Book Description

This extraordinary book is the first volume of the definitive catalogue raisonn_ of Rothko`s work. It documents his entire output of paintings on canvas and panel, reproducing all the works in color. An introductory text also investigates every essential feature of his art.

Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington

. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

A Fan of Anfam's Rothko
Opening the package as it arrived from Amazon, easing this massive catalogue from its slipcase triggered a memory: walking to the edge of the Grand Canyon. With similar impact: awe. David Anfam brings the reader with him to encounter, view, & experience Rothko's work. His ten-year dedication paid off with the discovery of "lost" titles, setting the chronology of 836 works on canvas, (he couldn't have been afraid to get his hands dirty) & analyzing the slow struggle, sporadic leaps engendered by the painter in the evolution of the oeuvre. As scholar, teacher, critic, curator, & especially writer, Anfam proves the perfect choice to perform the daunting, almost impossible task of bringing Rothko into focus.

The author insightfully tracks the early representational beginnings, (his foray into narrative linked with crossing boundaries is totally appropriate for the artist from Dvinsk, Portland, New York) through the mythological (application of Kermode's distinction between "Chronos" & "Kairos" is utterly intriguing), & makes a case for Rembrandt as the source for Rothko's obsessions with tragedy & darkness, Vermeer his source for color's sensuality. Anfam traces in detail, using numerous examples of the brilliant reproductions, how the multiforms foreshadowed the work of the classic period. The architectural contexts for the Chapel are pure genius: Vincent Scully's, "The Earth, the Temple, & the Gods"; Joseph Rykwert's, "The Dancing Column"; & Leo Bersani's, Ulysse Dutoit's, "Arts of Impoverishment."

Anfam's breadth of vocabulary is English, yet he has benfitted from years in the States with a rapid, laconic language that impels the reader forward, informs succinctly. Purposely parrying time-worn quarrels, he unearths the more "thorny," "shady" aspects of dilemmas presented by such a complex art.

Two things happened as a result of reading MARK ROTHKO / THE WORKS on CANVAS / CATALOGUE RAISONNE. During a recent visit to C&M Gallery in NY for a show of eight Rothko's, alone in the second room, I heard them. A few nights ago I had a dream of a handwritten note on a table in the front room of an auction house that said, "The Last Painting." Rereading Helene Cixous's essay by that name (subtitled, "Or the Portrait of God"), she writes, "I think of the last Rembrandt. A man? Or a painting?" [in Cixous', "Coming to Writing and other Essays."] Anfam has presented us with the triumphant Rothko.

A must for any Rothko fan.
This is the first publication with his entire collection. Even lost paintings are represented by old black and white photographs. The images are not large, but the quality of this book is wonderful. By far the best buy for any Rothko fan (besides an original...)

This is an invaluable study.
Anfam's study is a great deal more than a much-needed reference book. Anyone interested in the history of modern art would find this study illuminating and exciting. Not only does it provide the first complete catalogue of Rothko's paintings on canvas (almost all in gorgeous color reproduction), it also includes numerous fresh and original insights concerning Rothko's intellectual and artistic sources. A monumental scholarly achievement, this volume will long remain a model for the field.

Amazing Study by Brilliant Author
David Anfam has given students of twentieth-century art the much needed and previously missing in-depth study of Mark Rothko, a key figure in understanding the esoteric art of this century. Lesser studies by lesser minds have failed where Anfam has not -- scholarly attention to detail; carefully informed visual analysis of ALL the works on canvas; subtle conclusions; historical context. Anfam's rasionne is a must read!

A dazzling achievment by a gifted art historian.
A work of major importance in the history of modernism, David Anfam's catalogue raisonne is brilliant, lively, entertaining, and handsome. Combining vigorous scholarship with creative imagination, it offers the best ever understanding of Rothko and must be considered a prerequisite to any and all encounters with Rothko. Anfam's eloquent text takes the reader through the paintings in a most delightful way while the paintings themselves are a joy to see thanks to what surely were monumental efforts on the part of all those involved with design and production. This book is the best of its kind in every way and a bargain at the price! ... Read more

Book Description

A new and profusely illustrated appraisal of this leading Romantic painter. The international reputation and popularity of Caspar David Friedrich, the leading German Romantic artist of the nineteenth century, has grown steadily since the major retrospective at the Tate Gallery in 1972. In the past three decades, intense critical interest has led to different, and sometimes conflicting, interpretations, thus necessitating this new appraisal of the artist and his achievements. Friedrich's works have an extraordinary, haunting quality that is the product of an elaborate and consistent system of symbolism. The elements that make up a traditional landscape painting--high and low, near and far, light and dark, summer and winter--are all used symbolically. Declaring that "every true work of art must express a distinct feeling," Friedrich painted the yearning of people for the infinite and their perpetual separation from it. Among his characteristic subjects, depicted in a sharply delineated style, were gothic ruins, stark contorted trees, bleak seascapes, and mountain crags often seen under mysterious lighting and peopled with lonely figures. This comprehensive and marvelously illustrated survey examines Friedrich's paintings, watercolors, and drawings in a new critical light, and places the artist in his intellectual and historical context. His difficult relationship with Goethe, his nationalism, the critical judgments of his contemporaries, his position in European art: these and many other topics are explored. 210 color illustrations. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Sublime
Werner Hofmann's new monograph on Caspar David Friedrich benefits from superb colour reproductions as well as Hofmann's own discursive brilliance.

Selections from Friedrich's letters are a neat fit, bowing to the idea that his transcendental painting ultimately eludes scholarly discourse.

This book lands with authority, passion, and a keen sense of the vistas of silence that Friedrich communicates to admirers everywhere.

