Amazon.com

Sol LeWitt "is to art as Bach was to music," says conceptual artist Adrian Piper, indicating LeWitt's seminal importance to both the theory and practice of contemporary art. LeWitt's creations are the direct embodiments of his theoretical writings, abstract principles that he develops with supreme integrity into physical form. Recognizing his key role in the minimalist and conceptual movements of the 1960s and '70s, New York's MoMA gave LeWitt a major retrospective in 1978. Sol LeWitt: A Retrospective and the accompanying exhibition organized by Gary Garrels of the San Francisco Museum of Modern bring us up-to-date.

During the '80s and '90s, LeWitt's work moved from a cerebral asceticism toward rich color and surfaces and a more explicit sensuality and expressiveness. Nearly 500 carefully chosen and well-reproduced photographs and drawings document this evolution. Together with a sampling of LeWitt's own pithy statements, lucid essays by seven of America's leading curators analyze his contributions to contemporary art. Typical of his methods and attitudes are his signature large-scale wall paintings, their sense of movement and bright bands of color making them among the most gorgeous of his works. While articulating the designs of the wall paintings and the concepts behind them, LeWitt does not paint them himself. He is generous in welcoming anyone else to give physical reality to his designs: "It would be a compliment," he says. Sol LeWitt is a beautiful and substantial book, and its range of illustration and depth of scholarship make it the definitive study of this highly influential artist. --John Stevenson ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Not just a coffee table book!
For those of you have seen the Sol LeWitt exhibits, this book captures many of those works and more. It offers background information and discussion.

However, this book goes beyond the exhibit installations and shows examples of installations around the world (outdoor structures, indoor wall murals, etc). These are things by an accomplished artist that are just not "out there" for you and I to view.

For those who don't know, Sol Lewitt is an amazingly talented and intelligent artist. Yes, intelligent. Almost autistic seeming at times, Sol Lewitt has a way of setting up circumstances for artistic study and then executing *every* *single* possibility as deemed by those circumstances. In one exhibit (shown in this book), Sol LeWitt examines and deconstructs all the possible forms of an open frame cube. In other examples (also in this book and at the exhibit) are line drawings examining the interaction of hundreds of overlapping circles emanating from various points on the canvas.

Much Sol Lewitt's work goes unnoticed (not much of a web presence, and hard to find posters, examples and pictures). This book helped fill in the gaps and offer a more rounded treatise of his work. Having owned it for months, it is still a pleasure to flip through this book and explore the concepts and discoveries that the artist has gone through. These discoveries are amazingly illustrated (few art books capture the entire series and the evolution of the artist like this one does).

I have enjoyed this book tremendously....it is a sizeable book that is worth the money and is well put together. Worth the purchase.

The Show Itself
I saw LeWitt's "Retrospective" show in Chicago and loved it.It's great that a book is offered of such a fabulous show that offers the diverse and evolving work of one of the best contemporary artists in the U.S. If the book is anything like the show, I highly recommend it as an enjoyable addition to anyone's collection of art books.

lewitt is rad
sol lewitt is my #1 favorite artist. i own many books of his work, and i must say that this is one of the most complete. its got everything. if you went to the sf moma and saw this exibition you wont be dissapointed by this book, it captures it the experience well. if you ever get the chance to see lewitts work in person, DO NOT MISS IT ! you will regret it ! in person these works are extremely powerful !

A Fine Catalogue of a Superb Exhibit
Sol LeWitt is an artist for whom the catalogue is both essential and apt. Because his conception and work mainly consists of a set of instructions that are then executed by other artists, the results can be displayed in many different places. While the literally enormous beauty of the wall paintings and drawings cannot be displayed in the book, that's not the point. The paintings and drawings themselves are temporary, to be whitewashed over when the exhibit 'moves' on. The catalogue provides the valuable service of capturing moments in time when the work was someplace, and brings that to the reader, along with excellent essays on the artist.

Beautiful but small
The great thing about Sol LeWitt is that his wall painting surround the observor overwhelming them is color, shapes, textures, and patterns. Any book of Sol LeWitt's paintings will be a letdown for this reason because they simply can't have the size of the real thing. Nevertheless, the photography is beautiful, and the book survey's his art quite well. ... Read more

Book Description

Chiura Obata was one of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans forcefully relocated in 1942 from their homes and communities to the stark barracks of desert internment camps. As an artist faithfully recording the world around him, Obatas work from this period gives us a view into the camps that is at once honest in the details of austerity and hardship, and strikingly lyrical in its portrayal of hope and beauty even in incarceration.

