The Fall of the House of Usher.

The Limited Editions Club limited edition of one of Poe's most famous short stories. Folio, bound in quarter morocco over marbled boards with gilt titles to the spine, illustrated with two color lithographs by Alice Neel. One of 1,500 numbered copies, this is number 473. Signed by painter Raphael Soyer in pencil on the colophon page to the rear. Raphael Soyer was a Russian-born American painter, draftsman, and printmaker whose long career made him one of the most important figures in the Social Realist tradition of American art. Born in Borisoglebsk, Russia, he immigrated with his family to the Bronx in 1912 and went on to study at Cooper Union, the National Academy of Design, and the Art Students League, becoming one of three brothers alongside Moses and Isaac Soyer who formed one of the most remarkable painting families in American art history. Identified as a Social Realist for his sustained interest in men and women viewed in the streets, subways, salons, and artists' studios of New York City, Soyer maintained a deep personal and artistic kinship with Alice Neel (1900-1984), one of the greatest American portraitists of the twentieth century, the two painters united by their shared commitment to figurative painting and left-wing politics at a time when Abstract Expressionism dominated the critical establishment. As a portrait painter Soyer was drawn to depictions of his artist friends, among them Neel, and their friendship culminated in this celebrated Limited Editions Club production of 1985 for which Soyer contributed a two-page Artist's Tribute to Neel, who died of cancer shortly before the book's official release. In fine condition. Housed in a custom cloth slipcase.