A bargain. Snap it up if you come across it... ... Read more

Amazon.com

Each of the extraordinary portraits made by photographer Annie Leibovitz for her book Women stands on its own. Looked at together, these "photographs of people with nothing more in common than that they are women (and living in America at the end of the twentieth century), all--well almost all--fully clothed," writes Susan Sontag in the book's preface, form "an anthology of destinies and disabilities and new possibilities." Leibovitz, who in her years working for Rolling Stone, Vogue, and Vanity Fair magazines has photographed hundreds of celebrities, turns her lens on a wide range of ordinary and extraordinary female subjects: coal miners, socialites, first ladies, artists, domestic-violence victims, an astronaut, a surgeon, a maid. What she creates is a reflection of contemporary American womanhood that mirrors both women's accomplishments and the challenges they still face individually and as a group.

Leibovitz demonstrates her own range as a photographer in this body of work, shooting in the studio and natural settings and working in both black-and-white and color film. She depicts model Jerry Hall wearing a little black dress, a fur coat, and high heels, staring frankly at the viewer from a velvet chair in a plush red parlor while her naked infant son nurses from her exposed right breast. Schoolteacher Lamis Srour's eyes--the only part of her face visible behind her heavy black veil--illuminate a dark black-and-white portrait. Leibovitz frames actress Elizabeth Taylor and her dog Sugar by their shocks of snow-white hair. She captures four Kilgore College Rangerettes, a drill team, at the apex of their kicks--white-booted legs pointing up, obscuring their faces and revealing the red underpants beneath their blue miniskirts. There are many more wonderful and unexpected images here, over 200 in all. The delight in discovering them awaits readers. --Jordana Moskowitz ... Read more

Reviews (42)

I'm not Thomas, I'm his daughter, he used my computer to ord
er from Amazon and Now His Name is Stuck on My Account

So much for a title.

Annie Leibovitz's book requires no words. Sorry, Susan, I didn't read your text. The best way to enjoy Annie's photos is to set aside your search for a defining message about women. There isn't one. Women are varied creatures just like the rest of humanity and nature.

Don't you just love looking at them? Don't wish you could get a closer look? Don't you wish the interesting one's would stand in just the right light so you could get a better look? Didn't you always think Hillary C. was beautiful, but you didn't know why?

Thank you Annie Leibovitz for taking the interesting women and standing them in a beautiful light and binding them in a huge book so we can stand and stare as long as we want.

Enough said.

Image as Everywoman
Fiction is my preference when writing book reviews, because I love the complexity of words, stories, and the vagaries of human nature with its endless permutations. But when I received Leibovitz's astonishing compilation of photographs as a gift, I thought I might attempt an impression of page after page of females, as seen through the professional eye of one of the most important photographers of our generation.

Who has not gazed in awe at Leibovitz's unusual perspective, the beautiful made even more so? But I want real women with wrinkles and dirt under their fingernails, the kind of women overlooked in the rush to worship human perfection. I want to see if there is a balance, not just the too thin, too gorgeous, too self-indulgent. In that regard, I believe Women contains a preponderance of well-groomed elegance, albeit impressive, for instance a breathtaking portrait of Gwyneth Paltrow and her mother, Blythe Danner. This particular image contrasts a young woman in the blush of her feminine power with the graceful progression of years that adds to a woman's complex attraction. To be sure, there are folios of celebrities, socialites, all those who live in the rarified strata of entitlement.

While not as numerous, the presentation of real women like me, those who inhabit my world, are so powerful as to diminish the bland compositions of society's darlings. The studies of abused women jump off the pages, eyes glazed, the immediacy of domestic violence tattooing their faces, staring into a future devoid of hope; a remarkably insightful photograph of Ellen DeGeneris, virtually unrecognizable under a layer of cracked white greasepaint; two pre-adolescent girls in the back of a pickup truck, displaying a row of leggy blonde Barbie's, with Ken in a faux high school letter jacket, his plastic Prom Queen sporting a crown atop hair that cascades down the length of her body; three young Latino women glare accusingly at the lens, displaying gang colors with pride, ambiguously dangerous; the lines of age score lived-in faces, eyes shadowed by years of struggle, etched finally by the exhaustion of daily survival. For me, these pictures contain the essence of womanhood, untainted by ubiquitous vanities.

In all, Leibovitz "sees" these women, their strengths, frailties and vulnerabilities. This series of images is a walk through the multi-hued, textured world of women, esoteric, generous, often brutally honest and unflinching. Luan Gaines/2004.

A moving and exceptional book
This is definately my favorite book, and one I enjoy giving to special women friends. Annie Leibowitz has managed to capture the full spectrum of women, from the subdued and simple to the succesful and sophisticated. It is a moving book and a celebration to women's individuality and uniqueness. I warmly recommend it.

Just a name
Although the idea of this book is worthwhile, I am amazed to find so many of the images out of focus. She is supposed to be a fine photographer, but maybe it is this title that has allowed her to feel okay with displaying such poor examples of portraits. It seems she rushed through the work just to get the book published as I don't sense that she put too much heart into the work.

