Book Description

Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966) has long been considered one of the greatest American illustrators of the 20th century and lived and worked throughout his career in Cornish Hills, New Hampshire.In early 1920's when his works Garden of Allah and Daybreak were reproduced as art prints, he quickly became one of the best known artists in America.His unmistakable paintings—characterized by 'Parrish Blue' water and skies, luminescent rocks and hills, and exquisite young women draped in flowing, classically inspired garments—are infused with a romantic Eden-like quality so entrancing that today's reproductions elicit the same infectious enthusiasm as when the prints first appeared.
In the 1920's, one out of four American homes had his world of make-believe hanging on their walls.A survey taken in 1925 in America showed that Van Gogh, Cézanne and Parrish were thought to be the three greatest artists of all time and Parrish's art images on posters, calendars, magazine covers, and book illustrations have made his name a household word thereafter.
Today, Parrish's art works are in the collections of many museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard, and his work is once again experiencing an enthusiastic revival. Parrish's painting Daybreak, one of the most reproduced art images in history, recently sold for $4.3 million, setting a record price for an illustration and Parrish art prints rank among the most popular in the world and are distributed in 42 countries. The Image Exchange on America Online reported in January, 1997 that as many as 4,800 people accessed the Maxfield Parrish exhibition on the Internet in a single day. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Unfortunately, not well done!
I personally found the book to be a big disappointment...both in quality of content as well as knowledge of subject matter.

There are too many similarities to other published works to suit me.

Best Parrish 'Buy"
Of all the books on Parrish, these authors are the most responsible in the history of the artist, in their analysis of the art works, and their research of the genre!! The illustrations are directly from the original paintings and glow as do the originals themselves.

Who can go wrong at $9.99 with such printing quality as this hardback? ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A very interesting and informative book
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. My review may be found in "Art History" vol. 21, no. 3 (September 1998), 445-48. In the reiew I mention: "It offers the first extensive twentieth century analysis of Reni's personality and environment. Spear's relatively non-reductive research methodology is an interesting shift of study 'from the "outside" to the "inside"' of the subject (Spear p. 9). This method is used in addition to the standard revisionist focus on the artist from his/her own time, rather than from our time. 'The "Divine" Guido' is a welcome addition to the new historicist studies from publishers such as Yale University, Cambridge University, Prentice Hall and Thames & Hudson." ... Read more

Amazon.com

Boy Scout campouts, backyard barbecues, Christmas trees, cheerful barbers: no artist quite converted slice-of-life realism into idealized portraits of the American dream as ably as Norman Rockwell (1894-1978), whose distinguished career art historian Laura Claridge captures just as ably in this welcome biography.

Rockwell, Claridge writes, had ambitions to be considered a great artist, but he abandoned them early on in the struggle to make a living through his abilities as an illustrator. He need not have worried about money quite as much as he did, Claridge suggests, for over his long career he produced more than 4,000 paintings and earned millions of dollars; still, as we learn, Rockwell was a complicated man, beset by all sorts of worries and more expressive on canvas than he ever was in the ordinary situations of life. His patriotic style evolved through his long engagement with the Saturday Evening Post, whose editor, George Horace Lorimer, used "as an instrument of Americanization," a means of establishing a national identity and ideals of "an American community made safe by a shared vision of right and wrong." In this and much else, Rockwell excelled, achieving early and lasting success though never earning much respect from critics and other arbiters of taste--even though, Claridge notes, Rockwell had all the requisite irony, and certainly all the necessary skills.

For the last few years, a new generation of critics has been reconsidering Rockwell's career and viewing his work more favorably. Claridge's gracefully written biography will give them still more reason to see him in a positive light. It will also afford those who already cherish his art new insight into an American master. --Gregory McNamee ... Read more

Reviews (10)

The man behind the myth
I've grown up with Norman Rockwell images as part of my life, like so many other Americans--but I've never known anything about the man himself. So I picked this up (great discount from Amazon!) and I just have to write in now and say what an amazing story this is! I'm never going to look at a Rockwell illustration the same way again. I don't have time to get into lengthy descriptions except to say this artist had a long and fascinating life that pretty much spanned the 20th century, and this author does a wonderful job describing both his life and times. As a fine arts grad student, I was particularly fascinated to read how Rockwell's incredible skill at drawing was sort of his downfall. He was such a successful illustrator that he never got the chance to be a poor starving artist and find himself. The downside of early success... who knew?

I highly recommend this to anyone interested in art, or not--it's really for anyone who loves a great biography and a great American story.
ACR, RISD student

Norman Rockwell by Laura Claridge
I enjoyed Laura Claridge's biography Norman Rockwell. It's a lengthy book, but it had my attention from the very first line because Claridge immediately delved into the personality of Rockwell and showed how his personal life influenced his art. The book also fully depicted Rockwell's family and how they impacted his work. Claridge writes intelligently, a bit dramatically, and always interestingly.

a story about pure determinitaion and persistance
This book gets a solid three stars for its interesting subject matter and honest approach in storytellng.

