The Artbook Shelf
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THE ARTBOOK SHELF
Songs on Stone: James McNeill Whistler and the Art of Lithography
Museum Studies
The Art Institute of Chicago Press
1224 West Van Buren, Chicago, IL 60607
0-86559-153-9 $19.95 1-312-563-5151 1-312-563-1973
Museum Studies is published twice annual by The Art Institute of Chicago and
presents articles on the collections and history of the Art Institute. Songs On
Stone is a special issue featuring an outstanding collection of Whistler's
lithographs. Ten short essays examine Whistler's working methods and consider
the ways in which lithography helped the artist to resolve aesthetic challenges
in a variety of media. An introductory essay, chronology, and glossary situate
Whistler's lithographic activity in the larger framework of late
nineteenth-century printmaking. Including over 200 high-quality reproductions,
Songs On Stone serves both as a guide to the exhibition and as an essential
reference source for works that are seldom exhibited and have rarely been
studies.
Yanktonai Sioux Water Colors: Cultural Remembrances of John Saul
Martin Brokenleg & Herbert T. Hoover
The Center for Western Studies
Box 727, Augustana College, Sioux Falls, SD 57197
0-931170-53-2 $29.95 1-800-727-2844 http://inst.augie.edu/CWS/
Yanktonai Sioux Water Colors is an important book provides valuable insights to
help us understand the range and enormity of differences in social philosophy
and religious thought between the two confronting cultures. The text provides a
helpful guide to the sometimes perplexing relationships of the Yanktonai people
to the numerous other Sioux tribes on the northern plains. The color plates of
John Saul's water colors are sharp, clear, and engaging, and are a tribute to
the technical artbook book production skills of the publisher.
Robert Gober
Paul Schimmel & Hal Foster
Scalo
155 Avenue of the Americas, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10013-1507
3-931141-72-1 $47.00 1-212-271-0700 1-212-271-0704 (fax)
Robert Gober is the co-publication by Scalo of the artist's latest exhibition
work in conjunction with the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. It
comprises four distinct sculptural elements which extend a number of the
concerns familiar from Robert Gober's earlier works, but this is the first time
Gober has made explicit use of Catholic iconography. The central component is a
human-scale concrete sculpture of the Virgin Mary through which a bronze
culvert has been passed horizontally. Behind the figure, a flood of water
rushes down a staircase, across the floor, and through one of several bronze
grates sunk into the floor, passing into an illuminated subterranean tidepool
which contains all manner of elements including rocks, sea creatures, coins,
and the mysterious figures of a man and a baby, partially visible through the
various openings. Robert Gober showcases an extraordinarily potent installation
which unites the artist's autobiographical, social, political and cultural
concerns. The museum environment has allowed him to realize his vision of
nature in three dimensions, and the teeming life he observed and photographed
in the tidepools along the coast of Maine, together with his recurring themes
of the half-seen human form, have inspired the representation of tidepools in
this work as a place of nurturing and rebirth.
Art as a Hidden Message
J. Donald Walters
Crystal Clarity, Publishers
14618 Tyler Foote Road, Nevada City, CA 95959
1-56589-741-2 $10.95 1-800-424-1055
Donald Walters' Art As A Hidden Message offers a blueprint for the future of
art, and shows how art can be a powerful influence for meaningful existence and
positive attitudes in society. With insightful commentary on the great
musicians, artists, and creative thinkers of our time, Art As A Hidden Message
presents a new approach to the arts, one that views both artistic expression
and artistic appreciation as creative communication. Walters shows the
importance of seeing oneself and all things as aspects of a greater reality, of
seeking to enter into conscious attunement with that reality, and of seeing all
things as channels for the expression of that reality.
Dictionary of Enamelling
Erika Speel
Ashgate Publishing Company
Old Post Road, Brookfield, VT 05036
1-85928-272-5 $99.95 1-802-276-3162
For more than one thousand years enamels (made by fusing layers of colored
glass to metal) have been used to embellish objects of great value and
importance. Twentieth-century studio enamels have widened traditional methods,
while industrial manufacture ranges from architectural panels to art
applications. The Dictionary Of Enamelling is the first book to provide a
comprehensive guide to this most diverse of the decorative arts. Indispensable
for anyone interested in the evolution of enamelling technique, the Dictionary
Of Enamelling includes over 400 entries covering every aspect of its history.
