Book Description

In 1970 Robert Smithson (1938-1973), one of the most innovative and provocative artists of the twentieth century, created the landmark earthwork Spiral Jetty at Rozel Point on Utah's Great Salt Lake. This dramatic and highly influential work forms a coil 1,500 feet long and 15 feet wide and stretches out counterclockwise into the lake's translucent red water. Composed of black basalt rocks and earth, the sculpture comprises the materials of its location: mud, salt crystals, rocks, water.
The contributors to this comprehensive publication consider the sculpture in relation to its eponymous companions--a text work and a film. These essays situate this renowned series of works alongside Smithson's critical writings, proposals, drawings, sources, and models. Amply illustrated with archival and new photographs of the Jetty and many comparative illustrations, this book makes evident why Smithson's art and writings have had such a powerful impact on art and art theory for over thirty years. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Highly Recommended
Christopher Woods (from Christies) has written some of the greatest art books. This is the definitive Catalogue Raisonné of a great painter. It is easy-to-read, informative and with many good quality pictures. It is a must for art lovers

James Tissot
The paintings of James Tissot both reveal and pose questions concerning his subjects. Many works have seemingly deliberate contradictions. I found myself engrossed in each scene. This particular book is a beautiful collection of his most recognizable pieces. ... Read more

Book Description

In a career that spans more than fifty years, photographer Irving Penn has created some of the most arresting portraits, influential fashion studies, and provocative still lifes of the twentieth century. Although much of his work was undertaken for reproduction in magazines, since the early 1960s he has also made a limited number of platinum/palladium prints of his most celebrated photographs. A meticulous craftsman, Penn has experimented extensively with this process in order to make prints with remarkably subtle, rich tonal ranges and luxurious textures; prints that are, in fact, the exact opposite of the more neutral reproductions of his photographs that appear in the popular press.

Included in this handsomely designed and beautifully produced book are platinum/palladium prints of some of Penn’s most important photographs: portraits of Pablo Picasso, David Smith, Saul Steinberg, and Marcel Duchamp; studies of indigenous peoples in New Guinea and Peru; innovative still lifes; in addition to examples of his celebrated fashion studies.



... Read more

Amazon.com

An expatriate American living in England, John Singer Sargent was an immensely gifted artist and the leading international portraitist of his day. He produced his magnificent oil paintings of the social elite after lengthy preparations that included numerous studies and sketches. American Drawings and Watercolors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: John Singer Sargent presents the Met's collection of four sketchbooks and 337 single sheets by Sargent, from rough to highly finished designs. Many of the watercolors and a handful of the drawings are brilliant, but they are lesser works than the great paintings; this book is an important art-historical study rather than an art book.

Two introductory essays describe the formation of the collection and the artist's techniques. The material is divided into four sections covering Sargent's childhood, early career, professional activity, and travel, each introduced by details of the artist's life. The drawings provide useful contexts for his major paintings. For example, intimate sketches of Madame Gautreau, the sitter for his portrait Madame X, whose scandalously low shoulder strap led to the closing of Sargent's Paris studio, clarify the narrative that precedes the section "Student Years and Early Career, 1874-89." Watercolors from his visit to the frontlines during World War I include naked soldiers bathing; these and other material have led to speculation about Sargent's sexual orientation, which is beginning to attract critical analysis. The complex material is extensively and intelligently footnoted, and a chronology of Sargent's life, exhibitions, and a bibliography round out the book's encyclopedic scholarship. The first of a series documenting the Met's collections of master-drawings, this book is a treasure-trove and an art historian's delight. --John Stevenson ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Create a Card to Celebrate
Wayne Thiebaud's whimsical and 'delicious' paintings make a perfect opening statement for these gift cards. I have used them to wish others a happy birthday, to personalize a wedding wish or send congratulations on a graduation. They are wonderful for any celebration of life. ... Read more

Book Description

Walter Sickert (1860-1942) was a leading figure in the development of British painting and the graphic arts. Influenced by Whistler and Degas early in his career, by 1914 he was respected as a major figure within the Camden Town Group and a renowned painter in his own right. Yet Sickert's life and art were never stable, and he was never complacent. His work varies strikingly--from a strongly worked paint surface laden with impasto to the thinnest and sparest application; from an overtly modern set of subjects to apparently nostalgic images. But whatever form his art took, Sickert always remained what he was so often called in the 1910s: "a painter's painter."

