The book offers an unprecedented look at cigarette holders through a selection of approximately 125 pieces from the collection of Carolyn Hsu-Balcer and Rene Balcer. Its introductory essay is both a social history of that world-changing leaf, tobacco, and a design history of its accoutrements. It examines the history of smoking from its pre-Columbian roots in the Americas through to the present-day worldwide e-cigarette craze, taking the reader on a journey from tobacco smoking as a sacred ritual, through the controversies of its worldwide spread, and the machine-rolled cigarette’s role in the world wars and as a tool for European and American women’s equality.
Following the illustrated essay is a luxurious catalogue of newly commissioned photography that makes these diminutive objects pop off the pages with brilliant colour and form. The collection includes cigarette holders in their simplest incarnations - the disposable promotional holders given away at trendy New York nightclubs - to their most exquisite - the work of Faberge, Cartier, Tiffany, Van Cleef and Arpels, and other renowned jewellers of the late nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries.
AUTHOR: Martin Barnes Lorber has had a distinguished decades-long career in the fine arts. He was the founder and head of the Japanese Department that included the arts of Korea, Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Himalayas at Sotheby’s New York. He is the principal American Contributor to the Asian Art Newspaper, London.
Rebecca McNamara earned her Master’s in the History of Decorative Arts and Design from Parsons the New School for Design/Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in 2014. She is a writer and editor on arts and design and burgeoning museum professional, having worked in the curatorial departments of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
John Bigelow Taylor and Dianne Dubler are New York based, still-life photographers, specialising in architecture, works of art, antiquities and jewellery. Working with the world’s foremost collectors, museums and publishers, they have created the photography for over 200 books. Currently, they are producing bespoke, limited-edition books on estates and collections for private clients around the world. Carolyn Hsu-Balcer is a designer, philanthropist and art collector based in Los Angeles and New York. She has organised ground-breaking art exhibits including Xu Bing Tobacco Project (VMFA), Light Before Dawn (Asia Society Hong Kong), Blooming in the Shadows (China Institute), and Oil and Water (MOCA NY).
125 colour and 10 b/w photographs