276 - SOUSA-CARDOSO, Amadeo de. XX Drawings.

SOUSA-CARDOSO, Amadeo de. XX Drawings. A copy printed on Imperial Japan paper from Amadeo de Sousa-Cardoso’s very first album, in which the purity of Art Deco blends with the power of emerging modernism. Paris, Société Générale d’Impression, 1912. Folio (315 x 240 cm), loose-leaf, cover adorned on the front with the artist’s colophon and bookplate, housed in a cream-colored cardboard slipcase printed in black by the publisher, with three paper flaps. 2 ff. (preface) and 20 black-and-white plates. Stains on the cream slipcase; paper flaps discolored, one of which is split; small spots on the front cover. First edition of the artist’s first album, comprising 20 plates based on the artist’s pen-and-ink drawings. Limited edition of 30 copies on Imperial Japan paper; this copy is unnumbered. Settling in Paris in 1906, the Portuguese artist Amadeo de Sousa-Cardoso (1887–1918) quickly befriended leading figures of the avant-garde such as Modigliani, Brancusi, and Juan Gris. His compositions, praised by Jérôme Doucet, who wrote the preface, synthesize Art Deco lines with the emerging modern geometric style. As evidence of their immediate impact, several plates from this album were selected as early as 1913 to be featured at the famous Armory Show in New York, cementing the artist’s international stature before his untimely death at the age of 30. Plates in excellent condition.