This study examines the dynamism of Sickert's work from his earliest career at the Slade School of Art to his last works. It argues for Sickert as a major figure in the history of attempts to record modern life and to develop a distinctly modern mode of painting. ... Read more

Book Description

Frank Stella is regarded as one of the most important living American artists to have succeeded the Abstract Expressionists of the 1950s. In his early years he established himself as a painter of powerful minimalist canvases, using simple geometric patterns as images. But in the early 1970s, he began what might be called the "maximalist," or inclusive, phase of his art. This work posed new kinds of questions: how much could he subsume from the plastic arts of sculpture and architecture and still be making paintings? And how many of the lapsed conventions of painting itself--in the realms of configuration, spatial structure, and even narrative form--could be redeployed in an art that still remained wholly abstract? ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Good Reproductions and Great Wit
"Toulouse-Lautrec" by Edward Lucie-Smith is a great book on Lautrec, mostly from the biographic standpoint. Lucie-Smith is also very amusing when examining plates of Lautrec, for the most part he points out the style--then procedes to tell the reader who is in the plate, and their relationship to Lautrec. One of whom was Emile Bernard's obessed mistress, who added Bernard as her last name. For the most part this book was really interesting because of the funny tidbits that Smith throws in. The plates are decent, they are on adverage a little more than a a half a page, with really good color, and you can see most of the brush strokes. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Great book for those who attended National Gallery exhibit
This wonderful paperback is a great buy for anyone who attended the National Gallery exhibit in Washington D.C. recently. The quality of the prints do a great job of capturing the beauty of Sargeant's work. The text is somewhat "high brow" for the layperson, but gives an interesting perspective regarding the works included in the exhibition. The book is an excellent way to remember the exhibit without spending a lot of money on a coffee-table type of book.

Wonderful book on Sargent
This is a very well put together and well printed interpretive work on the paintings of John Singer Sargent. The coverage is insightful and the quality of the printing is superb. It is the best companion publication to the exhibit which is currently held at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. and later to appear in Boston. The official catalog of the exhibit disappoints as it leaves out a number of significant works that are covered under this volume. This is a must for any nineteenth century art enthusiasts and a must for fans of Sargent and portraiture in general. ... Read more

Amazon.com

With this handsome book, David Sweetman, a biographer of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, brings together the dissolute lives of various artists who came to represent decadent fin-de-siècle Paris: Oscar Wilde, Félix Fénéon, Alfred Jarry, and, of course, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. As the author reminds us, imitations of the latter's work adorn the walls of French-themed bars worldwide and have become a shorthand for sanitized debauchery. Toulouse-Lautrec--absinthe drinker and brothel frequenter--was instrumental in the development of the poster, but what is his artistic legacy? Although Toulouse-Lautrec dominates the book's subtitle, Sweetman's sweep is much grander. In much the same way as his main subject was, Sweetman proves a sympathetic host to the women of Montmartre, tragic figures such as La Goulue, Jane Avril, and Suzanne Valadon, and he is particularly insightful on the singer Aristide Bruant's influence on the fledgling artist. However, the amount of tertiary detail, allied to an ambitious attempt to run a parallel life of Oscar Wilde, tends to be a little too much for the author to handle at times. Sweetman's demands for Toulouse-Lautrec's art to be taken more seriously--for people to look beyond the scenes of dancing and drinking--appear overstated, especially when the painter appears, at best, morally mercenary. Of course, Lautrec was more than a "deformed man who saw ugliness in everything." His work influenced Picasso, Seurat, and van Gogh and was part of a vanguard of realism in French art that swept it into the 20th century and helped establish graphic art as the people's art. It also had the dubious distinction of paving the way for popular culture as we now know it. Hamstrung by a lack of color plates, Sweetman's book is nonetheless a worthy and well-told account of a pivotal time. --David Vincent, Amazon.co.uk ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Warning
Great read, but it's the same book as another by the same author that is under a different title

patronizing and wrong
this book is simply wrong. not just details, but the big picture. the anarchists weren't like that. the artists weren't like that. these people lived in a ferment of intellectual and moral commitment. i didn't feel the author was 'sensitive' to them at all: very much the opposite. i felt he was dismissive and patronizing.

