Charles Henri Ford (1908–2002)

In what has become a classic text of literary modernism and sexual desire. The milieu of young gay artists in Greenwich Village in the twenties is splayed through the mists of more eroticism and amorphous ambiguity than one expects in such a compact novel. I would recommend this to anyone interested in the development of queer literature.

Silver Flower Coo is a rare book by the late artist, Charles Henri Ford. He has been called "America's Surrealist." Publisher of the Avant-garde, surrealist magazine, "View" from 1940-47, Ford also was a friend of Andy Warhol, an acquaintance of Gertrude Stein, and a lover and companion of artist Paull Tchelitchew.. He also was an author and film-maker. This is a stated First Edition, 1968, Kulcher Press, unpaginated of his collaged work-of-art in photographic wrappers. Ford's short show more prose-poetry are collaged with paste-ups of different found typefaces. There are collages on every page of the unpaginated book. The glossy Silver "people-collage" covers (reverse negatives) were designed by the artist-poet and photographed by Peter Fink at Andy Warhol's Union Square Factory. show less

I really wanted this novel to be good, wanted to have found a modernist book of the likes of Henry Miller, Gertrude Stein and company, with a gay bohemian spin. I don't think so. I just stuggled to read it, let alone like it.

From Publishers Weekly
As surrealism struggled to sustain its spark in the 1940s, View --the avant-garde magazine edited by poet Ford--attracted many of the most vital writers and artists of the period. A feast of riches, this illustrated anthology spanning the years 1940-1947 includes prose by Max Ernst, Henry Miller, Andre Breton, Paul Bowles and William Carlos Williams; valuable, fresh essays on Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Leger, Federico Garcia Lorca, Yves Tanguy and Pavel Tchelitchew; and show more poems by e.e. cummings, Wallace Stevens and Lawrence Durrell, to name a few. As this roster suggests, View's scope went beyond surrealism, embracing many emigre talents who clustered in New York and reproducing artwork by Picasso, Miro, Brancusi, Chagall. Also here are Sartre on the nationalization of literature, Wallace Fowlie on existentialist theater, Paul Goodman on eros. View crackles with verve and originality. First serial to Vanity Fair.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
This is an anthology of work appearing in View , the influential avant-garde magazine devoted to the arts, literature, and ideas that was published between 1940 and 1947. Selections include fiction, prose, interviews, letters, and criticism of art and literature, often in a surrealist or existential vein, that were calculated to stimulate, shock, surprise, entertain, or provoke. Almost 50 years later, these selections retain their freshness and sense of discovery, thus contributing to our understanding of the cultural climate during the war years. Contributors include Marc Chagall, Jean-Paul Sartre, Max Ernst, William Carlos Williams, Vaslav Nijinsky, Man Ray, Henry Miller, and other American and European intellectuals. This volume will appeal mainly to scholars and specialists.
- Lesley Jorbin, Cleveland State Univ. Lib.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. show less