Miller, Henry. Black Spring

Paris: The Obelisk Press, (1936). First edition. 8vo. 267, (5) pp. Presentation copy, inscribed by Miller to painter Benjamin Benno: "To Benno--with best wishes always. Henry Paris 10/37". Publisher's stiff pictorial wrappers, by Maurice Kahane, light wear to extremities, spine slightly darkened and soiled, short split in upper front joint; text completely unopened; in quarter red niger slip case and chemise.

An unusually fine presentation copy of Henry Miller's collection of short stories, his second published work. Inscribed to Benjamin Benno (1901-80), a fellow American expatriate, who was living in Paris in the 1930s on a Guggenheim Fellowship to study sculpture, drawing, and painting. Miller gifted this book to Benno a month after the publication of his profile of the artist in The Booster, called "Benno, The Wild Man From Borneo", where he described Benno as "gaunt and cannibalistic, positively ferocious...gentle and peaceful as a dove, calm, placid, cool as a volcanic lake".

Born in England, Benno emigrated to the United States as a child, and studied art in New York under Robert Henri and George Bellows. In 1926 he moved to Paris, where he lived until 1939. During this time he established himself as a painter and sculptor in the avant-garde movement, and exhibited alongside artists such as Paul Klee, Max Ernst, Wassily Kandinsky, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Hans Arp, and Fernand Léger. In 1934, Pablo Picasso sponsored his first show in Paris.

This lot is located in Philadelphia.

Provenance

From the collection of Justin G. Schiller

Miller, Henry. Black Spring