Norman Rockwell, unlike his 'perfect' scenes of life in America, did not live a perfect life. His story is filled whith many of the challenges and obstacles that all of us face in our everyday lives... Perhaps that's why his work comes across with such clarity and truthfulness.

Starting out as an ad illustrator at a young age, he moved up in status over the years until his work was considerd not only the best in modern commercial illustration but some even began calling it "Fine Art". How did he accomplish such a feat? Hard work. Everyday in the studio he would put in 10-12 hours... working hard to get the next five projects done because ten more are waiting and they are 6-12 months overdue. (Norman was a workaholic who had a hard time saying no to requests.)

If you like his artwork, or if you want to read a story about pure determinitaion and persistance (...of Cal Ripkin caliber), scan your eyes across a few hundred pages of this one. It was certainly worth the time I spent reading it.

Interesting subject let down by the writing style
I opened this book greatly anticipating the read only to be disappointed by the author. I gave 2 stars for subject, 0 stars for the writing. She spent so much time exploring every relative from his distant past as well as someone only confused with a distant past relative that by the time she got down to Norman you had dug though many other Rockwells, which really didin't add to your knowledge of who Norman really was. Also the writing style took away from the subject matter. The style was so different than what you would expect to hear from Norman Rockwell himself. He was a "Regular Joe" and this is written so that you have to dig through the flowery phrasing to get to the meat of the idea. Instead of spending my time enjoying the story, I was working through the writing style. I expected a book on this subject to be a reflection of the man. It is too bad this author felt the need to impress with her turn of a phrase instead of letting her subject make the impression. I'm surprised an editor didn't red pencil a good part of the manuscript and give notes as to phrasing.

A difficult story very well told
After reading Claridge's bio on Norman Rockwell, I had a far greater sense of what made the man tick. Claridge explains in great detail Rockwell's self-doubts, insecurities, goals, and personal needs. Rockwell's struggles between practicing "fine" arts and illustration lived with him his entire life, and Claridge gives insight behind the cause of those struggles. The book also succeeded in describing the art world Rockwell inhabited, his influences, and his family relationships. Claridge's Rockwell comes across as an extremely humane man, trying to be as nice as possible to all who crossed his path, while keeping a protective shield around him, so as not to interfere with his artistic productivity. As someone brought up in the television generation, I also appreciated Claridge explaining the important and influential role The Saturday Evening Post played within day-to-day middle class American life. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A Fascinating Tale
I can best review this book by telling you two things. The first is that once I started to read this book I could not put it down. The second is that I insisted on going to Paris with my family and dragging them through his house in Paris and to various other galleries to see his paintings.

He was a fascinating person (an overused word to be sure) that led a complicated life including many marriages. In one divorce he threatened not to sign some paintings as part of a negotiation.

Good story and good reading.

Jack in Toronto

A pleasant read without much effort.
After having read many books about Picasso. It was a pleasure to enjoy the author's prose. The subject was a keen interest of Mr.O'Brian's as were his other bio. clients who form a wide range of characters. It is apparent that it is the writing rather than exacting erudition which is the author's trademark.

The opening of the book which describes Malaga and its history is fascinating and sets the stage for Picasso's development. One can easily understand Picasso absorbing this rich culture.

On comparison with Richardson this volume comes off rather poorly and subscribes to some well known anecdotes which are now known to be false. One such incident was when Picasso's father is supposed to have given up painting altogether after seeing how good his son was. Picasso was fourteen or fifteen at the time yet there exist paintings of pigeons signed by Don Ruiz up until his death.

The narrative follows Picasso from Spain to France and rightly emphasises the entire cubist episode. The usual list of early characters are present, e.g. Max Jacob, Guillaume Apollinaire, Fernande Olivier, etc.

What struck me as the best of this book was the author's willingness to describe Picasso's terrible behaviour, especially in his latter years when he would ignore or reject official plaudits. His treatment of women including the terrible initiation of Jacqueline Roque is not spared and yet it is not written with malice but with an understanding that it was all the sycophants and their scraping that only served to isolate Picasso even further.

Nevertheless, when Picasso was faced with an equal (Matisse or Braque) or someone even older than himself whom he may have known as a youngster (Pallares)he was a gracious and tactful host.

This is not the best biography of Picasso (that honour belong's to John Richardson) but it is perfectly readable and does contain some insights that are unique.

A fascinating and well-written portrait
It is a pleasure to find a work of non-fiction in which the writing flows smoothly across the page, and in which a rich portrait of the subject emerges without recourse to over-wrought speculation. This sympathetic, yet detailed account of Picasso is both fun to read for its own sake, and fascinating for the sake of its subject. A very readable biography. ... Read more

Book Description

La vie en rose. The world's happiest paintings.