Very Enlightening
I loved the book "Women," this book not only gave information on what all these amazing women do for a living, but it showed the pictures of them at work. A lovely tribute to WOMEN all over the world! ... Read more

Book Description

One of the most recognizable of American artists, and one of America's most innovative printmakers, Jim Dine has created a multidisciplinary oeuvre tied together by his continued use and reinvention of familiar imagery. Hearts, bathrobes, skulls, tools, the Crommelynck gate, Venus de Milo, self-portraits, plants, and flowers--Dine infuses these personal metaphors with new meanings and continually depicts them in novel and diverse contexts. Over time, some of these motifs have become recognized as clearly symbolic: the bathrobe figures as a self-portrait, the heart as a symbol of his love for wife Nancy. And also over time, Dine has added new images to his iconic repertory. Mountains, ancient Greco-Roman sculpture, owls, hands, trees, apes, Pinocchio, and ravens figure prominently in the prints he has made since 1985. This catalogue raisonne fully documents Dine's evolving imagery and technical experimentation from the late 80s through the millennium, including his limited-edition illustrated books, and establishes his absolute maturity as an artist. A glossary of printmaking terms, a selected print exhibition history and bibilography, and a discussion of his poetry and literary leanings make this catalog complete.
By Elizabeth Carpenter with an essay by Joseph Ruzicka. Foreword by Richard Campbell and Evan M. Maurer.

9.5 x 12 in.
400 color illustrations ... Read more

Book Description

Focusing on the period 1905-1913, this provocative and groundbreaking new book refutes the popular view of Matisse as the painter of relaxed pleasures, the master of decorative line and sensuous color. Alastair Wright discovers a darker, more complex side to Matisse: an artist whose work, caught in the uneasy space between modernism and tradition, was fundamentally engaged with the most pressing of modernity's artistic and ideological debates. Presenting a series of brilliant and highly original analyses of Matisse's most important early paintings, Wright locates the artist within a wider cultural field in which the identities of modernism--and of its viewers--were highly contested. Wright offers a penetrating examination of the public response to Matisse's work, arguing that his early-twentieth-century audience found in his painting a deeply disturbing challenge to contemporary concepts of the self, of the nation, and of the West.

This sumptuously illustrated book positions the work of Matisse and a number of his contemporaries in relation to key aspects of modernity--the commodification of the individual, the dislocation of cultural identity, and the effacement of racial boundaries under the pressure of imperial expansion--and provides a compelling account of how these contradictory historical materials fused to give birth to Matisse's modernism. What emerges is a renewed sense of the rich complexity of an artistic practice suspended between the seductive potential of pure color and an always ambivalent engagement with tradition. Tracing the interplay between Matisse's painting and discourses of art and subjectivity, Wright offers a significant new reading of one of the central figures of early-twentieth-century modernism.

... Read more

Amazon.com

Robert Crumb,world-famous illustrator and definite pervert, got his start in the underground comics scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The R. Crumb Coffee Table ArtBook is a collection of his best work from the last 50 years (it's got kids stuff, too, which is pretty fascinating).The volume is a welcome reminder that, screwed up as Crumb may be, he's also a tremendously talented, utterly original artist. He artistically embodies a certain segment of the '60s, and as that fades even further into history, Crumb's material becomes more important. Is The R. Crumb Coffee Table Art Book funny? Yes, certainly, in a coarse, Rabelaisian way; you'll either find it a hoot, or horribly racist and sexist. And it's not for the kiddies, obviously. But R. Crumb is so well known by now, that you probably know which group you fall into, the lovers or the haters. The lovers will find this book awonderful treat. ... Read more

Reviews (15)

If you're an idiot, don't buy this book!!!
Don't blame R. Crumb for ruining your pitiful childhood. If you must watch Clint Eastwood movies to prove to your friends that you're a "real man" then, I think you need some help.
You're supposed to laugh at Crumb and at Crumb's work and Crumb knows it! Don't "real men" (read idiots) like to laugh at other people? Not all humor is apreciated by everyone, especially if you're and nit-wit and don't get it.
Crumb is a premier artist who's drawings are the best in the genre. His stories are fables to learn from - or laugh at depending on you're perception and experience.
Most people who buy Crumb's books already know what they're getting into. If you're a first time Crumb buyer, go to a comic book store and check out what you're getting into before you buy.
Anyone who buys online either enjoys taking chances or has researched the product before they buy.... or you may just be an idiot!!!
A great book for any Crumb fan!!!

An Entertaing Autobiography
I first became a Robert Crumb fan in the sixties. I remember buying Zap#1 at the Free Press Book Store in Los Angeles. It was to art as Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?" was to music at the time. Both pretty much blew my mind as a young impressionable teenager. (Sold to "Adults Only"? hah!)

Its Nothing Sacred attitude and straight-up uncensored dialogue and art got me. The artist himself remained sort of a mystery man. How could someone be so brilliant in one series,

and then disappoint me so much in another? He seemed so afraid of "selling out" he occasionally just went for shock value or put out some junk calculated to alienate. (News Flash: Crumb disdains most of his fans...yeah- you too, fan-boy.)

This book is an autobiography told in art and text that reveals a lot about Crumb's character and influences. Do not buy this book if you are not into biographies, you won't like it. However, if you are a Crumb fan, it gives an entertaining insight into his struggles and regrets as an artist trying to maintain his own code of artistic integrity. I see his influences every day in commercial and popular art and get enjoyment from knowing who the "real deal" is that they've been influenced by or are out and out ripping off. Buy this book.

- - - FEELIN' LUCKY ?
You don't need the lamer bosh of escapist nerd Bob Crumb. You need the integrity and courage of Clint Eastwood.

Take the money you were going to blow on this book, and go rent some good Dirty Harry films and Clint's 'Man with no Name' westerns.

Of course, if you are unconsciously oppressed and alienated, and looking to become even more lost in your own little cowardly world, Bob 'articial culture' Crumb is the place to go. But it wont get you anywhere. And it will separate you even further from your own potential, and what it means to be a Real Human Being with Real Courage and Integrity. Unreal 'Sleazy Bob,' ultimately, has none.

Go ahead. Take risks with your sanity and isolatory tendencies. Maybe a cheap therapy operation will take you in. But it will take you years to recover.