There are entries on key pieces individual enamellers, designers, schools,
techniques, and the major achievements are described in every era. The
knowledge and insight of Ericka Speel's account are supported and enhanced by a
brilliantly researched collection of 200 illustrations (100 in color),
portraying the most dazzling and important pieces, a unique record of
enamelling history. The Dictionary Of Enamelling is essential for anyone who
collects, studies, creates, or simply enjoys enamels.
Bonnard
John Elderfield & Sarah Whitfield
Abrams
100 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY 10011
0-8109-4021-3 $60.99 1-212-229-7122
Superbly illustrated and based on a great deal of new and original research,
Bonnard showcases the work of post-impressionist Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947).
Bonnard was a very private painter. For more than 50 years his subjects were
confined to what was most familiar to him: his wife, his homes in Paris and the
south of France, and places where he often stayed in Normandy. Sarah Whitefield
discusses the legacy of the symbolism of Bonnard's early years and the way in
which his understanding of nature's endless cycle of change finds expression in
the moving, elegiac paintings of his later period. Art historian John
Elderfield reveals for the first time the complexity of Bonnard's awareness of
visual perception, and how crucial this is to fully comprehending his stature
as a painter. Every painting discussed is reproduced in color and accompanied
by a number of preliminary drawings that have not previously been seen beside
the relevant paintings. Bonnard is a superb addition to any post-impressionist
and art history library collection.
Seeking the Spiritual
Townsend Ludington
Cornell University Press
PO Box 250, Ithaca, NY 14851-0250
0-8014-3553-6 $25.00 1-800-666-2211
Marsden Hartley (1877-1943) was a distinguished American painter, writer and
spiritual seeker. Seeking The Spiritual: The Paintings Of Marsden Hartley
traces the philosophical and literary sources that nourished the artist's
evolving spiritual consciousness. Throughout his career, Hartley painted
landscapes, still lifes, figure pieces, and seascapes in which he tried to
convey his sense of wonder of the earth, at the same time attempting to
articulate the spiritual awareness that came to him in "the magic of dreams".
Consciously representative of modernism, Hartley strove to express what he saw
and felt. He believed that the acts of reading, writing and painting gave
significance to the word accessible to his senses. Seeking The Spiritual will
introduce an American master to a whole new generation of art students and
aficionados.
California Impressionism
William Gerdts & Will South
Abbeville Press
22 Cortlandt Street, NY, NY 10007
http://www.abbeville.com
0-7892-0176-3 $55.00 1-800-278-2665
Consider California Impressionism as a definitive study of California
Impressionist style: it includes lesser-known California artists as well as
well-known Impressionists, exploring Impressionism from a California context as
the movement's sources and influential exhibitions are charted. Fine full-page
color illustrations throughout make for an enlightening art history: a must for
serious collections.
University of Washington Press
Victor Hugo's literary achievements are well known, but a wider audience will
now appeal his artistic skills with the publication of this catalog of his
drawings, Shadows Of A Hand (1-85894-050-8, $60.00), edited by Pierre Georgel,
et.al. Hugo produced a wealth of breathtaking drawings, using an approach which
challenged the artistic productions of his times. This volumes represents the
first English publication to do justice to his drawings, presenting a wide
range of black and white and full color images throughout. Mark Sandler edits
The Confusion Era (97646-2, $19.95), a survey of art and culture in Japan
during the Allied Occupation from 1945-52. The politics of the times touched -
and changed - Japanese arts from film to painting: this traces these changes,
providing keys to understanding both Japanese art history and culture.
Frederick Brandt, et.al.'s Designed To Sell (38-2, $30.00) surveys turn of the
century American posters, presenting vintage poster productions from the
Virginia Museum's collection and using examples by 45 artists. Enjoy a fine
artistic and social history bound together. Paul Harris' Drawings (97703-5,
$39.95) is an excellent color catalog of Harris' works: a collection which
pairs full-page white-framed images with titles opposite. An exhibition effect
is created with the focus on the art rather than text. Barbara Earl Thomas'
Storm Watch (97695-0, $19.95) presents the works of the granddaughter of a
Southern sharecropper, joining others in the 'Jacob Lawrence series on American
artists' series. Enjoy full-page color images and plenty of written insights on
Thomas' approaches and themes.
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