Auguste Renoir's timelessly charming paintings are the embodiment of happiness, love, and beauty. TASCHEN's Renoir, the most complete retrospective book of this painter's work, examines in detail the history and motivation behind the legend. Though he began his career painting landscapes in the impressionist style, Renoir (1841-1919) found his true affinity only after he began painting portraits, for which he abandoned the impressionists altogether. Though he was often misunderstood and criticized, Renoir remains one of history's most well-loved painters-undoubtedly because of the warmth and happy cheer his paintings exude.

In his insightful text which details the artist's entire career and traces his stylistic evolution, Gilles Néret insists that Renoir reinvented the woman in painting through his everyday goddesses with overly plump, round hips and breasts; this last phase in Renoir's work, in which he returned to the simple pleasure of painting the female nude in his baigneuses series, was his most innovative and stylistically influential (it can even be said that it later inspired Matisse and Picasso).

With a complete chronology, bibliography, index of works, and 600 gorgeous, large-format color reproductions, as well as photos and sketches illustrating Renoir's life and work, TASCHEN's Renoir is the essential reference book for this master painter. ... Read more

Book Description

Here is Picasso as never seen before- the indefatigable painter, the bohemian, the seducer, the father, and ultimately, the man sacrificed on the altar of his own contradictions. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Bad Man Great Artist?
"Picasso" by Arianna Huffington is a very thorough book that can probably be skipped, except possibly by those with an intense interest in Picasso's personal life. For the rest of us it is sufficient to know that Picasso had no friends or family, just groupies (many of whom were family) throughout his life, and, to a person, he treated them despicably. For example, he usually had several women at a time who each worshiped him. He would play them off against each other, often openly and in public, seemingly in an attempt to provoke jealous rage, murder, depression, or suicide (he succeeded grandly at all except for murder, but his best friend took care of that one for him). He found ways to treat the male groupies with equal misery. But, soap operas should last thirty minutes at most. This book goes relentlessly on and on for 500 pages determined to prove that Picasso did not take one decent breath in his whole entire long life.At a certain point the reader begins to wonder that "thou dost protest too much." So then how did he come to be hailed as the genius of the 20th Century; as the man who showed us what our world really was or at least what it really looked like? The answer to this question is somewhat complex. The easiest part of it is that he was like a human camera. He could paint exactly what he saw as if he were a camera, and, he could paint any impression of what he saw, better than any human being alive. He was half way home on that talent alone, meaningless though it may have been. After all, if you can throw a ball better than anyone you are halfway home too. But Picasso's subject was, seemingly, important; one that intellectuals were interested in. Hence if he could capture their imaginations and somehow add their imprimatur to his painting talent the world would be at his feet, where he always felt it belonged.
Picasso hung out in Paris with many of the world's leading intellectuals. He even wrote a play called "Desire Caught By the Tail" directed by Albert Camus in which Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir acted. The play was about 10 pages long and nothing more than a series of bizarre scenes similar to what might have appeared in his painting. When Picasso commented about literature he said "it seems many writers want to be painters" apparently not knowing that the descriptions of visual objects in literature are often mere back drops for the infinitely larger conceptual themes with which language artists deal. He really didn't seem to understand that there was more in the world than pictures. His friend Sartre, a legitimate genius, set the record straight about the essential triviality of pictures in "What is Literature" when he said, "even when Picasso attempted to approach the real world with "Guernica" does anyone think he changed even a single mind with that painting"? And this was before the visual world was forever trivialized by, affordable travel, cameras, video cameras, TV, and film. We don't need a great painter anymore to create "The Last Supper" and by his choices tell us about the true nature of Jesus.
It did turn out though that the tyrannical and confused little painter did have something in common with the leading existentialist avant guard intellectuals of his day, namely, they all wanted us to see the world differently. The intellectuals because the world of physics had correctly foreshadowed today's confused world of string theory and because philosophy had foreshadowed the concomitant shift from the certain, well defined world of God to the confused existential world of man. Picasso too wanted us to see the world differently not because he was a physicist or philosopher but because 1) he was so hopelessly neurotic that he did see the world differently as any sick person does and 2) he realized he had to paint differently to develop a reputation as a different and great painter. The intellectuals were happy to use Picasso because his technically ingenious but neurotically confusing paintings did help loosen our grip on old realities. Picasso in turn was happy to use their imprimatur of change to normalize his neurosis and to falsely give philosophical meaning to his immense skill at meaningless painting. That he encouraged us toward misogyny and/or other of his gruel narcissistic indulgences did not matter; it was change, and that was what the intellectuals wanted most. The public really had no idea what was going on as Picasso's legend grew and grew to newer and newer heights of irrationality. Today, Picasso's reputation seems mostly in the hands of art owners, museums, and curators all of whom profit in Picasso's on going and growing legend. This summer's hugely successful Picasso/Matisse exhibit at MOMA , for example, drew 100s of thousands of adoring fans. Curators raved at the point, counter point genius of the two artists; everyone made money, had fun, and wished they too could free their troubled souls and enlighten the world by creating great art, but not a word was ever said about the emperor having no clothes.
Norman Mailer, who was taken seriously as the greatest living writer and thinker, is a great fan of Picasso and has written adoringly and extensively about him; so perhaps his view is worth comparing to Huffington's? He and Picasso had things in common: both were diminutive technical genius who gained public adoration and hugely deformed egos at a very early age. Mailer stabbed one of his early wives and clearly behaved a lot like Picasso, and perhaps for many of the same reasons, although he matured as he aged whereas Picasso did not. His portrait of Picasso as a young man tends to be purely forgiving. The idea that internal struggle, suffering, depression, angst, turmoil, and general soap opera leads to great, honest, revolutionary art apparently still lives in Mailer's soul. After all, what can an artist create if not the manifestation of tremendous inner turmoil and growth?
Mailer forgives Picasso for everything because it was all to produce "great art." Sadly, the idea that the traditional, formulaic, hypocritical, country club Republican mentality would be replaced by the existential soap opera playing out in the communist souls of Picasso, Mailer, and French intellectuals seems more a joke today than anything else. So in the end, Huffington is quite right about Picasso, although she doesn't address the meaning of Picasso's art at all, except in so far as she ruthlessly cuts his foundation away.