The Amazing Id Of Robert Crumb
There's an illustration on the back cover of The R. Crumb Coffee Table Art Book that perfectly encapsulates the artist's work - it depicts the top of Robert's head exploding, with several of his creations, famous, infamous, and otherwise, leaping out.

That, to me, sums up Crumb's work - this incredibly inventive artist with, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, a head full of ideas that are drivin' him insane.

There are frequent complaints about Crumb's work being too dark, racist, sexist, and/or misogynistic. While I can see where these criticisms come from, I really don't think Crumb is any darker, more racist, sexist, or misogynistic than any of us - he simply is unafraid to - COMPELLED to, almost - lay his cards on the table. Some people find this offensive. Would it be absurd of me to suggest that some of those who are offended by his work have their own issues with sexism, racism, and/or misogyny that they are unwilling to confront?

What I'm trying to get at here, I guess, is that this IS NOT a book for little kids. There's a sticker on the front of my copy of the book that says "FOR ADULT INTELLECTUALS ONLY!", and while I'm not so sure about the "intellectuals" part, this is probably not a book you want your grade-school age child to get ahold of, unless you're okay with said child seeing depictions of graphic (and I do mean GRAPHIC) sex, hard-core drug use, and extreme (albiet cartoonish) violence.

I realize all I've spent all this space talking about Crumb without ever really discussing what I like about his work. I think there's two main things: (1) his unflinching honesty (as I touched upon earlier), and (2) the incredible beauty of his draftsmanship. I think my favotite chapter in the whole book is the one that features his pen-and-ink still-lifes and landscapes. Just beautiful stuff - worth studying for his use of cross-hatching alone.

In conclusion, if you're at all interested in checking out the work of one of the finest artists to ever work in the comics medium, I highly recommend you get this book. It's easily worth the 25 bucks.

Oh, yeah - and it DOES make a wonderful coffee table book. :)

The Conventionalization of Crumb
(revised and corrected, 8/27/02)
Thirty years ago, as a teen-ager, I was touting Crumb all over the place, in the form of those little floppy "underground" comic books, not really realising their relatively dubious intellectual and artistic value.

Amusing they were. They also appeared to come from the "We'll save you" left wing, who were going to rescue us from the evil-doings of the Establishment, and Vietnam, and Nixon and conservatism and complacency and bourgeois America and pollution and what-not. . .

Some of my friends simply said, "where did you get these?" Needless to say, it did not increase my stature in their eyes. They were rather shocked. Some found them disgusting.
One needs a sturdy income behind one to endure earhquakes to one's reputation. If you are going to alienate Mrs. Grundy, be prepared to have something to hide behind.

. . .however, "What were once vices are now virtues. . . " Now, thirty years later, R. Crumb is a household word. People think of MR.NATURAL like they would PEANUTS or DOONESBURY. A dimension of the new form of liberalism "permits" this access, although some decry Crumb's alleged "political incorrectness" and dubious "sexual politics." Yet, what good has Crumbianity, any of it, good or bad, done anyone?

Everyone thinks Bob Crumb and Mr. Natural and Fritz the Cat are all something very special. Yet, just how special are they? Crumb's strips remain curiously under-analyzed. People seem simply to either embrace him as a fashionable "alternative," or despise him for his grotesques.

I wonder if my classmates can recall when I let them in on what seemed an obscure, unfashionable, and even reprehensible "secret" thirty years ago.

Yet I no longer think Bob is really worth it. Better to spend your time and money on good film and literature. Please grow up, if at all possible: you will be doing the rest of us a favor. And for good "picture" books, get Edward Gorey("The GashleyCrumb Tinies", "Amphigorey,1,2,3")and William Steig's "The Lonely Ones", and any Charles Adams cartoon books. . . You will at least then have a healthy perspective from which to regard R. CRUMB from, and make tolerant, educated, and useful judgments on him with more discretion than otherwise.

Let old Bob Crumb languish on the Riviera. He never really made me any smarter or any more sophisticated. I had to go elsewehere for that. (Hours in the art libraries, paging through art books and folios... hours reading the classics...)

Rather than indulge oneself with the semi-sophistication of Bob Crumb, why not go the rest of the way and read real literature ?
Do the job right. What's the point of getting part-smart and semi-sophisticated with Bob Crumb ?

Ultimately, all Bob helped me to do was waste my young life and energies...I wish I had returned to me the precious time I lavished/wasted on his silly cartoons. I would have done something useful with it.

I hope I have saved others some trouble.

. . .and I hope my revised and corrected review proves more useful than the previously posted.
-moosbrugger ... Read more

Amazon.com

The beautiful catalog Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting accompanies the Museum of Modern Art's retrospective of this prolific and important German artist. Richter's many artistic achievements vacillate between pure abstraction and a kind of realism. His realistic paintings, based primarily on personal photographs and images from newspapers, range in subject matter from the banal, like rolls of toilet paper, to the extremely potent, such as famous Nazi "doctor" Werner Hyde. The paintings have in common an emotional remove; the re-creating of photographic images points us toward our own possible emotional detachment to the influx of images in the world. A blurred chair, Jackie Kennedy, burning candles, family portraits--Richter lays them all out before us as if to say, Here, they are all the same. The insightful text by MoMA curator Robert Storr provides an in-depth look at Richter's life in postwar Germany, tracing the influences and environment that made his work possible. The book includes a revealing interview with the artist and a detailed chronology of his life and work, plus 138 color illustrations and 165 duotones. --J.P. Cohen ... Read more

Reviews (8)