Topaz Moon presents more than 100 of Obatas sketches, sumi paintings, and watercolors from the internment period. Lovingly collected and edited by his granddaughter, Obatas work gives testament to his artistic genius and a spirit undefeated by adversity. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Great art and great social history
This is a wonderful book. I bought it for the artwork which is fresh, inventive, and very skillful but the social history is equally engrossing. The text is clearly written and generous with quotes.

At 8.25" square it's smaller than your average coffee table book, but the pages are rich with intelligence, beauty and invention.

Great for educating children about Executive Order 9066.
Most of the artwork are done in black ink on white paper. It makes for a stark and bleak testament to the difficulties faced and endured by the internees. The book is a great teaching tool for children and adults, not only to learn about the internment, but to study the artwork.

A compelling and fascinating work
Topaz Moon is a testament to the power of art, not simply as a mechanism for creating beauty, but also as a method of documenting history. Faced with the social disruption and indignity of relocation and internment in WWII, Professor Chiura Obata of the University of California at Berkeley chose to use his considerable artistic gifts to create what amounts to a visual diary of his internment experience. Seemingly hundreds of drawings, pen and ink paintings and watercolors (too many to count) document Professor Obata and his families experiences from the start of the war, through relocation to Tanforan, internment at Topaz, and beyond, in stark terms, quiet dignity and haunting beauty.

Unlike photography which can only memorialize the actual events of a moment, painting and sketching allows the artist to document his or her own emotional reaction to those events. Dorothea Lange, herself an admirer of Professor Obata, took photographs of the Tanforan relocation center, including Professor Obata's art classes, some of which are reproduced in Topaz Moon. However, compared to Professor Obata's own first hand sketches of the internment process, Lange's photos appear emotionless. This is because Professor Obata infuses his documentary sketches, which are remeniscent of Van Gogh's figural drawings, with the powerful emotional reactions he felt in witnessing scenes in which he too was a victim.

But Topaz Moon is a text which is more about creating community than casting blame. Kimi Kodani Hill, Professor Obata's granddaughter, has framed her grandfather's art with an insightful, succinct and compelling history of Professor Obata's life and the events of the time. The anectdotes relayed by Ms. Hill emphasize the support, assistance and sympathy given to the Obata's by their many freinds outside of the camps. I was struck by the fact the President of U.C. Berkeley, Robert Gordon Sproul, who himself was vocally opposed to the internment, personally rescued Professor Obata's life's work of art and stored that art in his official U.C. residence for the duration of the war.

While Topaz Moon is more than an art book, the art itself is more than merely documentary. Professor Obata's finished paintings and sumi-e works represent some of the best American artwork of the 20th Century. Works such as Moonlight Over Topaz (commissioned by Eleanor Roosevelt while Professor Obata was still interred), Hospital Topaz, and Silent Moonlight at Tanforan Relocation Center would stand out in any museum. In their own way, these images are every bit as beautiful as his earlier Yosemite woodblock prints.

I highly recommend this book. ... Read more

Amazon.com

David Bailey's name is synonymous with the Swinging Sixties, when fashion photography became big business, and the man behind the camera could become as famous as the celebrities who posed for him. And Bailey was the most famous--the East End boy who became best friends with the Beatles and the Stones, the husband of actress Catherine Deneuve, and lover of model Jean Shrimpton--chronicling them all in a series of unmistakable, unforgettable shots. David Bailey: Birth of the Cool delves into the photographer's archive and reproduces some of his earliest work (the 1959 wedding of a neighbor's daughter was one of his first professional gigs), previously unpublished documentary film stills, and the spectacular images of quintessential '60s mannequins Shrimpton and Penelope Tree introducing mod fashion to Vogue magazine readers. The result is a treasure-trove of images from one of the most exciting periods in the 20th century, when the cult of youth, fame, and glamour was worshipped and--in this case--most beautifully recorded. --Amazon.co.uk ... Read more

Reviews (8)

One of my favorite books documenting the sixties!!!
David Bailey was the hippest photographer during the sixties!! He took pictures of sooo many great icons. Anywhere from Models(Jean Shrimpton, Twiggy, Penelope Tree), Movie Stars(Peter Sellers, Catherine Deneuve, Micheal Caine, Terrence Stamp, Julie Christie), Bands(The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who), Designers and Artists...Mary Quant...Andy Warhol...even notorious gangsters..The Kray Twins!!!! Great Book!!! One of the coolest I own!!! Buy it!! If you're not sixties obsessed, you will be after flipping through this book!!! I'm not kidding.....