biased
this book is totally Anti-Picasso, she hardly touches his Art her only concern is ripping him apart.

The title should be: Picasso's sins against women.
I've read quite a bit on Picasso and I was quite aware of his abuses to his lovers and his friends. I also like Arianna Huffington. However, this book quickly degrades in what seems like a personal statement or act of retribution against Picasso. While the writing regarding his major works and career highlights is understated with light cast only on the negative aspects of each, his transgressions and shortcomings in both art and his social life are focused on far too much. The result is an unbalanced book that seems wholly predjudiced. One gets the overall feeling that Arianna was one of Picasso's spurned or mistreated lovers and is out for revenge. I prefer more evenly written objective material on historical characters rather then the polarized point of view offerred here. Overall, I would suggest something by John Richardson who I feel is better informed (via his personal relationship with Picasso) and able to cast objective light on one of mankind's great artists and characters.

A valuable book
The " modernism " Picasso launched was basically the conception of the artist's oeuvre as a diary, albeit he probably, along with most qf the art establishment, would be outraged by this point of view. That was his most significant first; his development of form, merely a bi - product of his auto - biographical method. This book enables us to see clearly the connection between the man and the works, instead of the usual european way of clouding the timid author's confusion about a complex artist with politically correct aestheticism. Whether Picasso's works are all, they're hyped up to be, when considered as individual paintings, is for the individual to decide; this book is about the man Picasso, his life, and as such most refreshing.

A legend deconstructed...
Picasso the legendary artist and symbol of the 20th century is systematically picked apart through interviews with those unfortunate enough to have known him. The sadism, brutality and cruelty juxtaposed with the artist of undeniable genius and creativity is a story of a man walking on the edge of insanity and insecurities throughout most of his life. The book is tedious in places with its highly detailed continued focus on all of the wronged lovers and abused friends, but it is after all a true story. The reader will often find him/herself simply outraged/shocked by Picasso's treatment of those who loved/cared for him and wonder why these intelligent and gifted beings would subject themselves to such horrible and continuing abuse. ... Read more

Book Description

Gerhard Richter is widely recognized as one of the most significant painters working today, and he is certainly among the most influential. He has worked in a wide range of manners since the early 1960s, producing abstractions, landscapes, images derived from the mass media and photographs, and more. Seen together, these works call into question such widely held assumptions as the importance of stylistic consistency, individual artistic sensibility, and spontaneous creativity. They also explore the impact of technology and media imagery on the traditional methods and formats of painting. The Museum of Modern Art has published two important books on Richter, both written by Robert Storr: one covering 40 years of his painting, and published to accompany the museum's large Richter retrospective in spring 2002, and one focusing on a single crucial series, October 18, 1977, which Richter painted in 1988. This new publication brings together the essays, an interview and bibliography from both of those books in a single volume--an ideal service for the student who wants both texts at hand at a relatively low price .
[Robert] Storr's is one of the sharpest minds in American art museums. --The New York Review of Books
[Gerhard Richter is] Europe's most challenging modern painter. --Michael Kimmelman

Essays by Robert Storr.

Paperback , 6.5 x 9.75 in. 336 pages, 198 b/willustrations ... Read more

Book Description

Man Ray (1890-1976), was one of the co-founders of New York Dada. When he arrived in Paris in the 1920s he was already friends with Duchamp and many Parisian Surrealists, who welcomed him with great enthusiasm. He is unquestionably recognized as the most original photographer of our century.

With his photographs, Rayographs, solarizations, and various experimentation with Surrealist doctrines in the darkroom, his photographic contribution to art and especially surrealism is matchless. Thanks to his famous portraits of contemporaries - artists, writers and celebrities - he also became the most notable chronicler of the inter-national Avant-garde movement of the 1920s and 1930s.

This remarkable monograph published to coincide with the historic exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, is entirely dedicated to Man Ray's photographic oeuvre. The Centre Pompidou is the recipient of the Man Ray archives - some 13,000 negatives and 5,000 prints - which reveal for the very first time never before published photographs (a great amount consisting of erotic compositions).