A great artist thumbs his nose at high art
A lot of words been written lately about the 'unexpected revival of painting' fueled by the current Gerhardt Richter painting retrospective captured in this book. It seems, according to some influential art scribes writing in the trail of this traveling exhibition, that the much heralded demise of painting, much like Mark Twain's death, has been greatly exaggerated. Showcasing about 120 works over a 40-year period, this book is one of the most comprehensive retrospectives ever mounted about a contemporary painter in recent memory, and that by itself is a strong enough reason to buy it. However, it is what has been proven by Richter's career and accomplishments, and unexpected stature in the art world (Sotheby's recently dubbed him the 'most influential living artist in the world') and now driven home here, that makes this a-once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn some lessons about the contemporary art world. You see, Richter doesn't fit the formula for success that many art curators and influential critics and other art powers-that-be have carefully crafted in the rarified atmospheres of the upper crusts of the art world. In fact, Richter breaks every 'rule' that often starts being pressed upon 18-year old art students and then is hammered home in reviews and lectures by many contemporary art critics and curators. Rules like 'you better have your own recognizable style!' or 'only new is good' and the oddest rule of all: 'painting is dead!' But Richter is not only a painter in an era forced to focus on video artists, performance stars and PhotoShop wonders, but also Richter wanders from style to style with an ease and speed that makes this book a lesson on half a dozen art movements of the last century beautifully continued onto the current one. Thumb through the pages here and you'll soon discover that Richter is as much as ease with photorealism ' some ultra sharp and some foggy in detail -- as he is with pure abstraction and with romantic paintings of pretty clouds and scenic waterfalls. This is an artist who is not just happy with thumbing his nose at the well-enforced rule that a good artist has to have a clearly identifiable style and do something 'new', but who also seems intent on destroying the other forced formulas of the modern art world: he copies other artists' works, works directly from photographs, blah, blah, blah ' all sins that would make all my art professors and most art critics sigh in disgust. But above all, Richter paints, and he paints in a time when painting has been dismissed as 'ailing' and 'ancient.' New is good, technology is good' painting is dead.' Why does Richter paint? Doesn't he get it? NOPE!! It's because it is all about painting! And managing to make fools of critics who forget that their job is to follow the artist ' not to lead the arts. What those who consider painting an 'ailing' form will never understand (mostly because they are not painters), is that Richter can't and won't stop painting, because through his veins runs the same intoxicating venom that fueled their ancestral kin in the caves of Altamira and which will continue to drive painters long after today's critics and curators are forgotten dust. This book shouts: Art does not have to be 'new' to be good, and technology is not the only venue to deliver great new contemporary art - it also continues to prove that painting will never die.

Fine Art, Well Published
Gerhard Richter is one of the finest Pop artists of the 20th century. ("Pop" because he is highly non-ideological, even depicting ideological subjects in a completely neutral fashion. His works are plain-old nice to look at.) This book is a beautiful representation of his work, chock-full of his painting, from his earliest works to his most recent, printed nicely in full color. It is specifically the catalog for the exhibit of his works at MOMA in early 2002 (which this reviewer attended, with great delight), but the exhibition was so broad, with a wide range of paintings across Richter's full career, the number of paintings in this book is satisfyingly broad.

Richter has dabbled in many styles, and continues to produce works to this day, but most often works with abstraction or semi-abstraction. His sense of color is wonderful, and his sense of vision is superb, by which I mean his paintings force you to stop and stare for long periods of time. Many of his paintings are like photographs taken just slightly out of focus. (He uses a projector, but modifies the image just enough to make you know a human did the work.) Their beauty truly makes you look long at them, and their skill makes you wonder how a person can achieve such subtle effects of lighting in painted oil on canvas.

This book also contains good explanations of Richter's work, but these can become tiresome at times. The worst is that the reviews and the plates are not indexed very well, so it is frustratingly difficult to find a given work, either in the list of plates, or in the various texts. This is a major disappointment, but never mind. The reason to purchase this book is the art. The text is explanatory enough to teach the reader about Richter's career and work, and serves its purpose well enough.

It is not clear whether the reader unfamiliar with Richter's work, or who has not seen it in person, can enjoy this book on its own merit, but for the reader even slightly aware or curious of Richter's career, this is a welcome volume for the library.

beautiful pictures, questionable text
This was a gorgeous show, but kind of conservative -- made Richter into the new "master" of painting, sidelines all his weirder and more "conceptual" work. And why does Robert Storr have to try so hard to put himself at the center of everything?? I saw the Richter show in SF around 1990, so no, this is NOT "the frist American retrospective." And Storr's dismissive (and often really uninformed) treatment of other critics (especially German critic Benjamin Buchloh, who's written on Richter for like, decades) shows what a limited writer and scholar Storr really is. But for better or worse, the pictures are great, and a lot of the other material is really good.

Amazing Retrospective
Richter has garnered a lot of attention this past season in New York with a retrospective, and judging from this book, quite deservedly so. There is a wealth of examples from Richter's work from the past forty years, and the quality of the prints are uniformly excellent. Storr's critical stance and biographical introduction run about 70+ pages, and they are very helpful for a person who is just learning about Richter's work, and still remain informative for his old fans. The interview included is enlightening, too. This is one of the better artist retrospectives to have come out in the past few years. Highly recommended.

the unblinking blur
Behold, German painting! In a country whose artists tend to lay the paint on blut and thick, Richter is a notable contrast. He represents, along with Sigmar Polke, the best of a school of European painters who assimilated the American Pop Art scene. Don't expect the blazing cartoon colors of Lichtenstein though, Richter is a painter's painter, who has more depth and soul than Warhol ever could (surely by his own admission). But Richter's subject matter also comes from the mundane: a faded family snapshot, a clipping from a newspaper. Bits of emphemera blown up a hundred times and immortalized in oil paint. Clement Greenberg might abhore Richter's work more than the American Pop Artists: here is grand kitcsh by the hand of a master painter.
*note that I speak mostly of Richter's representative work, of which the book mostly focuses on. Also, the large Richter retrospective, having left N.Y., is still touring America for those interested ... Read more

Book Description

More than any other artist, Edward Hopper (1882-1967) made the unique visual landscape of the American city his own. In his works, all-night diners, motel rooms, and deserted, after-hours offices are sparsely populated with isolated, brooding figures. While never directly narrative, his restrained and carefully handled oils and watercolors have a timeless, universal quality that has long struck a chord with a huge international audience.