Goodbye Baby, and Amen
In this collection of greatest hits by Swinging London plankholder David Bailey, we get:

Celebrities of the time, including pop artists, pop intellectuals, TV presenters, English film stars, and the emerging British rock glitterati. Of these last Mick Jagger appears the most frequently, evolving from A Portrait Of A Famous Person Taken By David Bailey to the most notorious man in show business by the end of the decade. A close second is fading golden boy Brian Jones. Among the more conventional celebs are Terence Stamp, Michael Caine, and Peter Sellers. Stamp is so young and unformed here that it is hard to recognize him at first; Caine is reduced to a pipe & black frame glasses Everyman; and Sellers' portrait looks like a Roman bust.

Documentary pictures of potato-nosed East Enders, including plenty of studio portraits of crime bosses the Kray brothers. Bailey won their respect for having come from the East End himself and achieving success. But, one photo shows the Kray twins with Bailey sitting in between, visibly hoping not to get bumped off.

Lots of images of the original super-model, Jean Shrimpton, mostly from Vogue layouts but also plenty from other photo dates as well. There is also a generous helping of photographs of model Penelope Tree, whose face Bailey aptly described as "an Egyptian Jiminy Cricket." We also see lots of other perfectly turned out Vogue models.

There are some exotic shots of Nepal and some snaps from his military service in Singapore, but the focus is in the main on early Sixties London. Though the book is not arranged chronologically, one can see his technical development, as he incorporates other photographers' ideas like askew framing, daylight flash, and tent lighting. There is a color section, but gorgeously inky b/w is the star here. Many of the subjects have been shorn of the celebrity that no doubt added to their portraits' impact, but that's no barrier to enjoying this big collection.

The Look
Bailey birthed the look and this book is chock a block full of it. It's a visual feast with very littly written clutter. A pity that there just wasn't a bit more...

Trip Back in Time
If your'e looking for a book to take a trip back to the late 50's through the 60's this is a good way to get there. The fashion and ad shots of Jean Shrimpton and other models of that era are a kick. Anyone into nostalgia of those times will find this book interesting, David Bailey seemed to be ahead of his time in his style and his photos are thought provoking as well as great pieces of art. He had some great friends (male and female) that became his subjects. I wish there was a book #2 to follow--this book made me want to see more of his work!

Classic Mod Iconography from the Swinging Sixties
This exciting book combines portraits and fashion photography to show the revolution of casual coolness that David Bailey brought to both fields. Filled with classic poses of Jean Shrimpton, Penelope Tree, Catherine Deneuve, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones that you will remember, the book is strengthened by many images you have never seen before. Breaking the previous rules for portraits and fashion, Bailey takes us into a hip, exciting world that offers unlimited promise through "spontaneity of gesture."

David Bailey was the classic outsider, looking in. Born to a working class family in London's East End, no career could have been more unlikely. Being a rock musician was the most that young East Enders of that period could hope for. However, his background gave him a fresh perspective that brought originality and life to his work that we all enjoy. His career rose rapidly, being sought after by Vogue within a year of becoming a professional photographer. In fact, he was on contract to Vogue before meeting Jean Shrimpton, with whom he became so closely identified (both for their personal relationship and their work together).

Some of these innovations work better than others. For example, he loved to pose a group with each person tilting in a different plane and then to put the image on the diagonal. Those tend to work quite well. On the other hand, he also liked to cut off the tops of heads (like Alex Katz paintings), and those often make the portraits much less interesting than if you got the whole head. He loved grainy, black-and-white images. These can be a bit too grainy.

The essay by Martin Harrison is a helpful introduction to Bailey's work, and adds considerable value. I encourage you to read and study it in connection with the photographs.

The book contains scenes that Bailey shot of the East End, that heighten the contrast between his former life and his new one. You will also see his first professional work (a wedding) and his first published work (a Sunday Pictorial in 1960). Bailey rose to prominence very quickly, based both on his talent and his eye for the potential of then-unknown, 18-year-old model Jean Shrimpton, who was to become a fashion icon of the period.