One-third of these photographs have never been seen.

Not only the finished photos, but also the process - crops, background manipulation and other methods. The book with its new images presents for the very first time a true picture of the artist, and a vital addition to the many publications about Man Ray that appeared throughout this century, many of which are long out of print. This monograph is a must for Man Ray experts, for those interested in photography, and a wonderful introduction to students and others not yet sufficiently familiar with Man Ray's work. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A Pleasing Book
I bought this book expecting an immense variety of photos true to Man Ray's hodgepodge style. What I got was a series of very nice photos that were not quite what I expected. The length of this volume belies it's lack of variation. Most of the book is female nudes, which are very well done, but if you are looking for a book which includes photos of Parisian street life in the 1920's or the campy world of drag queens and surrealists, this is not the book for you. There are some photos of dancers and the like but most of the photos are pretty straightforward nudes who are in arty positions that get dull after a while. This not the book for newcomers to Man Ray nor is it one for those who would like to see truly weird looking pictures. There are some really cool photos here, like Meret Oppenheim in the Erotique Voile series and the rayographs featured. But a substantial portion of the book is devoted to showing works in their original form and how they were cropped and tinkered with to produce final, polished images. This is neat for famous images such as Les Larmes (Tears), but otherwise can get boring. Overall, this is an excellent book for Man Ray experts as it does show many previously unreleased photos, but maybe not the right choice for the rest of us. I enjoyed it though, and I'm still glad I bought it.

Man Ray is the solarization king.
This book is an extroidinary collection of Man Ray's photographic work.His use of light, composition, and solarization is one of the best.This book allows the reader to understand Man Ray's direction and motivation. ... Read more

Book Description

Nicolas Poussin, perhaps the most famous French painter of the seventeenth century, lived and worked for many years in Rome. Yet he remained deeply engaged with cultural and political transformations occurring in France, argues Todd P. Olson in this original exploration of Poussin's paintings, their production, and their reception. Poussin's references to ancient literature and sculpture addressed a political elite-the Robe nobility-whose humanist education in classical antiquity equipped them to relate Greek and Roman history to contemporary events and to deploy ancient precedents in legalistic and political arguments. When the French civil war known as the Fronde erupted in the middle of the seventeenth century, the paintings that Poussin exported to France responded directly in both subject and style to the crisis in monarchical authority and the disenfranchisement of his Robe patrons.Olson demonstrates that Poussin's association with a disgraced political group, his loss of official support, and his exile in Italy imbued his history paintings with a symbolic weight. The painter's audience considered the hard-earned pleasures of his restrained, difficult pictorial style a benchmark of integrity as well as a criticism of the Regency's indiscriminate collecting practices and taste for foreign luxury. Poussin transformed the easel painting-its making and collection-into an expression of cultural and political commitments binding a community. Olson's fresh insights reveal the importance of this painter's work to a learned and powerful French constituency at a critical moment in French history and demonstrate that Poussin's famously timeless style was far more responsive to historical contingencies than has been previously recognized ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Beautiful, Well-Researched, A Breath of Fresh Air!!
I came across this wonderful book almost by accident as I was looking for something, ANYTHING, dealing with Poussin's ties to his native France (in more than a superficial way). The majority of books about Poussin deal, for admittedly good reasons, with Poussin's life in Rome where he lived and worked for many years. Still, it is amazing that Olson is, to the best of my knowledge, the first art historian to really explore the range of political and friendship-based (French) issues Poussin's paintings grappled with even as he lived in exile. As someone who is living in exile from my own native country, I can tell you, I continue to be deeply concerned about, and influenced by, the political news from home, and the information I receive in letters from friends. Certainly Poussin's experience was no different. I also appreciated that Olson took the time to spotlight the political work of women during the Fronde, and also his discussion of women's roles throughout the book as a whole. It is astonishing (well, maybe not) that within the Poussin scholarship with which I am familiar, women exist only as a (now) notable absence -- this despite the great number of strong women Poussin himself depicts in his work! Olson takes great first steps in rectifying this oversight. The book is well researched and I learned much about the social and cultural milieus Poussin operated within. Beyond this, I will say that the book was a pleasure to read -- especially having read a few books and essays on Poussin (by writers I will not mention) that were dry as aesbestos in the Gobi Desert. Olson weaves Beautiful Prose, Historical Accuracy and Intriguing Scholarship into an especially relevant account of this Great and Gifted Painter. ... Read more

Book Description

These richly illustrated art books cover several centuries of great artists and their masterworks. From Rubens to Dali, each artist's life and times, influences, legacy, and style are explored in depth. Each book analyzes a particular painting with regard to the history surrounding it, the techniques used to create it, and the hidden details that make up the whole, providing a thorough look at each artist's career. Included is a bibliography, a chronological reading of principle works, a brief life history, and listings of public collections featuring each artist. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Definitely not an "Object to be Destroyed"
Man Ray was a superbly inventive photographer able to ignore the borders bewtween art & commercial photography. Originally published in 1934 as "Photographs by Man Ray 1920 Paris 1934," this collection is an excellent look at his photo work during his most adventurous years. The book is divided into five sections: general subjects; the female figure; women's faces; celebrity portraits; rayographs.