From paintings made in Paris in the early 1900s to iconic views of Manhattan created more than 60 years later, this book examines Hopper's work in the context of both American and European painting from the turn of the 20th century to the 1960s. The influence that film and other forms of popular culture had on Hopper is explored here for the first time. Published to accompany a major retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern in London, this stunning book is the definitive work on this quintessentially American artist. AUTHOR BIO: Sheena Wagstaff is director of exhibitions at Tate Modern, London. Peter Wollen is professor of film, television, and digital media at UCLA and a filmmaker, critic, and scholar. David Anfam has published widely on American art. Brian O'Doherty is an artist and critic and the author of American Masters: The Voice and the Myth in Modern Art. Margaret Iverson is professor in the department of art history and theory at the University of Essex, England. ... Read more

Reviews (19)

The best photo-art book ever. Period.
Okay, so this book contains pictures of girls under 18 in the nude. Try to look at the bigger picture. That would be all that is beautiful in our world, and David hamilton has tried to fit as much as he can in one place. Many before him have tried, none have succeeded as he has. the pictures of countrysides, seascapes and Italian villas all join together with the aforemetioned images to create a perfect symmetry of beauty. This book is well worth its price, and then some.

Absolutely stunning!!
This is 'THE' Hamilton book to own! I have never seen anything so beautiful and classical as this before. Hamilton is a true master artist and this book shows the depths to which he explores his art. As one other reader said, when you see the pages of this book unfold before you, you feel as if you are entering a classical landscape of beauty and enchantment. The subject matter (young girls) is a heated topic, however the way Hamilton photographs each subject is a tribute to the eye of a master. There is nothing obscene or pornographic in the pages of this book. This is pure and innocent beauty from a period in life where everything is confusing and magical. The goal of any great photographer should be to show us the world we don't see, to show us what we have all around us but never stop to notice. Hamilton is a great photographer and his landscapes and nudes show us the erotic and mystical in our world.

Buy this book. It is worth every penny.

NO NO NO
I agree with another reviewer that said it isn't right to take young girls and pose them in unnatural and erotic positions so that we may "say" that we want to enjoy their "beauty." I didn't see one photo (albeit I didn't search through the whole book) of naked boys posed in such a way. If youthful nudity is so beautiful, why aren't both sexes recognized? I suspect that this artist isn't interested in male "beauty." I felt that these girls were all exploited by the artist (and every person that buys this book).

(...)

Interesting Collection of his Work
The book has photos spanning David Hamilton's career as well as a bit of an auto-biographical essay of his life and how he got into photographing beautiful young models.

The pictures include nude models as well as subjects like flowers, landscapes, and personal photos.

My complaints about the book is that the pictures are usually too small to be appreciated and the quality of the post-production is not top class. Though there are many nice photos, it does not justify the work of the photographer.

Nonetheless Hamilton's books are hard to find and always go out of print. Overall, it is worth buying.

BEAUTIFUL!!!
This book is a masterpiece! Everything about it is just plain beautiful. I can't believe that Hamilton ever had problems with these incredible pictures that he has taken. And that takes us back to what is art? and what is pornography? It seems that in this country, people tend to believe that if a girl is under the age of 18 and nude, it is pornography. Hamilton has proved them wrong. If it is legal for familys, which do in a lot of cases include young girls and teenage girls, to go to nudist colonies or be naturists, where they are nude three fourths of the time, why is it not right for someone to capture this beautiful lifestyle on film?

The female body, at any age is a very beautiful thing, and not many people will let themselves admit this. I find it especially beautiful when the girls are at the brink of womanhood, and there bodies are changing. Why is it so hard to find this stunning for people???

You will find portraits of everything in this book, from swimming, to sleeping, to just plain stand up posing for the camera. Also, this book includes other works of Hamilton. Works like nature etc.

In one word, this book is Beautiful, and so is Hamilton, for doing something that very few people can do. That is to realize that there is natural beauty in everyone, and he photographed it. ... Read more

Book Description

A look at the recent work of Terry Winters, whose diverse and creative output continues to challenge and surprise the art world

Terry Winters’s work of the past decade weaves disparate strains of idea, object, and physical operations into the primary logic of his art. His art contains an astonishing array of forms and demonstrates the equally surprising breadth of his artistic language. This retrospective volume continues where the mid-career survey (1992) at the Whitney Museum concluded, presenting the past decade of Winters’s innovative work in paintings, prints, drawings, and artists’ books. Terry Winters presents the ways in which the artist creates sets and subsets of distinctive works that interact with bodies of previous and current work. Also included are images by the artist that have not previously been exhibited or published.

Winters’s work is frequently included in conversations and studies relating to the interplay of art and science, and his recent paintings, drawings, and prints reflect his engagement with scientific and computational systems of thought and presentations of information. For Winters, abstract art has become a vehicle not for “reproducing and inventing form but for harnessing forces.” By utilizing expressive means, “data becomes pictorial and spatial.” This superbly illustrated volume displays the full range of Winters’s newest works and the complex relationships that link them to one another.

