Henry Music. Poems by Nancy Cunard, Richard Aldington, Walter Lowenfels, Samuel Beckett, Harold Acton - photo 3

Henry Music. Poems by Nancy Cunard, Richard Aldington, Walter Lowenfels, Samuel Beckett, Harold Acton

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£ 11 970
Auction dateClassic
28.09.2023 13:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
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ID 1016441
Lot 138 | Henry Music. Poems by Nancy Cunard, Richard Aldington, Walter Lowenfels, Samuel Beckett, Harold Acton
Henry Music. Poems by Nancy Cunard, Richard Aldington, Walter Lowenfels, Samuel Beckett, Harold Acton

Henry Crowder

Henry CROWDER (1890-1955). Henry Music. Poems by Nancy Cunard, Richard Aldington, Walter Lowenfels, Samuel Beckett, Harold Acton. Paris: Hours Press, 1930.



First and only edition, Nancy Cunard’s copy, one of only 100 copies signed by Henry Crowder, this copy unnumbered but inscribed on the colophon ‘For Nancy Cunard, Hours Press’.



Nancy Cunard was instrumental to the production of this book as contributor, editor and publisher. Born in Georgia, jazz pianist Crowder met shipping heiress Cunard in Venice while performing at the Hotel Luna. They fell in love and moved to Cunard’s home outside Paris, converting an old farmhouse into a printing studio for Cunard’s Hours Press. Their seven-year relationship culminated in Cunard's monumental 1934 Negro Anthology dedicated to Crowder. In These Were the Hours: Memories of My Hours Press, Reanville and Paris, 1928-1931, Cunard wrote of the book’s production, which came together during an August vacation in the village of Creysse: ‘Nearly everything [for Henry Music] was written here in the course of four weeks, so that we went back to Paris with the Opus almost finished… To do the covers Man Ray’s name came to me at once, for he had not only a strong appreciation for African art but for Henry as well.’ Cunard, 147-151.



Folio. Photomontage cover illustration by Man Ray. Original decorated boards (some rubbing to spine and extremities, light waterstaining to upper edge of boards). Provenance: Nancy Cunard (1896-1965), her sale at Sotheby’s, 6 December 1966, lot 215.

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