Man Ray's female figures are an offbeat take on the male gaze in which the processes are as sexy as the women. Along with his female faces, they demonstrate why Man Ray was much in demand by fashionable magazines. The "celebrity" portraits are of his fellow male artists & writers, with the exception of Gertrude Stein - who can hardly be glamorized anyway. The rayographs were created by placing objects directly on film, but the experimental nature of Man Ray's art is seen throughout this inexpensive book from Dover Publications. Picasso, Eluard, Breton, Tzara & Rrose Selavy a.k.a. Marcel Duchamp contributed texts. Highly recommended.

Bob Rixon

Love this book!
As with so many Dover books, 105 Works is a great bargain ... Read more

Book Description

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), whose status as the greatest sculptor of the late nineteenth century is undisputed, belongs among the few artists whose fame is based equally upon public and critical acclaim.Rodin's espousal of the erotic, his depiction of it in a bewildering variety of manifestations, is the leitmotiv that unites his vast oeuvre of sculptures and drawings.Woman's sexuality appears in Rodin's work as both threat and challenge, but also as the source of all creative inspiration and passion.

Selected sculptures have been rephotographed specially for this book. Superbly reproduced, and supplemented by color illustrations of some of the artist's late drawings - many of them published here for the first time - they constitute a fascinating visual essay on the theme of the erotic in Rodin's work.

Exploring the ramifications of eros in Rodin's sculpture and drawing, wide-ranging essays address such topics as the nature of the fragment and its role in Rodin's work, the artist's relationship to the model, his religiosity, and his influence both on his contemporaries and on artists throughout the twentieth century.

In word and image, this volume offers fresh insight into the work of a man who, perhaps more than any other visual artist, embodied Baudelaire's and Nietzche's concept of the modern genius as one whose stature is based on a combination of inventiveness, passion, and disturbing originality. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Heavy on the Art, But a Bit Confusing on the Eyes
I saw this book at the CMA and thought I'd write a review since no one has done so yet. This book is very nice for a paperback. Most of the writing, which I didn't really look at, was in the beginning of the book with the rest focusing primarily on reproductions of his sculpture. There were some photos of Rodin and the customary biographical information and a huge amount of reproductions of his work, most of which are good, but some are from angles that are not the best and some of the details are a bit confusing. With work like Rodin's that showcases a balance between the primitive and refined, it is important to get a clear shot in order to understand what it is that you are looking at. Some of the reproductions, while beautiful, are a bit confusing from that standpoint. Otherwise, a good book. I'll probably buy it myself someday, when I'm no longer a starving artist. ... Read more

Book Description

Long recognized as one of the most significant paintings of the twentieth century, contributors to this volume consider Picasso'sLes Demoiselles d'Avignon from a variety of methodological and topical perspectives, including psychoanalytical, feminist, historical, and postcolonial. Through these various analyzes, the contributors explore the power and significance of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, situating the work within twentieth century art history and debates over Primitivism, sexuality, and stylistic change. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

An excellent collection.
This book is by far the most complete collection of drawings and paintings of women by Rembrandt. Very well-written and organized, the book reveals how Rembrandt perceived and expressed the beauty of the female body. Interestingly enough, Rembrandt went above the common practice of his time, that is the use of "goddess-like" proportion in painting females. At one time considered hideous by his contemporaries, Rembrandt's paintings of women are among the most beautiful, earthly, and sensual. Each painting reproduction is so vivid; readers who understand the process of painting by the Old Masters can somewhat picture how ingenius effects may have done just by looking into these plates.

A must-have for any art lover! ... Read more

Amazon.com

What confidence and ambition it requires to approach a biography of Diego Rivera, the larger-than-life Mexican muralist who in recent years has been reduced, in some circles, to being known as Frida Kahlo's evil husband. The myths and mysteries begin at his birth, in 1884. His mother seemed to die just after Diego, a firstborn twin, emerged, and her body was laid out for burial, until an old servant insisted she was still breathing. She recovered fully (Diego's twin died at age 2). This macabre event was but the first in a fabulously eventful life.

