The Artbook Shelf
MWBOOKREVW
THE ARTBOOK SHELF
Tanaka Ikko: Graphic Master
Phaidon
0-7148-3716-4 $49.95
Tanaka is one of the leading Japanese designers: here he blends Eastern and
Western influences with a sourcebook which examines his entire career, from
graphic design to interior decoration. His works are reproduced in full color,
providing an excellent review of his achievements for any interested in design
and Japanese achievement.
North Light Books
Lynn Haller's Creative Edge Page Design (0-89134-848-4, $29.99) provides over a
hundred layout designs which excel in creative imaging. From newsletter to
brochures and posters, this provides reproductions of each piece, details on
the software, colors, print runs, designers and studios involved, and a review
of the basic concept and its inspiration. Zoltan Szabo's Color By Color Guide
To Watercolor (772-0, $27.99) benefits from the watercolorist author's fifty
years of painting background. Students and beginners receive clear assignments
for achieving spectacular watercolor results: demonstrations presented in full
color which provide specific keys to understanding color oddities and natures.
Roberta Gordon-Smith's Trompe L'Oeil (888-3, $27.99) covers decorating
painting, showing how to use paint to create illusions such as windows in walls
where there are no windows. From perspective to color, this provides an
excellent guide. Michael David Brown & Phil Metzger's Realistic Collage Step By
Step (819-0, $27.99) is a winning guide which explores image, texture and
pattern in collage. 12 projects receive step-by-step profiles in a coverage of
basic collage techniques using mediums from cut papers and watercolors to
fabric. Adam Blake edits The Best Of Wood Boxes (476-0, $24.99), a fine
collection which tells how to create artistic wooden boxes. Woodworkers receive
a color guide which presents all the 'insider information' needed to build
beautiful boxes for personal or commercial use. Frank Loudin and Marcia Spees'
Capture The Charm Of Your Hometown In Watercolor (792-5, $28.99) presents a
fine selection of beautiful watercolors which tell romantic hometown stories.
Beautiful color illustrations compliment step-by-step instructions on how to
create fine hometown paintings. Betsy Newberry & Kate York's Fresh Ideas In
Limited Budget Design (0-89134-840-9, $29.99) provides an excellent graphic
design coverage which tells how to produce cost-effective projects on a
shoestring. Top studios cover pro bono work, brochures cards, self-promotions
and posters, with all costs included for each project. The tips on cost-cutting
techniques are particularly well presented. Michael Sullivan's Make Your
Scanner A Great Design & Production Tool (841-7, $28.99) provides expert tips
and techniques for scanning, with the focus being on quicker, easier image
production. 6 case studies of effective scanning approaches compliment examples
of the same image scanned by different types of scanners in this excellent
visual guide.
Venice and the Veneto
Sylvie Durastanti
Abbeville Press
0-78920-166-6 $45.00
Stunning full-page color photos look like paintings in this luminous, beautiful
collection of Venice images. A thematic organization lends to a celebration of
Venetian style, art, and culture, creating a beautiful presentation and an
ideal memorial gift fund acquisition selection for school and community
libraries.
Calder Sculpture
Alexander S.C. Rower
Universe Publishing
0-7893-0134-2 $19.95
This is published for accompany the exhibition of Calder's works, and is
designed to present general audiences with an overview of the artist's career
and creations. Calder's works began at age 12 in 1909, when he produced a
sculpture made from a single brass sheet, and continued through an interest in
painting and abstraction. This is a fine review of his life and works.
Search for Reality
Michael Tobias, Editor
Michael Wiese Productions
0-941188-62-0 $29.95
The search for authenticity in documenting filmmaking gathers the voices of
renowned filmmakers from around the world as the reveal the art complexity of
producing a documentary. Nearly forty original contributions from a dozen
countries, from directors to writers and distributors, bring together a range
of viewpoints in the production of nonfiction film.