F for False
There's a difference between nitpicking over minor historical innacuracies and making up nonsense out of whole cloth. This unfortunate book is of the latter sort. It's distorted by what the late Hal Draper called "falsifictions": self-invented statements uttered with an air of scholarly objectivity. The work will indeed transport one to another world: naturally so, because it isn't real.

Fortunately there are alternatives which are vivid, entertaining, and careful with the facts. Richard Ellmann and Barbara Belford have excellent, colorful biographies of Wilde. June Rose has a very fine biography of the fascinating Suzanne Valadon. Alexander Varias has a good account of the fin-de-siecle anarchists. Roger Shattuck has a truly superb book on the rich artistic ferment of la belle epoque, the 30 years or so before the first world war: "The Banquet Years". Shattuck's book is at once a definitive work of scholarship and a hugely fun read. Sweetman's is neither.

Incidentally Sweetman's bio of Gauguin suffers from the same tendency toward posturing. Whoops!, suddenly we're in the midst of detailed technical excursus into problems of large-scale engineering, or of epidemiology. (Gauguin tried to live in Panama at the time of the digging of the canal.) Is the author expert in these subjects? He certainly seems to want us to believe that he is. Nevertheless one doubts and, in doubting, questions his expertise on the subjects of art, literature and politics as well.

If you're looking for an entertaining experience from the pen of an expert, read Ellmann or Rose or especially Shattuck. Give Sweetman a rest.

A+ For Ambition
Sweetman's book may very well contain factual inaccuracies (try to find another work of history that doesn't), and maybe the author has bitten off a teensy bit more than he could chew. However, I assure most readers that when they actually sit down and immerse themselves in its pages, these criticisms are going to seem nitpicking and petty. Fact is, to read Sweetman's book is to be transported to another world, and by the time you finish you very well might feel as if you've lived there for a short while, too (a glass or two Pernod might help this illusion along).

For me, in some respects Sweetman's book in analogous to Luc Sante's "Low Life," both which are so lovingly evocative of already half-forgotten social milieus and which show such compassionate understanding for the people who populated them; and both of which, finally, can be seen as the red-blooded antitheses of all the cold pedantic tomes which in our times have glutted the market under the auspices of academia. I say let Mr. Sweetman amend the factual inaccuracies in future editions of his fantastically ambitious book, as is the prerogative of every author to do. But I hope he won't change anything else. Bravo, Mr. Sweetman! I absolutely love your book!

By the way, Sweetman's biographies of Van Gogh and Gauguin are very fine, also. But "Explosive Acts" is in a class by itself.

the conventional smugness of david sweetman
I was able to read through chapter six before I lost all confidence in what the author was saying. his smug and shoddy treatment and inaccurate descriptions of suzanne valadon are mean-spirited enough to think the author carries some kind of personal agenda against tough and talented women. apparently, poor mr.sweetman became so distracted he got her maiden name wrong calling her marie-christine when her certified birth name is marie-clementine. this was irratating, but when I read page 166 I found it impossible to continue reading and trusting sweetman. sweetman has valadon's son, maurice utrillo, dying an early death on his "bad" mother's door step. maurice utrillo died in 1955. suzanne valadon died 1938. david sweetman must be the british version of america's [late] albert goldman. john e. nordin. ... Read more

