SIGNED COMPOSITION Bk + SIGNED Letter ARTHUR WESLEY DOW Start Price USD 3,500.00 Current Price USD 3,500.00 Time Left - Bid Count 0 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Monday, September 29, 2008 End Time Friday, November 28, 2008 Location Los Angeles, CA See more about 'SIGNED COMPOSITION Bk + SIGNED Letter ARTHUR WESLEY DOW' Description E N T H U S I A S T We purchase American Artist Estates as well as American art libraries and our goal is to provide, through eBay, a constantly replenished veritable "candystore" of rare and out-of-print books and catalogs for the lover of American prints and paintings... The item you are bidding on is: COMPOSITION, 1913, a classic BOOK by Arthur Wesley Dow, Signed by Dow and dated, February, 1913 [ the year of the Armory Show ], on a flyleaf, Very Good condition hard cover, 4to size. No internal markings. This wonderful and extremely rare book [Dow's few hand signed prints, books and ephemera are largely in public collections] is only PART of this lot! It also comes with an original handwritten letter from Dow, on Columbia Teacher's College letterhead, dated February 18, 1920 confirming the degree held by a former art student, also boldly and cleanly signed by Dow, and in beautiful condition, together with the student's art teaching certificate from the state of Arizona [1921] and some miscellaneous ephemera by or about Dow. All was passed down to a descendent of this same fortuanate art student and was purchased by us as part of a collection. We also will be listing as soon as we can get around to it, a near mint large original poster by Dow, the LOTUS poster from 1896, which is an original lithograph work. Look for it! ********** See below for our COMBINED SHIPPING DISCOUNTS! PLEASE READ the description provided above carefully prior to purchase, and please examine the photo or photos provided, since those detail exactly what you are purchasing.  If you have any questions please email us prior to purchase.   We have thousands of happy customers all around the world! Thank you for your WONDERFUL Feedback! We are downsizing a large art library and large art collection--please see our other listings by checking out our other items! and visit our Enthusiast Books eBay Store by clicking >>  PAYMENT IS EXPECTED WITHIN 7 DAYS FROM END OF AUCTION. SHIPPING: We ship only via USPS. Although our standardized information indicates a shipping/handling time of several days [in case we take a long weekend and such], generally we ship next business day following payment.  All domestic shipments must be INSURED.  PayPal will send you an email with tracking information, so keep same so you can check up on status in the event of any Postal delay.  Charges for domestic and international shipping are set forth elsewhere in this listing. OPTIONAL CHARGES: If buyer wishes delivery to be signed for, please also contact us for additional cost. Books and catalogs purchased will be shipped media mail [typically 2-9 business days], or in the case of light packages, first class [2-5 business days typically].  Original art works are typically shipped Priority Mail.  If buyer wishes a more expedited postal delivery, please contact us and we will advise as to the additional charge. COMBINED SHIPPING DISCOUNTS: If shipment will be within the United States, purchases of eBay items made from us on the SAME DAY may be combined for shipping cost savings if the items to be combined are of the same general type [examples-books and catalogues with books and catalogues; oil paintings with oil paintings; unframed works of art on paper with other unframed works of art on paper etc.]. In that case, email us following your purchase for a special COMBINED invoice pursuant to which a 25% discount off posted shipping price for the second item will be extended, and a 50% discount off the posted shipping price(s) will be extended for the third and subsequent items so purchased that same day. Again, the foregoing applies only to domestic shipments. It is possible that in some cases a similar courtesy can be extended for international shipments, but, because of the Post Office limitations on package size, weight, content etc., an international buyer must contact us in ADVANCE to confirm whether any such courtesy may be extended for the particular items desired. WE THANK ALL OF YOU FOR YOUR PATRONAGE OVER THE PAST MANY YEARS! About this well listed artist : Woodcut prints, oil painting, photography, pottery, furniture and textiles all evidence Dow's lasting significance and inspiration--just some of his students and followers: Albert Langdon Coburn, Frank Morley Fletcher, Frances H. Gearhart, William Rice, Frances Gearhart, Sadie Irvine, Edna Bois Hopkins, Helen Hyde, Alice Ravenal Huger Smith [ Charleston ], Margaret Patterson, B. J. O. Nordfeldt, Pedro De Lemos [ California artist and educator ], Georgia O'Keefe, Wilhelmina Seegmiller, Zulma Steele [ Woodstock, Byrdcliffe ], Max Weber, Karl Struss, Augustus Thibaudeau and many more. Dow's influence on the arts and crafts movement was incalculable. And, of course, Georgia O'Keeffe considered "Composition" her bible for many years. from AskArt.com, : Arthur Wesley Dow was an influential artist, teacher, and writer, was a prominent figure in the American Arts & Crafts movement. Over thirty cumulative years at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, Teachers College Columbia University, the Art Students League, and his own Ipswich Summer School of Art in Massachusetts, Dow taught pottery, design, photography, painting, and printmaking with equal dedication. In 1879, in his hometown of Ipswich, Massachusetts, Dow met the Reverend Augustine Caldwell, an antiquarian with whom he produced and illustrated a journal of local history, the Ipswich Antiquarian Paper. Dow began formal art classes in April 1880 with the history and portrait painter Anna K. Freeland in Worcester, Massachusetts. During an apprenticeship in 1882 in the Boston studio of painter James M. Stone, Dow met the famed artist Frank Duveneck and fellow student Minnie Pearson, whom he married in 1893. In this year he also became assistant curator of Japanese art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In 1884 Dow left for Paris, where he studied at the Académie Julian. After his return to Boston in 1889, he studied Aztec, Oceanic, African, and Egyptian art, and was especially impressed with Japanese ukiyo-e printmaker Katsushika Hokusai. (Ukiyo-e prints are mass-produced colored woodcuts that were popular in Japan during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.) Dow opened the Ipswich Summer School of Art in the summer of 1891; there he initiated courses in traditional American crafts such as weaving, pottery, and candlemaking, as well as fine arts classes in painting and printmaking. Curator and art historian Ernest Fenollosa exhibited Dow's series of Ipswich Prints at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1895. In that same year, Dow was invited by educator Frederic Pratt to teach at the newly founded Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he taught until 1903. In 1898, Dow began teaching classes at the Art Students League, New York City, where he continued to teach until 1903. The following year, his Composition: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure for the Use of Students and Teachers was published. Influential among art educators and artists, the book has been reprinted in twenty editions, most recently in 1997. The text focuses on exercises intended to teach students to recognize beauty in compositions and to identify three primary building blocks: line, color, and notan (a Japanese word denoting the balance between light and dark areas). Dow stressed the importance of filling a space with a beautiful arrangement of forms over realistically depicting a given subject. In the fall of 1903, Dow traveled to Japan, China, India, Egypt, Greece, and Italy, studying art and craft traditions. Upon his return, he accepted the directorship of Teachers College Columbia University. In 1908 his Theory and Practice of Teaching Art was published. In the winter of 1911-12, Dow traveled and studied in the American Southwest and California; three years later, he exhibited at the Panama Pacific International Exposition, where he was awarded a bronze medal. Dow chaired the Art Department at Teachers College Columbia University from 1904 until his death in 1922. Place a Bid!