The Work of Stowitts for The Fox God. Lyric Ballet in 3 Acts.: Poem by Templeton Crocker. Music by Joseph Redding

Hollywood, CA: George Palmer Putnam Inc., 1939. Limited Signed Edition. Buckram cloth. Near Fine. No. 371 of 400 limitation. Printed by Bernard Freres and plates engraved by Deichel-Ploquin in 1928. Folio, 15.5 by 13.5 inches, 40 by 34 cm. 44 pp, followed by 50 color plates with text on versos. With a total of 53 tipped-in, full page color plates, and 6 other tipped-in color illustrations, along with some red and gilt text illustrations or ornamentation. This is an elaborately produced, unique volume containing the classic Chinese Opera "Fay-Yen-Fah", along with the traditional designs, costumes and decor, as illustrated in Stowitts decorations and color plates. Hubert Julian "Jay" Stowitts (1892-1953) was a true polymath -- a gifted athlete, he willed himself to become a dancer after being swept away watching a performance, and within a few years he was discovered by the famed Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova and traveled as a successful dancer throughout the Americas and Europe, becoming the first American to star with a Russian ballet troupe. After a solo career, Stowitts retired from dancing and began a new career as a painter and occasional film actor. He traveled and lived in the Far East and South Asia, where he produced 155 paintings he called "Vanishing India." At the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, his exhibition of fifty-five paintings of nude male American athletes caused a "sensation." The Nazis closed the exhibit down, partly because it showed depictions of Jewish and African-American athletes. Stowitts was fascinated by Eastern religion and philosophy and much of his later work reflects his exploration of these ideas. In this Stowitts can be viewed rightly as a kind of visionary and precursor for ideas that gained wider acceptance in the West in the 1960s and after. The buckram binding, which appears to be a bit later, has washed out color and minor deterioration in the front upper spine area and a few limited spots of washed out discoloration. Otherwise, the binding is tight and the interior is bright and fresh.