Under the brutal regime of the dictator Porfirio Díaz, whose legacy included human slavery on an unprecedented scale, Mexico City became "The Paris of the Americas," with imperial palaces, European music, and decorations by artists who had studied under Ingres. "It was in this exuberant, chaotic, and occasionally dangerous world that Diego Rivera grew up," writes Patrick Marnham, who casts a spell of such strangeness, beauty, and black humor that the reader is utterly hooked by the end of the first few pages. Marnham repeats and analyses all the fables Rivera spun about himself and his family; he describes Rivera's enchantment with Italian fresco cycles and his friendship and rivalry with Picasso in Montmartre in the 1920s; he reports Rivera's countless amorous conquests; and he presents the supposedly feminist view of Rivera as a monster of appetite, arrogance, and authority. Marnham also does an excellent job of picking apart the personal, political, and artistic threads of the disastrous brouhaha over Rivera's Rockefeller Center murals. In prose that is poetically rich and frequently tinged with not-so-gentle irony, he has written a thoroughly believable book about an all but unbelievable life. --Peggy Moorman ... Read more

Reviews (8)

Author Has Better Understanding of History than People
I am surprised that other readers enjoyed this book, especially readers who like Rivera. I had the distinct impression that the author, Patrick Marnham, did not like Rivera. Rivera's larger than life personality can probably not be claimed to be understood by many people, and perhaps Marnham's total want of understanding is the source for his dislike.

While this could be one of several books to read about Diego Rivera it should not be relied heavily upon. Marnham does not seem to approve of many of the characters he writes about in this book . I don't think he has an appreciation for colorful people. I felt he was a very supressed and uptight person writing about some very free spirits.

A biography of Rivera seemed a poor subject choice for him. Perhaps being an art critic would be a better suited undertaking for him. Or maybe since his grasp of history seems good his temperment would be better suited to writing dry fact based history than attempting to discern the subtlties of the human character.

He made several assertions that he represented as fact. One that springs to mind was that Frida Kahlo commited suicide. While that May be true, it also may not be true.

Marnham collected information about Diego Rivera, where he went, when he went , etc, but gave no real sense of warmth of Diego Rivera. Since Rivera was a man of such great passion it was disappointing to have only a two dimensional portrait of him drawn. I felt I knew alot more of Marnham's personality after reading this book than of Rivera's. But touché I felt much the same about Marnham as he did Rivera, I didn't like him much.

Great Biography of a Flawed but Great Artist
Diego Rivera was born in the magical city of Guanajuato. This fact alone made me pick up this book and then buy it. I visited Guanajuato in 2002 and fell in love with the twisty roads, the Baroque facades of the Templos and the Basilica, the Easter-egg colored houses and the general feeling that one had been dropped down in a 18th Century Spanish town. Rivera left it with his mother at the age of six, but the city of his birth, with its recent mummies and Day of the Dead festivals left its mark on him.

Rivera lived in Mexico City until 1907, when he left for Spain and for the next 15 years lived there and in France. He picked up a common-law wife and then a lover- a portent of things to come. He met and was friends (or sometimes enemies) with some of the greatest artists of the period, including Picasso, Mondrian, Modigliani and Matisse. He worked in classic style until he accepted Cubism, only to move toward Cezanne-style art, and eventually to develop his own style. He eventually became one of the greatest of modern fresco painters. However, his character was far from flawless. He lied about his past often and in different ways, depending on the situation, was not very careful about personal hygiene, and also often ran away from relationships to avoid unpleasant realities.

Rivera joined the Mexican Communist Party (MCP) in 1922. After three failures at having a permanent relationship with a woman, he married the rather obsessional young Communist Frida Kahlo (who was twenty years his junior) in 1929. In that same year he was expelled from the MCP because of various internal party intrigues. He then became friends with the exiled Leon Trotsky, who repaid him by having a short affair with Frida. Frida, to make matters more complicated, was repaying Rivera for his affair with her sister. Because of his association with Trotsky, Rivera was not readmitted to the party again until 1954, after the death of Stalin. This summery only touches on and can hardly do justice to the complicated world of Diego Rivera, one of the most complex of men.

Patrick Marnham presents in this book the convoluted ins and outs of Rivera's life, his many affairs and his association with the art world and the Communist Party in vivid detail.

This is a fascinating study of this very complex and often selfish man who was also a great artist. It is also a window into a very confusing and turbulent time in the history of the World. It is a work that should be read by all interested in understanding this period and the modern world that rose from it.

The many loves of Rivera
With various books written on the life of Diego Rivera this one is a must have. Anytime a subject is studied, it this case the life of arguably the greatest Mexican muralist, it is worthwhile to have various perspectives before coming to one's own conclusion. In that regard this book is invaluable as the author doesn't give you a softball and is quick to point out the inconsistencies in other versions of the larger than life Diego Rivera's exploits, including his own autobiography. The book itself is a fascinating portrait into the life of the celebrated Mexican muralist's life, beginning with the unusual circumstnances of his youth, his sojourn to Europe and studying art in France, his mingling in the bohemian lfestyle with various artists and intellectuals of his era, including his at times not so friendly rivalry with Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, his return to Mexico, his politics(communist) and the troubles he had since he usually mixed art and politics, his many, many love affairs, his multiple marriages including several to soul mate Frida Kahlo, his association with Trotsky(and his wife), his work in the United States and his later years in Mexico where he remained productive in spite of failing health. It is all here, both the believable and the unbelieveable, meshing together for a fascinating look at a man that could literally charm the pants off of the most beautiful women of the world. Included are two seperate groups of pictures that include rarely seen vintage photographs and color prints of his most famous works. Every now and then I read a book that I want to savor and take my time. Like a special meal or an intimate moment, this book was one that I wanted to savor once I began. I wanted to make it last because it was so enjoyable, knowing that the inevitable consequence of my reading would make it end I almost regretted finishing the book. I took days to read the final chapters in the hope that somehow the experience would not end. I would highly recommend this book to those that are interested in Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Mexican art or history. It is a book that paints more than a picture, it is more like a grand mural that captures the fantastic life of Diego Rivera. This is a highly enjoyable book and an indispensable aid in understanding the complex makeup of one of the true giants of art in the twentieth century.