Outsider Art
Jean-Louis Ferrier
Terrail
JHB Public Relations (publicity)
2-87939-150-4 $27.50
Artists chosen for this volume have been selected for the outstanding visual
quality of their work. The reconstructed world of some thirty artists are
gathered in a volume which covers individual contributions and backgrounds as
well as a strong overview of the genre as a whole. Ferrier is a leading French
critic who approaches psychiatric and art brut from an aesthetic perspective:
this volume is a highly recommended pick.
Manet Monet and the Gare Saint-Lazare
Juliet Wilson-Bareau
Yale University Press
0-300-07510-3 $45.00
New research on the streets and studios of Paris lend to this survey of Manet's
Gare Saint-Lazare painting, which has intrigued many a critic and scholar. This
goes beyond analyzing the painting's relationship to Paris, exploring earlier
key paintings of Manet and exploring his studio and relationships. A comparison
of Manet's and Monet's views considers both urban views and studio painting.
The full-page illustrations are excellent in both black and white and color.
The Collected Sandman Covers 1989-97
Dave McKean
DC Comics
1-56389-388-6 $39.95
Anticipate an artistic, almost surreal collection of comic book art covers
which presents artist Dave McKean's graphics and art. This isn't your usual
straightforward cover collection but a collage of graphic images and Sandman
covers blending the meshing the best of McKean's images.
Frank Wootton: 50 Years Of Aviation Art
Frank Wootton
Howell Press
1147 River Road, Suite 2, Charlottesville, VA 22901
1-55068-073-0 $65.00 1-804-977-4006
Frank Wootton: 50 Years Of Aviation Art celebrates Wootton's career as an
aviation artist. He traveled the world as an official war artist to the Royal
Air Force for much of World War II. In 1944, he joined the Allied Forces and
painted the events and aircraft around him as he moved with the troops through
newly liberated France and into Belgium. He was then moved to Southeast Asia
where he saw out the end of the war in Japan. This collection encompasses the
range of Frank Wootton's aviation art, from those early intense years right
through to the present day, including his impressions of the Concorde and
modern high-tech fighter planes. He shows great technical and historical
accuracy while conveying the beauty of the line, the free spirit and the
overwhelming sense of power of the aircraft. This magnificent collection amply
reflects his masterly skills. Frank Wootton: 50 Years Of Aviation Art is a
highly recommended as a memorial gift selection for library artbook
collections. 40 b/w sketches, 69 color painting.
A Monumental Vision
John Hedgecoe
Key Porter/Firefly Books Ltd.
230 Fifth Avenue, #1605, NY, NY 10001
1-55013-921-5 $65.00 1-212-696-1676
A Monumental Vision: The Sculpture Of Henry Moore surveys the life and art of
an outstanding sculptor. Divided into three section, author and photographer
John Hedgecoe draws upon his close friendship with Moore for personal
reminiscences, quotations from Moore, and a truly masterful photographic essay,
an evocation of the roots of Moore's genius as a sculptor, and most
particularly, his clear and unerring sense of the monumental. The second
section is an exposition of many of moore's most important works as captured in
Hedgecoe's photographs, which now enjoy a classic status. The sculptures are
interspersed with contemporary pages from Moore's notebooks giving a real
insight into his way of thinking. The third section reproduces, in
chronological order, more than 750 photographs of the sculptural forms Moore
created throughout his life. A Monumental Vision is an invaluable resource for
students and teachers of art history, and for any true appreciation of Moore's
work.
The Cambridge Illustrated History of Prehistoric Art
Paul G. Bahn
Cambridge University Press
40 West 20th Street, NY, NY 10011-4211
#45473-5 $39.95
Beautifully illustrated in color with many rare and unique photographs, prints,
and drawings, The Cambridge Illustrated History Of Prehistoric Art presents the
first balanced and truly worldwide survey of prehistoric art. The book also
offers the first detailed account of how the world of scholarship became aware
of the existence of prehistoric art, reproducing the very earliest drawings by
explorers and surveyors from the 1600s to the present to create a unique
pictorial as well as discursive resource. With this powerful combination of
illustration and analysis, Paul Bahn describes what prehistoric art is and the
different ways in which it can shed light on the lives and preoccupations of
our ancestors: sexual, humorous, social, economic, and religious. The result is
a fascinating exploration of prehistoric art that is informative, engaging, and
beautifully presented.