This book is the catalogue for an exhibition at the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts (September 18, 2004, to January 2, 2005); the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (January 23 to April 17, 2005); and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (April 20 to July 10, 2005).

Richard Shiff is Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art and Director of the Center for the Study of Modernism at the University of Texas and the author of numerous books on modern and contemporary art, including Barnett Newman: A Catalogue Raisonné [see p. 10A]; Rachel Teagle is curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; and Adam Weinberg is director of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
... Read more

Book Description

Previous studies of Picasso's involvement with the classical have tended to concentrate on the period immediately following the First World War, and to attribute that involvement to both the rise of political conservatism in France and the domesticating influence of the artist's marriage to Olga Koklova. Focusing instead on the later, classicizing prints of the 1930s, this book offers a radically different view of Picasso and the "classical" -- a view that aligns his work much more closely with Surrealist, and specifically Bataillean, revisions of antiquity.

The book's argument is built around detailed analyses of several separate print series: Picasso's illustrations for Ovid's Metamorphoses, the etchings of the Vollard Suite, and The Minotauromachy. Common to all of them, the book shows, is a strong engagement not only with the classical, but with the viewer. In the latter, Picasso's prints are clearly at odds with the understanding of the relationship between classical art and its audience that prevailed throughout most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries -- an understanding that held the work's purported autonomy to mirror the viewer's own. By exposing that autonomy as a fantasy, Picasso opens the "classical" work and its viewer alike to the entanglements of desire and the dissolution of boundaries it inevitably brings.

Much of the argument turns on close readings of key Surrealist texts by Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris, and Roger Caillois. Even more important, however, are the prints' numerous references, heretofore unnoticed, to specific works by, among others, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Goya. These references effectively create an alternative "classical" tradition out of which Picasso's etchings can be seen to have emerged. ... Read more

Book Description

Beginning with his earliest, awkward drawings of the human figure in 1962, the book displays Feynman's fascinating development of a personal artistic sensitivity to line, form and the moods of his subject; as well as his experimentation with various styles and media.
The selected artwork was produced over a 25 year period until 1987, the year before his death. It mainly consists of black and white drawings, his favourite medium, all carefully chosen by his daughter, Michelle.
This book brings together, for the first time, a collection of the artwork of Richard P. Feynman, scientist extraordinaire and winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

What a find!
This is a really terrific collection. In this book are many of the little-known sketches and paintings of the late, great physicist/folk hero Richard P. Feynman. I sought this book out after reading Ralph Leighton's Feynman biography "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" I'm glad I went to the trouble to do so.

The book commences with a foreword by Albert Hibbs, whom many Feynman fans will recognize as Feynman's friend and co-author of "Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals." Don't skip over this foreword. Hibbs has a lot of interesting things to say about how visual Feynman was in all his projects, including his style of doing physics.

After the foreword is a helpful preface by Feynman's daughter Michelle. (Michelle works as a photographer, and was the primary person in charge of selecting these artworks). She describes some interesting features of Feynman family life, such as the fact that many of the models for these paintings became lifelong Feynman family friends. She gives us a fun little window into the experience of "growing up Feynman."

This book also contains Feyman's wry, interesting essay "But is it Art?" from "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!," as well as a selection of biographical sketches from four of Fenman's friends, including three artists and his biographer.

The actual sketches are really pretty good, in my humble opinion. There are about a hundred pages of black and white sketches, including charcoal, pencil, and ink wash drawings. Many are quite simple and direct. Others clearly took quite a bit of time.

Let me give you a friendly warning here, incidentally. Leafing through this section, you will go through page after page of sketches of young, beautiful women, in a variety of attractive poses. This will lead you to a pleasant, happy, blissed out frame of mind. Suddenly, with absolutely no warning whatsoever, you will turn the page and be confronted by the dilapidated, craggy, wrinkled face of an anonymous, elderly male physics professor, frowning under a ponderously furrowed unibrow, glaring out of the book at you. Be warned, O reader, and try not to have a seizure. Also included among these sketches are occasional other topics, such as Feyman's dog Rufus, and a few "one minute line drawings" (a common exercise in art classes)... Personally, I think Figure 87 is pretty neat. It includes small sketches of various subjects -- a woman, faces, a plant, a sleeping dog, and more. But there's more -- the background is full of Feynman's equations! They wind all over the place, throughout the drawing. It makes for kind of a neat juxtaposition. I could definitely see that sketch making a great poster.

After the black and white sketches are a small collection of color paintings, including a sketch of a little town, and Feynman's trusty dog Rufus.

Basically, if you are a Feynman fan, this book will go a long way toward rounding out your appreciation of him. Besides, there are some really terrific pictures in here. Two thumbs up! ... Read more

Book Description

A highly anticipated, complete study of the stunning light works by Dan Flavin

Including and augmenting the exhibition catalogue on Dan Flavin’s art (see opposite page), this remarkable book features a complete catalogue of over 750 of the artist’s light works. Presenting all of Flavin’s lights together for the first time, this is the only publication to document the artist’s entire career. Flavin’s art has not been widely reproduced, and this definitive volume includes hundreds of images—featuring exquisite new photography—of well-known pieces as well as many rarely seen and unknown works. Each light work is illustrated by a beautiful color reproduction and/or a graphic diagram. Comprehensive information on each work, including title, date, medium, dimensions, edition, exhibition history, bibliography, and a brief discussion, reveals new insights into the artist’s working methods and provides an invaluable resource for students, scholars, dealers, and collectors.

