First printing of the sixth book in the Harold series of mid-century minimalist meta-picture books, the only one first published in this format, as an I Can Read Book.
Very good plus in like jacket.
Price: $900.00
"Like Magritte's art, A PICTURE FOR HAROLD'S ROOM challenges its audience to reconsider the relationship between experience and representations of experience." – Philip Nel
Johnson's engagement with modern art, seen throughout the Harold books, is especially relevant here: according to biographer Philip Nel, this book's title page alludes to René Magritte's work HUMAN CONDITION 1 (1933), and the theme of the book reflects similar concepts explored in Magritte's work. Besides becoming immediate bestsellers, the minimalist Harold books – simultaneously simple and profound – have become an influential favorite of many other artists and authors: in his 1982 acceptance speech for the Caldecott Award for JUMANJI, Chris Van Allsburg explicitly thanks "Harold, for his purple crayon"; Maurice Sendak praised the "supreme inventiveness" of Harold; Rita Dove names Harold in her poem "Maple Valley Branch Library, 1967." Rare in such beautiful condition.
Read more: Nel, Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children's Literature, 186; Sendak, Horn Book Magazine, May-June 1994.
New York: Harper & Brothers, (1960). 8.5'' x 6''. Original quarter cloth, paper pictorial boards. In original unclipped ($1.95) purple pictorial dust jacket with Blue Ribbon sticker at lower spine. 64 pages. Just a touch of edgewear to boards. Jacket with a tiny pinprick to rear panel, only minor wear and soil.
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