MBR: The Artbook Shelf
MWBOOKREVW
The Impact Of Chaim Soutine
Maurice Tuchman & Esti Dunow
Hatje Cantz Publishers
c/o Distributed Art Publishers
575 Prospect St. Lakewood, NJ 08701
3775791035 $45.00 1-800-338-2665
The Impact Of Chaim Soutine is an extraordinary and unusual art book tracing
how the works of Chaim Soutine (1893-1943) affected the artistic sensibilities
of avant garde artists de Kooning, Pollock, Dubuffet, and Bacon. Filled cover
to cover with full-color reproductions of bold painting, each image is paired
with comments directly attributed to Soutine and the great artists he affected.
Enhanced with artist and studio photographs, a chronology and biography, and a
roster of Soutine Paintings in the Galerie Gmurzynska Exhibition, The Impact Of
Chaim Soutine is a truly stunning and informative look at the influence and
legacy of a notable man's abstract art and a welcome addition to personal and
academic Art History collections.
Schiffer Publishing
4880 Lower Valley Rd., Atglen, PA 19310
http://www.schifferbooks.com
Three very different titles provide excellent coverages of topics libraries
will find particularly inviting. Spider Webb's Butterfly Flash (0764315056,
$19.95) provides hundreds of butterflies in drawings which vary in color and
style. This will serve as a fine blueprint for tattoo artists, or any seeking
inspiration from the butterfly form. Mary Burke Morris' The Costume Book
(076430764314858, $29.95) requires intermediate to advanced sewing skills and a
prior interest in costume creation, but any working with theater or dance
productions who regularly sew such costumes will find it an invaluable
reference. Chapters come packed with photos and line drawings, overviews of
basic design principles, and instructions which quickly lend to production
efforts. Bunny Yeager's Pinup Girls Of The 1950s (0764314734, $24.95) tells of
a woman who became one of the renowned glamour photographers of the world. This
gathers her images and surveys her career and life in the process, with nearly
200 photos by Yeager including color and black and white shots. A diverse
display of both nudes and semiclothed women which includes some unusual model
types.
Yale University Press
Box 209040, New Haven, CT 065209040
1-800-987-7323 www.amazon.com
Elizabeth Prelinger's After The Scream (0300093438, $45.00) celebrates the late
paintings of Edvard Munich: haunting paintings which also reveal quite a
different side of the artist. While his images of people remain striking, he
painted a range of subjects and used a brighter approach later in life, and
this accompanies the first major exhibition of his works since 1978 – and the
first to focus on his later achievements. Sabine Rewald's Caspar David
Friedrich (0300092989, $16.95) is one of the most striking discussions to
evolve from recent art books: it presents the works of a major German painter
who included pictures of the moon in practically every painting he produced in
the 1800s. A number of his works are featured along with details about what was
known of the moon in Friedrich's lifetime, and the artist's Dresden friends. A
gorgeous presentation.
An American Celebration
Charles Wysocki
Workman Publishing Company
708 Broadway, New York NY 10003
0761127844 $24.95 1-800-722-7202
Over 200 paintings are reproduced in color in An American Celebration, a survey
of American images done folk art style. Clambakes, quilting bees, and fairs are
just some of Wysocki's subjects, celebrating the joys of early and traditional
American gatherings and subjects.
Searching For The Artist Within
Karlyn Holman
Bayfield Street Publishing
116-1/2 East 5th St, Washburn, WI 54891
0967068371 $24.99 bayfieldstreet.com
Searching For The Artist Within: An Inspirational And Visual Guide For Your
Journey Through Watercolor by artist and teacher Karlyn Holman is a beautifully
presented, full-color exhibition of a wide variety of remarkable watercolor
paintings and painting styles. The reader is offered a wealth of "tips, tricks,
and techniques" along with many snippets of advice from the original artists.
Searching For The Artist Within is an engaging, inspirational volume especially
recommended for watercolor painters of all skill experience levels.
Pioneer Pottery
Michael Cardew
The American Ceramic Society
735 Ceramic Place, Westerville OH 43081
1574981420 $45.00 www.ceramics.org
First published 33 years ago by Michael Cardew, a respected expert in British
ceramics, Pioneer Pottery is a superbly presented and classic work enhanced
with excellent black/white illustrations and photography (including a new color
section of previously unshown works), and a new introduction by the author's
son. An extremely solid reference to the art of pottery, from the chemical
composition of pottery clay to sculpting, firing, and painting, Pioneer Pottery
is a first-rate guide and is strongly recommended reading for students of the
art, history, and joy of pottery.
Ancestral Portraits
Frederick McDonald
University of Calgary Press
2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4
1552380645 $29.95 1-800-565-3770
Ancestral Portraits is a retrospective of the life and art of McDonald, a
Native artist, profiles one of Canada's premier First Nation artist, blending
selected color images with a review of McDonald's peoples and influences. The
many firstperson insights make for a fine examination of Canadian and Native
arts.
Negotiating History
Jay A. Clarke, editor
The Art Institute of Chicago
111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60603-6110
0865591970 $15.00 artic.edu/aic/books
Volume 28, Number 1 of the Art Institute of Chicago's "Museum Studies" series,
Negotiating History: German Art And The Past is a selection of five articles
that investigate the work and theme of diverse German artists, and study the
thread of German art through modern day. They include German Romanticism: The
Search for "A Quiet Place" (Marsha Morton); Neo-Idealism, Expressionism, and
the Writing of Art History (Jay A. Clarke); "A Clear and Simple Style":
Tradition and Typology in New Objectivity (Maria Makela); Georg Baselitz
Grounded (Richard Shiff); History by Degrees: The Place of the Past in
Contemporary German Art (Stephanie D'Alessandro). Full-color illustrations of
sculptures, abstract and realist style paintings, and much more exemplify this
thought-provoking, critical analysis of artistic expression and the turbulent
history of a nation.
The Gag Family
Julie L'Enfant
Afton Historical Society Press
PO Box 100, Afton, MN 55001
1890434507 $35.00 aftonpress.com
The Gag Family: German-Bohemian Artists In America by Julie L'Enfant (Associate
Professor of Art History, College of Visual Arts, St. Paul, Minnesota) is a
remarkable look at a German-Bohemian family who settled in a Minnesota frontier
town in 1879. The Anton Gag family business of art and story-craft flourished
among these remarkable individuals that included his daughters, Wanda and
Flavia. The Gag Family is a visually pleasing and informative presentation,
filled with both black-and-white and color photographs, as well as detailed
text that thoroughly addresses the stories behind specific works of art. A fine
addition to artist biography shelves, The Gag Family is highly recommended for
inclusion into American Art History and Upper Midwest Regional History academic
reference collection or supplemental reading list.
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