San Francisco: Green Tree Press, (1997).
Price: $300.00
Softcover. First edition. Paperback original. Quarto. Photographic wrappers. Slight wear, very near fine. Rodman was a Zelig-like polymath who wrote dozens of books on many subjects, but whose greatest talent seemed to be his ability to insinuate himself into the company of the great and the near great. This book consists of photos he took of some of them, accompanied by the anecdotes about their meetings: playing tennis with Ezra Pound, Hemingway writing a comedy skit for him, Frank Lloyd Wright applauding his college-age criticism of Harvard architecture, Trotsky walking out on him when he wouldn't discuss dialectical materialism, and many others. From the library of the artists Ben Shahn and Bernarda Bryson Shahn, with an estate label designed by their son, Jonathan Shahn. Inscribed by Rodman: "for Bernarda this mint copy of a book that will give you double pleasure, I hope. With so much love Selden. February 7/97." Presumably the "double pleasure" refers to the separate images of both Bernarda and Ben Shahn in the book. A very nice association.
Item #346084
