SCHMALENBACH, Werner - African Art

New York, The Macmillan Company, 1954. Hardcover. Translation by Glyn T. Hughes. 4to. Marigold cloth with brown spine lettering. 176pp. Frontispiece, extensive illustrations (some color), map. Very good. Lacks dust jacket, else tight and quite nice. Tight and nice first English-language edition of this German text. Bit of background: Before the 1956 presidential election consumed his time, former Illinois governor Adlai E. Stevenson II (1900-65), who had been soundly defeated by Eisenhower in 1952, toured Africa in April and May of 1955 with his associate William M. Blair Jr. After their return this copy was presented to Blair by two others who joined the trip: "For Bill -- / With warm memories of our / African Safari -- April-May 1955 / Affectionately -- Jane & Cass." Cass Canfield (1897-1986), who boldly penned this inscription on the front flyleaf, was the noted publishing executive and president/chairman of Harper & Brothers, and Jane Sage White was his second wife. Blair apparently gifted the book to his friend Stevenson, whose rubberstamped ownership signature appears above the Canfield inscription. (Flyleaf shows a few flattened folds but is overall attractive.) Blair (1916-2015) went on to become U.S. Ambassador to Denmark and then to the Philippines. .