An Outstanding Biography of the World's Greatest Muralist
Diego Rivera was a larger than life character both socially and physically. His life was a facinating one and worthy of such a fantastic biography. It doesn't matter much if you are familiar with Rivera's work or not, if you enjoy biography and history you'll soon realize what an amazing life Diego Rivera led. Rivera was born at the right time in a unique culture for art- He had a Forest Gump type of life in the early 1900's in the way he knew and interacted with almost anybody who was anybody those days. From his art contemporaries in Spain and France, including Picasso, Modigliani, and Mondrian, to Einstien, Henry Ford and his famous artist wife Frida Kahlo, his art had a way of transcending culture that drew people to him. Patrick Marnham includes many examples of this and has done extensive research into his personal life. He was a man constantly having affairs and looking to be comforted due to his upbringing.
His life also parallels much of what happened politicaly in the world throughout his life. For most of his life, Rivera was a communist supporter who thought he could inspire social and poltical change by painting political murals. Being such a contraversial artist, Rivera made enemies with the Rockefeller's in New York after painting communist portraits and imagry instead of the agreed design. He also was a supporter and friend of Trotsky, and helped to bring him to assylum in Mexico.
This book includes some fantistic color reproductions. It was wonderful to read about the details he included and then see them for myself. It also includes some great photographs of key encounters mentioned in the text.
Diego Rivera was a artist who's life paralelled the colorful culture of Mexico and the political unrest of a pre-WWII world. I couldn't have been more pleased to read this wonderful book for the insight it gave me about art, politics and culture.

Marnham on Rivera
No footnotes, inadequate bibliography, and surprisingly, almost no mistakes. He reports on time and place in a constructive way and dispels Rivera's own myths about himself humorously. Very good read. ... Read more

Book Description

This full-sized album of Saturday Evening Post covers captures everyday events and historic moments in American history.

Although technically Norman Rockwell was an academic painter, he had the eye of a photographer and, as he became a mature artist, he used this eye to give us a picture of America that was famliar—astonishingly so—and at the same time unique. Rockwell best expressed this vision of America in his justly famous cover illustrations for magazines like The Saturday Evening Post. 332 of these cover paintings, from beloved classics like "Marbles Champion" to lesser-known gems like "Feeding Time," are reproduced in stunning full color in this large-format volume, which is sure to be treasured by art lovers everywhere. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Amazing
To say that you can spend hours browsing through this wonderful collection is an understatement.This is a book that can be savored over a lifetime.

It shows the progression of Rockwell's art from his early, almost Victorian style covers, to his most famous illustrations, to his political portraits.It always annoys me that people claim he is an illustrator, not an artist.Simply because these pictures tell a story should not detract from their artistic merit.

This volume has them all.From the beautiful, awkward, girl at the Mirror, Doctor's appointment and countless others that are not as well known, but still great!So many of these paintings allow us to learn more about America (Can you get much more American than Norman Rockwell?).His GI- Willie Gillis is truly everyman during WWII.We seem enjoying a hometown newspaper, on leave, with his comrades, and finally as a student on the GI Bill.So many ideas are timeless.The chronicle of a day in the life of a boy or girl seem to embody childhood.Commuters on a platform captures the rise of suburbia.THe one of a son sitting with his father and dog about to leave for college captures that bittersweet moment on the cusp of adolescence.

The sunlit, yet dusty, Marriage Liscense is generally recognized as art, but others should be too.I hope that with the recent Rockwell exhibets a new generation of Americans will appreciate this wodnerful artist who captured so much of our lives!

This is a great addition to any collection- you will never tire of looking through it!

A Collector's Item
If you can only have one Norman Rockwell book, look no further. This is the quintessential Norman Rockwell. You can spend hours and hours looking at the illustrations and still not fully grasp all the subtle nuances -like the cameo paintings within the painting; the relections in the mirror;the advertisements in the folded newspapers; and so on. I have only foundone inconsistency. In "The Clock Mender" some areas in thepainting make an abrupt departure from his trademark quasi-realistic style.It reminds me of Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon". WasRockwell cleverly introducing "Surrealism" into this particularpainting, in an inverted Salvador Dali sort of way? Or was the originalpainting simply damaged and then retouched by someone else? It would makedelightful reading if Mr Finch, or anyone else, could offer anexplanation.

From Kelvin ... Read more