Here are some of my favorite photographs in the book:

Jean Shrimpton (Town - 1963; Sunday Mirror - 1964; Queen - January 1964; Queen - February 12, 1964; Vogue - June 1965)

Catherine Deneuve (his later wife) (Brittany - 1966, Vogue - April 1, 1967)

Joy Weston (Sunday Pictorial - 1960)

Franco Zeffirelli (Vogue - 1961)

Scouts (London, 1960)

Sarah Miles (American Vogue - August 1, 1964)

Robert Shaw (Vogue - September 15, 1963)

Marianne Faithfull (September 1964)

Peter Ustinov (Vogue - December 1965)

Shirley MacLaine (Vogue - December 1965)

The Rolling Stones (September 1964)

Mick Jagger (Contact Sheet -- April 1968)

Sue Murray (Vogue - March 15, 1967 and September 1, 1967)

Raquel Welch (Goodbye Baby & Amen, June 1968)

Afer you have finished enjoying this exciting collection and insightful essay, I suggest that you ask yourself where unnecessary formalism is restraining progress in something you do. For example, some churchs still have such formal services that while many are reassured by the familiarity this provides, their hearts are not still touched by it. Having identified this stall, how can you break through to open the doors to informality that will be constructive? Asking people what they are missing from their experiences is a good place to start. Going back to my example of worship, perhaps worship is too much unlike daily life. How can we integrate the two so that we worship as we live?

Be cool! ... Read more

Book Description

The work of Antoni Tàpies offers a unique case of the artist-as-shaman--that is, the artist as an alchemist who is capable of discovering the nature of materials, transforming their substance, and bringing meaning to life. A self-taught painter, Tapies began his career in the lively and exciting period directly following World War II: in 1947 he founded, along with Joan Brossa, the journal ''Dau al Set,'' which championed Surrealist aesthetics. Drawing upon the latter, Tapies created a Spanish analogue to the so-called Abstract Expressionism of the New York School, combining the techniques and forms of "action painting" with his own deep sense of human pathos. As time went by, Tapies increasingly incorporated social themes into his work, achieving a rare and impassioned mix of experimental painting and politics. This new monograph surveys the artist's career from the late 1940s to the present day, selecting works that show the diversities and unities within the artist's consistently rewarding oeuvre. What we find is an artist who has always questioned and challenged our ways of seeing art and the world, and in the process, created true masterpieces. Hardcover, 11.5 x 12.5 inches, 352 pages, 150 color illustrations. ... Read more

Book Description

I See You, I See Myself, written for young adult readers, examines the early experiences and choices that led Jacob Lawrence to become an artist. In bold colors and precise language, the book describes how the break up of his parents, a period of foster care, reunification with his mother, brother, and sister in Harlem, and the influence of other adults in his community shaped the decisions Lawrence made about his art and his life. The hurdles that he faced -- moving, parent separation, and discrimination -- are ones that challenge many children today. I See You, I See Myself describes how the choices one makes in dealing with these challenges start to shape a personís life. It includes 65 color illustrations of Lawrenceís work, accompanied by photographs documenting his early experiences in the Harlem community.

Jacob Lawrence was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1917. Moving from there to Easton, Pennsylvania, and finally to Harlem in 1930, his family was part of the Great Migration of African Americans who relocated to the North from the South. Raised among the ìNew Negroesî -- the emerging African American writers, artists, and poets who were a manifestation of the Harlem Renaissance -- Lawrence was one of the first artists trained in and by the African American community in Harlem. At Utopia Childrenís House, a community daycare center, Lawrence received his earliest art instruction from Charles Alston, then a graduate student at Columbia University Teachers College. Lawrence continued to study with Alston throughout the 1930s at the WPA Harlem Art Workshop and at Alstonís studio. He encountered notable artists, writers, and activists, such as Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, William Aaron Douglas, Orson Wells, Alain Locke, Addison Bates, and Augusta Savage, who had a profound effect on his development as an artist. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

hot stuff!!!!!!!!!
this'll get you hotter than georgia asphalt!!!!!!!!! only problem is its kind of big and hard to hold with one hand.

For Chanel-cluless to Chanel-expert
(nermin8@yahoo.com) How to recall sectet life of the most influencal fashion Mademmoiselle of all times? For the first Chanel-biographyst it was a nightmare...So we should give a huge respect to evry new Chanel biography, and not just for this reason... Also this biography deserves great respect. Though, some questions aren't yet answered (they may never be), this colourful book, introduces us to some new detailes about the "Chanel cut" as well as Coco herself. Must read to any haute couture lover or dreamer... ... Read more

Reviews (4)

"the best way to love God is to love many things"
A very fine collection of the letters, with multiple sides of VVG revealed. To read a collection of letters by an artist whose work you know very well is to invite yourself to take a look at him as a person. As a person, I found that I liked him best in these letters when he was struggling with his religion, his art, and his purpose. I'm glad that Roskill didn't make a selection that focused solely on the more famous and theatrical depressions.

I don't agree that this work reveals Van Gogh as a writer. For me, they definitely confirmed his status as a painter. At his best in these letters, he's painting with words.

Which doesn't make it a less interesting read. I found this a good adjunct to taking a look at the work again, it added an extra dimension to experiencing him as a painter.