Book Description

This comprehensive book traces the career of Cindy Sherman, examining her achievements as one of the leading American artists of our time. Provocative and engaging, the vivid physicality of Sherman's photographs is the key to their dramatic power. By exploring the myriad constructions of female identity and the body in our culture, Sherman imitates and confronts assorted representational stereotypes, becoming for many an icon of the contemporary concerns of feminism and postmodernism. Essayists Amanda Cruz, Elizabeth A. T. Smith, and Amelia Jones offer keen insight and observations from several distinct vantage points, demonstrating that Sherman's work is a lens through which to view contemporary art and its ongoing concern with the profound issues of the structures of the self. More than 200 images show the breadth of Sherman's body of work, from the Untitled Film Stills of the 1970s to series such as Centerfolds, Fashion, Disasters, Fairy Tales, and History Portraits, as well as photographs influenced by surrealist artists. Also included are intriguing excerpts from Sherman's notebooks, selections from her contact sheets, and numerous Polaroid studies, all of which shed light on the artist's process. Cindy Sherman: Retrospective was first published to accompany an exhibition organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. 279 photographs, 145 in color. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Good Book-Not so good Art
Just recieved this item, the book gets 4 stars for layout and image quality, a good art book. The book gets 2 stars for the quality of the work it contains.

If you like Sherman than this is a good book for you,though I'd suggest re-evaluating you asthetic awarness :) If your looking for great art look elsewhere. Sherman is an overhyped artist. Popular because her work fits into the politically correct agendas and philosophies of the contemporary artworld, not because the work is good. Just read one of the reviews here. The book contains some good peices, some that are atleast interesting but far to many fall into the just plain bad category as represented in this book.

While recently attending a group critique an undergradute ceramics major stated she was a "process orientated" artist(said with artsy fartsy flair to make up for the fact she really didn't have anything to show). Sherman reminds me of her, a bad contemporary cliche masking itself behind feminist artworld dogma. If thats what you want, look at Jenny Saville, atleast she is a good painter, even if her content is often trite.

At last a superb compilation of a great artist's works.
I can't believe it's taken this long for a compilation of Cindy Sherman's body of work to appear. But maybe that's the real measure of a major artist in this place at this time. Sherman is one of the strongest,most meticulous and most original artists to appear since the early 1930s. I'm not going to analyze the photographs, they've been analyzed to death and are far beyond analysis in any case. Suffice to say the quality and layout are excellent. A thrilling book! I do have one reservation which has nothing to do with CS. The accompanying essays are highly ideological (which CS ain't) and serve Sherman far less than their own agendas plus at least one of them is almost unreadable mumbo jumbo.

loved it
A great overview of Cindy Sherman's art with very few gaps. A quick response to an above statement: The disgust you feel is a great part of how one should look at her work. One of the most fascinating aspects in all her photos is the ability she has to construct blantant lies that we react to almost as passionately as what we feel to be genuine. As for her dolls, it's more along the lines of her very merrily reconstructing versions of the human body that are obviously false yet we still search for their anatomical processes. The aspects of them that one finds disgusting are more like the silly goo of a cheap horror movie or the ridiculous body part shots of the sleaziest silicone laden porno. Despite our knowing it's inherent phoniness, we still are frightened, disgusted, and aroused. As I said before, that's a key to her work. Frankly, if you are that disturbed by plastic excrement and genitalia, but not phased at all by the phycological twisting and tension so prevelant in her earlier work, then maybe modern art overall just isn't your cup of tea.

Beware of the contents of this book!
While Cindy Sherman may be considered a very talented photographer, the later part of her career as portrayed in this book is without a doubt deranged. The photographs contained in this book are truly mortifying. It is frightening that ides like hers could come from the human mind. Her explicit graphics on violence and sex are repulsing to even the most open-minded of audiences. I reccommend using discretion when purchasing this book.

very informative, educational about women's rights
Cindy Sherman's Retrospective explains quite well the philosophy and fight about women and their struggle for equal respect in society. Her work, after reading the analyzation seemed very straight forward and is very easy to understand from a woman's perspective. ... Read more

Book Description

James Tissot (1836-1902), the wry and urbane observer of manners and fashions, painted scenes of Paris and London "society" that simmered with undercurrents of sexual drama. This beautifully illustrated book presents one hundred of Tissot`s paintings, prints, and watercolors representing each stage of his career. The authors consider Tissot`s themes, interests, and the influences on his work. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Siscley
This book was incredible! It had all the information my daughter needed for her art project on him. I loved looking through it too. The pictures were outstanding! I HIGHLY reccomend it to any art lover

informative
I had to do a report on sisley, and while the book was informative, it wasquite lengthly. It did, however, have many good quality pictures. Iwouldn'trecommend buying this book unless you really enjoy Sisley, because it tooka lot of words to say the little information available on the illusiveimpressionist. ... Read more