Color Palettes
Suzanne Butterfield
Clarkson Potter
0-609-60144-X $40.00
Interior decorators will relish this display of rooms from some 25 homes, along
with color palettes from the Donald Kaufman Color Collection. This profiles the
Collection's use of paints in beautiful interiors, with text outlining how the
use of decorations and art choices enhances the overall effect.
Transforming the Crown
M. Franklin Sirmans, et.al.
University of Chicago Press
0-9654082-0-5 $39.95
African, Asian and Caribbean artists in Britain from 1966-96 are covered in
this catalog which accompanies an exhibition in New York. Artists from various
generations and cultural backgrounds come together in a title which explores
issues of race, gender and national identity. The result is an engrossing
exhibition catalog which also stands alone as a fine collection of
cross-cultural artists.
Utah Painting & Sculpture
Vern G. Swanson, et al.
Gibbs Smith Publisher
PO Box 667, Layton, UT 84041
http://www.gibbs-smith.com
0-87905-817-X $60.00 1-801-544-9800
Utah Painting & Sculpture reveals the exceptional quality and diversity of
Utah's visual arts tradition with over 150 color plates bringing Utah's
masterpieces to life. More than 100 of these color plates are new to this
revised and expanded edition. Additional b/w photographs take the reader into
the artists' world. The text is authoritative and filled with personal detail
and cultural insight. A work of impressive scholarship, Utah Painting &
Sculpture traces the distinguished progress of the visual arts from pioneer
origins to full contemporary flowering and places Utah (with California and New
Mexico) among the three great art centers of the western United States. Four
expert art historians (William C. Seifrit, Robert S. Olpin, Vern G. Swanson,
William Gerdts) put Utah's rich tradition into perspective. Utah Painting &
Sculpture is enhanced further with a Chronology; a Comprehensive List of Utah
Artists; Bibliography, and an Index. Highly recommended for personal and
academic American Art reference book collections.
Henri Rousseau: Dreams of the Jungle
Werner Schmalenbach
Prestel/Te Neues Publishing Company
16 West 22nd, NY, NY 10010
3-7913-1942-6 $25.00 1-800-352-0305
Henri Rousseau is best known for his naive paintings. Born in 1884 he belonged
to the Impressionists' generation, but his artistic achievements and vision
thrust his work well beyond that and into the future of painting. Rousseau's
genius was recognized only toward the end of his life, when he was discovered
by a young, dynamic generations of artists, most notably Pablo Picasso.
Throughout his career, Rousseau's subjects were almost exclusively the streets,
bridges, and public squares of his beloved Paris. The greatest of his
achievements occurred in the last ten years of his live, however, when he
produced his series of jungle pictures. With these paintings, he went beyond
the limits of his environment, dreaming of distant, exotic worlds, of wild
animals and plants that he had never seen. In the centuries-old history of
exotic themes in painting, there is nothing quite comparable to the works of
Henri Rousseau. Henri Rousseau: Dreams Of The Jungle evaluates the artist's
standing among painters of the late 19th century and places his life and work
in a broad art historical context.
Parkstone Press
Three fine monographs of artists provide in-depth details on some notable
figures not normally given their own complete coverage - yet deserving of the
honor. Vera Razdolskaya's Martiros Saryan (1-85995-320-4, $40.00) presents a
review of the artistic contributions of this Armenian painter, whose works
embody Armenian philosophy and artistic influences. Vivid full-page color
reproductions of his paintings range from still life to landscapes. Vladimir
Kemenov's Vasily Surikov (325-5, $40.00) tells of late 1800s artist Surikov,
one of the great masters of history painting in Russian culture. His knowledge
of Russian history contributed to his ability to capture in paint crucial
moments in Russian history. Alexander Stepanov's Lucas Cranach The Elder
(266-6, $40.00) features one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance. As a
court painter he was involved in costume designs, and as a draftsman he
produced notable engravings. This covers his many talents and his place in
Renaissance art history. All are outstanding works in the 'Great Painters'
series, worthy of art library acquisition.
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