Well worth the time it takes.

An Intimate Look
I bought this book several years ago in a college bookstore. How fortunate these students were to have been able to read and discuss this with others! I have had a long interest in Van Gogh and found this book to be fascinating, an almost voyeuristic look into his short life. I am glad to see that it is available * * and would hope that people now seeing the traveling Van Gogh portraiture exhibit might read it.

De Leeuw has compiled letters covering over 25 years of Van Gogh's life, letters that offer the reader an intimate look into the artist's thoughts and emotions. He writes about his friendships, his family, his attempts at love affairs, his religious beliefs and questions, and most importantly, about his art. These letters reveal him as anything but the anti-social person often portrayed in the past, with the ones about his relationship with his brother Theo being particularly touching.

Van Gogh was a prolific correspondent and an absolutely wonderful writer. His prose is remarkable--he could have been a writer as well as an artist. These letters shed light on the inner thoughts and the inspiration for his art and show him as a person of great passion and compassion.

THIS BOOK SIMPLY INSPIRED ME IN MY ART PATH
This is probably the most terrific book I have ever read in my whole life. Before I bought this book I couldn't believe how Van Gogh 's life was so joined to his brother Theo and , after reading this book ,I realized how important could be in your life the presence of such an important person as a brother that support your life's choise as an artist or any other thing which needs strong support and stubborness to be archived. This told,the book offer Van Gogh's mail to Theo disclosing the whole process of Van Gogh artistic development from the early years when he was spending his lonely life ,to his relationship with Sien ,to the days of the great hope (Antwerp,Paris), to the total ruin in Arles and Sain Remi' in south of France. All those letter ends with a greeting from Van Gogh which I consider unique and that I want to borrow for my own: With a hand-shake your faithful Luca.

The Spirit of a Great Artist
While Vincent van Gogh has always been one of my favorite artists, this compilation of his letters combined with a more in-depth study of his work has intensified my appreciation of him as both an artist and a person. I've always felt it was impossible to separate this particular artist from his work and reading his letters has led me to a better understanding of why this is. These letters beautifully capture his soul and spirit and reveal him as the caring, expressive and socially aware person that he was. The combination of strength of character and vulnerability expressed in these letters explain both the intensity and sensitivity of his work. ... Read more

Book Description

The Snowflake Man is a biography of Wilson Alwyn Bentley, the farmer from Jericho, Vermont, who took more than five thousand photomicrographs of ice, dew, frost, and - especially - snow crystals. Although his photographs were taken between 1885 and 1931, they have never been equaled and are in great demand today.

Bentley's story is one of courage and persistence against tremendous odds. He taught himself how to photograph snow crystals through a microscope while still in his teens and then pursued his obsession for years before having the beauty and scientific value of his work recognized by others. The Snowflake Man lays open the life of a simple, self-educated, sensitive man who pursued natural beauty with microscope and camera for nearly fifty years. The book contains 30 black and white photographs. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Unique Education
This book, as is snowflakes, is very unique. Illustrations are fantastic and tell a story of their own!

Warmest possible treatment of a delightfully chilly subject
Author Blanchard brings humor, life, and compelling energy to an eccentric and an era previously hidden under a thick layer of (snow)dust. Bentley, generally considered an eccentric -- when considered at all -- was actually a dedicated scientist with an artist's eye and heart. What could have been dull scientific treatise actually reads with the smooth pull of a good novel. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

With her most recent commission, Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center, architect Zaha Hadid becomes the first woman ever to design an American museum.This long awaited frist monograph on one of the world's most important architects collects Hadid's entire oeuvre-more than 80 built and unbuilt projects over 20 years- in one significant volume.Throughout her training at London's Architectural Association, and her work with Rem Koolhaas at OMA, to the establisment of her own worldwide architectural practice, Zaha Hadid has been acclaimed for her vanguard architectonic language.Only a handful of her projects have been built-all to great critcal success- and each new project astonishes the world of design with its commitment to revolutionary forms and ideas.As a result, she has an enormous following of students and practitioners, visionaries and builders.The groundbreaking monograph contains Hadid's own striking drawings and paintings, as well as hundreds of sketches, plans, and models.Readers will recognize her built work-the Vitra Fire Station near Basel and the IBA Building in Berlin- and will welcome details of her competition entry for Chicago's ITT Building, and her winning design for the Cardiff Opera House.With generous commenary by the architect and her office, this is a landmark publication. ... Read more

Reviews (13)