Book Description

Robert Smithson (1938-1973), an artist of paramount importance in postwar America, created radical new perspectives for landscape architecture, photography, art criticism, and site-specific installation. His Spiral Jetty-a 1,500-foot-long coil of rock built in 1970 at the edge of the Great Salt Lake-is widely appreciated as one of the most significant art projects of the twentieth century. Less well known is the connection between the Jetty and the nearby Golden Spike National Historic Site, location of the completion of the first U.S. transcontinental railroad. The link between these two monuments is but one facet of an entire complex of historical reference and reflection that structures Smithson's work. Mirror-Travels encompasses the full span of Smithson's career, offering a close analysis of the artist's working model of history and featuring comprehensive case studies of three of his most influential works: "The Monuments of Passaic," "Incidents of Mirror-Travel in the Yucatan," and the Spiral Jetty. Incorporating abundant new material from Smithson's personal papers and library, Jennifer Roberts offers surprising new interpretations about the artist and his responses to the social, ideological, and material contradictions of his time. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

cheap.
dover art library books are a great way to get copies of master drawings...cheap. all prints are in b/w and print quailty isn't the best...but for the price they are a great unprecious alternative to the glove wearing 60$ art book. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

On the beginnings of the id in art
As we continue to toil through terrors remembered from the last century, up pops this little tome that quite successfully takes us back to the early years of the last century when psychology and the study of the dark side of our minds exerted its now immutable influence on all of history. In this scholarly but immensely entertaining dissection of the seeds within Egon Schiele's mind that produced a prodigious, fascinating body of figurative painting in a short life time, author Schroder investigates sexuality, mores, mental hospitals and those who captured the inmates on film, photography, and the crumbling of empires. Lavishly illustrated with not only many relatively unknown Schiele works but also with works by Gertsl, Klimt, Degas, Courbet and scientific photographs of the twisted minds and bodies caged in sanitariums, this book reads well and allows us to absorb just how significant Schiele was in opening 20th century art to new levels of exploration. This is a fine addition to libraries of artists, students, collectors, physicians, psychologists...and anyone who enjoys visiting the fin de sicle - asurring us that what seems crude today was seen, perhaps more naievly, a whole century ago!

A painfully transparent Schiele
If in-your-face nudity is your cup of tea, then Egon Schiele is the one for you. He is the avatar of not only physical transparency; but also of emotional transparency. The uncoventional nude poses makes you a co-conspirator on a voyeuristic voyage, a voyage which you may embarrasingly enjoy or find distastefully provocative. The Prestel Verlag publication is translated from German. While it is priced for the budget conscious, its text is not so easily accessible. The text relies heavily on psycho-analytic jargon and analysis. For the uninitiated, it can prove to be quite a quagmire to wade through. So be forewarned. But if you are interested in Schiele's psyche then you will gobble this up.

Schiele's works represented in this book is adequately comprehensive and a fitting catalogue of his repertoire. If you are a fan of Kent William's works (mostly comics related)then you would see some influences borrowed from Schiele, esp in his limited colour palette. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

TOULOUSE WHOSE MOTHER WAS A CONTESS
Even those who are not interested in art know TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, he has become universal.Yes he is the guy who used to hang around bordellos and the MOULIN-ROUGE will always be associated to him.ARISTIDE BRUANT and YVETTE GUILBERT two popular FRENCH singers were immortalize by him.TOULOUSE-LAUTREC was never interested in doing landscapes, he was mostly a portraitist who had fun as a caricaturist of his society LA BELLE EPOQUE.The book summarize his life the way it should be and has some useful documents that makes it interesting.

Really interesting (even if you don't like his art)
I prefer the smaller size of this book (compared to "coffee table" editions). Even though it is a practical size, the reprinted art is vivid and does not suffer from the smaller pages. Also this book is really informative (not alot of meaningless art jargon and expert opinions) like so many of those coffee table books suffer from. ... Read more