Tiffany Bell has served as project director of the Dan Flavin catalogue raisonné since 1998; Michael Govan is director of Dia Art Foundation; Earl A. Powell III is director of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Brydon Smith is former curator of twentieth-century art at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Jeffrey Weiss is head of the department of modern and contemporary art at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

... Read more

Book Description

Among the supreme masterpieces of 19th-century art are Edgar Degas's dramatic, incisive, and often brilliantly colored pictures of the ballet. Yet despite his enormous popularity as the foremost artist of the dance-with more than half his vast body of paintings, pastels, drawings, and sculptures devoted to the on- and off-stage activities of ballerinas-this is the first major exhibition and catalogue to illuminate the theme in its historical context.

This authoritative book presents much new material about Degas as an artist and his relationship with the ballet of his day. Far more knowledgeable about the training and technique of dancers than has previously been realized, Degas is shown responding to numerous ballet productions at the Paris Opéra, to the shadowy life of the wings, and to the daily routines of the classroom. With huge crowds expected to throng the exhibition venues at the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Philadelphia Museum of Art , this lavish, richly illustrated volume should fascinate a wide audience of art- and dance-lovers alike ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Not your average exhibition catalogue
The relatively high cost of these big art volumes based on major exhibitions are often a significant factor when considering their purchase. Reader: in this case you will not regret it. Go ahead, buy the book. This beautiuflly published volume is worth it. I had the good fortune to see this exhibit in Philadelphia. It was wonderful and this catalogue is a great companion. In addition to an informative and well written text, the book contains over three hundred plates (about half are color), a rigorous documentation of Degas' decades long obsession with ballet at the Paris Opera. The period photographs are a fascinating complement.
The text is divided into eight chronologically organized chapters. The writing is clear and not overly-academic.
This is a book you can keep returning to. It is also a great gift for lovers of dance. Buy it from your local bookstore.

For anyone who appreciates the immortal art of Edgar Degas
Collaboratively produced by independent curator and ballet instructor Jill DeVonyar and art historian Richard Kendall, Degas And The Dance is a gorgeous volume filled cover to cover with spectacular color photographs of art and sculpture celebrating the dance, particularly ballet, as created by 19th century artist Edgar Degas. An insightful text provides informative commentary about the man called "the painter of dancers", and his body of work, enriches this vivid presentation of pieces that blend realism with occasional softening or abstracting elements. Degas And The Dance is enthusiastically recommended as being beautiful book just to page through, and a "must" for anyone who appreciates the immortal art of Edgar Degas. ... Read more

Book Description

Explore Claude Monet's life and art, and the influences that shaped his work.

Discover the genius of Claude Monet through this highly informative guide, which tells the fascinating story of the life and work of one of the most famous figures in the history of art. Superb, specially commissioned photographs show the methods and materials Monet used to create his masterpieces, while art historian Jude Welton offers a unique "eyewitness" view of the painter's distinctive canvases, and the complex personality behind them. See close-ups of Monet's vigorous, textured brushwork, how he captured the ever-changing effects of light on water, the lavish garden he created at Giverny, which inspired over 500 paintings. Learn how the trains at the Gare Saint-Lazare were stopped for Monet to paint them, how he created the celebrated Cathedrals and other "series" paintings, how he was influenced by Japanese art. Discover how the term "Impressionist" was coined, Monet's links with Manet, Renoir, Sisley, how doctors battled to save his failing eyesight, and much, much more! ... Read more

Reviews (6)

Visual Treat!
This Claude Monet art book is a great book, I received it as a gift over 10 years ago and I think it's very well put together and has beautiful images of Monet's best artwork and the book also gives some info as well. I recommend this book which is a good read, a visual treat and makes an excellent coffee table book!

Water Lily Heaven
If you are in love with Claude Monet's Water Lily Pond paintings, this is the best book for an explanation as to their origins and where Monet found his inspiration. There is a photograph from 1926 showing the bridge covered with climbing plants.

The Japanese Bridge at Giverny, 1924 is just one of the outstanding paintings in a series of works devoted to the bridge that preoccupied Monet during his final years.

Monet loved his garden at Giverny with such a passion that one could say it bordered on obsession. Harmony in Green, The White Water Lilies, The Water Lily Pond are all explained in detail. There is even a picture of Monet photographed in his beloved garden in 1917.

In every life there is beauty and sadness. The beauty of the water lilies contrasts with the pain Monet felt when he painted Camille on her death bed.

When Monet's wife died, she not only left him without a companion, he then had small children depending on him. He spent most of his meager earnings on his wife's medical treatments and he was also deeply depressed and alone.

This type of revealing information makes him so very human and the paintings then contain a certain depth when these secrets are revealed.

Comprehensive tour du force
A must-have for any student of Monet. Volumne I contains covers his biography proper, while volumes II-IV provide a COMPLETE record of the artist's body of work.

Wilderstein protrays Monet life for the most part as that of a debtor. However to his credit, he tempers the romantic "suffering artist" idealism with insight into Monet the creditor. By illustrating what a jackass the artist could also be, the author creates a deep and lively narrative.

Most of the personal insight into Monet come to us by way of coorespondance with Alice Hoeschede. Due to 'appearances' however she requested of Monet her letters be destroyed immediately and thus we're sadly left with a one-sided portrait of the man. While his artistic talents we're unparalled, it's his devotation to correspondance that allows Wildenstein to bring him back to life. Without giving away the ending, it's Monet's inability to write rather than paint that signals the end.

Outstanding book!!
I loved this book! The pictures were wonderful and the readings that went with them were as well. Learned many things that I did not know about his artwork. VERY informative...give it a try, it would make a great gift book!

Little substance, fair reproductions
Another book on the overblown impressionists. Little commentary and fair reproductions. A perfect book to put on your coffee table with your Renoir coasters. Souveneir book only. ... Read more