Good Architecture? What am I looking at!
There is no doubt in my mind that Zaha Hadid is a great architect. Some of the spatial ideas presented in this book are quite appealing, but that's only about 10 or 12 of the pages. What is going on in all the other projects? How do I move through these spaces? The paintings and graphics are cool, but where's the building? Where's the structure? I see how the built stuff is standing, but what about the unbuilt? This is more a criticism of the book than Hadid, since I can't really tell what she's doing in the first place. A lot of this presentation reminds me of when I was in school and people would present a lot of flash and zippy graphics of very rich process, but their building would fall apart with the first step inside the front door (if you could find it in the first place.) I originally got this book to study how to make this dynamic type of architecture work in the real world, but it doesn't take me much further than I was already. If you are very interested in this sort of architecture, don't stop with this book. Check out Frank Gehry: Complete works and anything else with CONSTRUCTION drawings in it, along with the process and the prettys. What makes good designers great is how they make the idea real and workable. I wish I could have seen more of Hadid's solutions better in this book.

If you want to just deal with graphics and ideas, Hollywood might have a place for you.

Tired and Dated Theories
Some 20 years after she won the Hong Kong Peak Competition, Hadid is still churning out the seductive but unresolved jaggedness that characterizes her work. Unlike more mature artists who's work ripens after they have executed and learned from a few built commissions, Hadid remains stuck in the same, now jaded and predictable rut. Not least, she has never developed as a skilled practitioner. Sticking with the diagrammatic approach to design, Hadid's buildings have the look of cheap, temporary structures, lacking depth or quality of detailing. They lack the sophistication of more capable architects (Foster or Rogers, for example), who understand and appreciate assembly and materials. Hadid's "work" is more about computer graphics than any important architectural concerns. It has the flash sensibility of a catchy pop-tune - the sort of music that gets irritating very quickly because it lacks substance. And lacking substance, it's principal appeal is to the unsophisticated viewer.

Disappointing
It must be said that Hadid's office staff are capable graphic artists, but it would be very wrong to make the assumption that these slick images lead to architecture. As her Cinicinatti art center shows, Hadid's built work is typically very unsatisfying. She has not grasped scale or contextual issues at all, largely due to her working in an abstract, purely graphic mode. The Vitra Building likewise is no longer used because it fails so badly as a building. If you are interested in real architectural issues, this book is not the place to start.

All Flash, No Substance
Hadid was one of those breakthrough architects who achieved early recognition merely for being different. (It is very easy to be different; it is difficult to be good.) Her work has always been insubstantial, little more than crudely assembled buildings that look more like full-size mock-ups than real architecture. Clouding herself in a quasi-intellectual mystique, she has found favor among impressionable youth, but garners little integrity or respect from serious professionals. If you like flash, go ahead, spend your money. But look elsewhere for decent architectural study. Hadid is more about gimmick than anything else

Exceptional!
This is a fantastic compilation of Hadid's work. It's more comprehensive than the El Croquis, although there is no long interview. There is adequate text for each project, however.

If you like her work, or are interested in contemporary architecture, I highly recommend it. It's fairly inexpensive and catalogues her exceptional work. ... Read more

Book Description

When I think of my beloved friend, the five words I think of are these: elegant, fashionable, generous, supportive, decent. I thank you, Halston.
-- Liza Minnelli

No American designer since Claire McCardell has had such an impact on redefining fashion as Halston. His designs have experienced a tremendous revival and are as popular today as they were when he was alive. This is the first extensive look at Halston and his contributions to the fashion world, starting with his days as a milliner; through the explosion of his clothing lines and licensing deals, to the sale of his name and trademark and his theatrical designs for Liza Minnelli and the Martha Graham Dance Company.

This comprehensive survey of Halston's work is based on exclusive interviews with the people who knew and worked with Halston throughout his turbulent career. They include such celebrity Halston fans as Liza Minnelli, Katherine Graham,and Angelica Huston as well as industry insiders such as Marc Bohan, Stan Herman, Valerie Steele, and contemporary designers who claim Halston as an inspiration for their designs. Joe Eula and Kenneth Paul Block contribute their original sketches, as do manyy well-known fashion photographers.

With more than two hundred photographs Halston: An American Originalis the quintessential volume for all fans of Halston and lovers of fashion.

Reviews (6)

EYE CANDY!!!
Photographs are worth the price of the book alone! I haven't had a chance to read any of the text yet, but there's a lot of it, and a lot of STUNNING PHOTOGRAPHS! THE BEST PHOTO HISTORY OF HALSTON I'VE EVER SEEN. MANY THANKS TO THE AUTHORS FOR THIS WONDERFUL BOOK AND LABOR OF LOVE! LOTS OF HUGE, COLOR, AND RARE PHOTOS. THANKS!

Halston: An American Original
A tasteful book that focuses on Halston's unique talent. He really was "An American Original."

a great salute to a great designer!
If you like fashion..you'll love this book. I have to agree with June Weir,former fashion editor of Vogue and Harpers,its a wonderful book that covers the designer's rise to success in great detail. The photos were exceptional!

Nice Cover - Leave Shrinkwrap On
Roy Frowick Halston is rolling over in his grave faster than he ever did at Studio 54. The sorry accumulation of texts and stilted design make this a disappointment for Halston fans.

Does it address the body of work? No. We have had stupid anecdotal accounts galore, but this is a shame-faced attempt to be - WHAT? Coffee table tome? It cannot be. Too ugly. Some quality assessment of his millieu? Not a thing. Who are all of these parties involved? Embarrassing. Do not waste your money.

ANOTHER MEDIOCRE BOOK ON A FASHION DESIGNER
THIS IS JUST ANOTHER UNDERWHELMING BIO on a Fashion Designer...Considering how important he was, the book is poorly edited, and cheaply done. It is well-researched though, but this hardly gives the reader a feeling for how this man changed the way women dress...I FELL ASLEEP! ... Read more

Book Description

Only 22 when he lost his life on assignment in Somalia, photojournalist Dan Eldon left behind much more than the journals that became the basis for Chronicle's best-seller The Journey Is the Destination. He left a lifetime of adventures that continue to inspire. Raised in Kenya, he took numerous expeditions across Africa that helped him to understand and love the continent.Through his safaris and benevolent crusades--and with interludes of study and work in the US and London, and trips around the world--he crafted a philosophy of curiosity, creativity, adventure, and charity. Intensely visual, like the life it describes, Dan Eldon: The Art of Life is more than a biography. It is an exploration of one man's will to take in everything life has to offer; an example of a life lived for art, and art experienced as life ... Read more

Reviews (10)

good
It's a shame Kathy(his mother) never wrote this book.
By far the most imtimate and well written part of this book was the last chapter that Kathy Eldon wrote.
Obviously Jennifer New loves Dan's life like we all do but unfortuneatly she never met him and that glaringly stands out in the biography. There is way too much creative license here,the fact he is raised to almost sainthood can be squeemish at times.Jennifer's writing leaves a lot to be desired, but through the clumsy writing you can't helped but be inspired by the life of Dan Eldon.
Dan is amazing!! His photos say more about him than any bunch of words can. 'The Journey is the destination" is a must have book!!
Flip through that and I guarentee your life will be changed forever!

Dan Eldon is a Lantern
In order to get the most out of this book, check out Dan Eldon's book of collage, "The Journey is the Destination," first. Look through it over and over again. Each time, you'll find something new. The book has a life of its own and illuminates the importance of existence. Each of our lives represents a cross section of eternity. This book proves that by underscoring the immense value of human potential.

Not only did Dan Eldon live, but he recorded the gestures and issues of his blazing life. His perseverance is inspiring and reinforces the importance of taking action. Jennifer New's book, "The Art of Life," tells the story behind the images in "The Journey is the Destination." Discovering these stories after years of attempting to decipher Dan's journals was spectacular...

Absolutely amazing
I purchased both The Journey is the Destination and The Art of Life on the same day. Over the next two days, I rotated the books as I couldn't decide on which one to read first. Jennifer obviously dove deeply into Dan's life. The stories that are told from memories collected from Dan's closest friends and his family are engaging. There is no doubt that Dan left a mark on everyone he met. Even more incredible is that he continues to leave his mark on the lives of those who meet him through these books. His death may have been premature but he certainly didn't waste the short amount of time that he was given. He certainly deserves to be known as one of the twentieth centuries heroes.

My goodness
The books is amazing. I was doing an internet search and happened to come across Dan Eldon's web site. After which I saw his journals and then purchased this book. Gosh, I left so inspired. I recommend this to any person that is ever in doubt on where they should be heading in life. Great transition book.

For those who thought passion was a thing of the past...
Sometimes in life, we come across somebody who resembles in us everything we love, or envy, or just understand. Well, while reading "The Art of Life", a story about the travels of the young and corageous Dan Eldon, I stumbled upon all of these emotions and more. The book, a collaboration of work about Dan's travels, views, and passions, written by jennifer New and Kathy Eldon, is sure to spark a fire in each who reads it. This book is filled with more energy and spirit then I think I have ever possesed in all my years of being. Filled with colorful photographs and intelligent words, this story has been like a symphony to my weary eyes. After reading "The Journey is the Destination: The Journals of Dan Eldon" (the first book published about Dan's miraculous travels and premature demise), I thought to myslef, "nothing could possibly be more beautiful or enchanting than this." I was proven wrong as soon as my hands glided over the pages of "The Art of Life". It has been wonderful to read while sitting outside in a park on a warm afternoon, as well as inside on a rainy day when you feel all hope is lost. It has been a glorious gift, reminding me that all which stands around us is something to celebrate. My only hope is that others, even if it is one small being, find this book....it will open up a genuine desire for life in you, that is sure to last for as long as you stand beneath the blue sky which hangs above. ... Read more

Book Description

This beautifully illustrated volume is a comprehensive look into the life and talent of a classical sculptor whose passion for the spiritual and figurative aspects of art are represented in both his public comissions and private work. ... Read more

Book Description

When Mikhail Baryshnikov defected in Toronto in 1974, he admitted that he knew only three things about Canada: It had great hockey teams, a lot of wheatfields, and Glenn Gould. In Wondrous Strange, Kevin Bazzana vividly recaptures the life of Glenn Gould, one of the most celebrated pianists of our time. Drawing on twenty years of intensive research, including unrestricted access to Gould's private papers and interviews with scores of friends and colleagues, many of them never interviewed before, Bazzana sheds new light on such topics as Gould's family history, his secretive sexual life, and the mysterious problems that afflicted his hands in his later years. The author places Gould's distinctive traits--his eccentric interpretations, his garish onstage demeanor, his resistance to convention--against the backdrop of his religious, upper middle-class Canadian childhood, illuminating the influence of Gould's mother as well as the lasting impact of the only piano teacher Gould ever had. Bazzana offers a fresh appreciation of Gould's concert career--his high-profile but illness-plagued international tours, his adventurous work for Canadian music festivals, his musical and legal problems with Steinway & Sons. In 1964, Gould made the extraordinary decision to perform only for records, radio, television, and film, a turning point that the author examines with unprecedented thoroughness (discussing, for example, his far-seeing interest in new recording technology). Here, too, are Gould's interests away from the piano, from his ambitious but failed effort to be a composer to his innovative brand of "contrapuntal radio." Richly illustrated with rare photographs, Wondrous Strange is a superbly written account of one of the most memorable and accomplished musicians of our times. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

The Title says it all
His music was wondrous, beautiful, and moving. His behaviour was very strange, off and on stage.
He hated performing, once turning down a million-dollar fee for a recital, but he did perform in his early years; they were bizarre, sometimes difficult to watch, but so wonderful to hear.
One the many stories Bazzana relates is of Gould's first Russian concert. The auditorium was only a third full, but at intermission, concertgoers hurriedly called their friends telling them of the incredible performance. There was a small riot for tickets for the second half of the show.
Later in his career he turned exclusive to the recording studio; bringing us some of the best selling and rarely played classical pieces ever produced.
Kevin Bazzana gives us an in-depth, very personal look at the genius that was Glenn Gould.
The Thursday File

Extraordinary Bio...Very Accessible, Very Intelligent...
I've been perusing this book every chance I get at Borders. I can't wait to buy it! This has got to be hands-down the best bio on Gould you can read. And it is remarkably accessible. I'm no musician so hate it when writers go off on tangents describing a certain "contrapuntal line in 3/10 time over a 2/8...etc, etc", but this book is nothing of the kind. Anyone can come to it and enjoy it for what it is -- a candid, in-depth, and intelligent portrait of a genius. Also, full of revealing photographs. A must-buy for any music-lover, Classical or not, doesn't matter. Gould is indispensable and I agree with the author when he talks about a "cult of personality" surrounding Gould, a cult that approaches a "James Dean, Elvis Presley" stature. Believe it!

AN ENIGMATIC GENIUS
Born in 1932 in Toronto, Ontario, Glenn Gould is surely one of the most enigmatic and celebrated musicians of our time. According to biographer Kevin Bazzana, it's almost as if Gould's gifts were too many for one man to pursue.

Bazzana has spent some two decades studying his elusive subject. Given free rein to explore Gould's papers and granted interviews by any number of the artist's friends and colleagues who were once reluctant to speak, the author is able to shed light on many questions that have piqued the interest of Gould fans. We are privy to much of his family history (the original family name was Gold), and the health problems that plagued him.

Precocious? Yes, indeed. Readers learn that at the estimable age of 3 his talents were obvious. Perfect pitch was but one of them. As a child he was publicly performing on both piano and organ. His musical education was completed in Canada, and although known throughout Canada he did not make his American debut until 1955. His programs were unorthodox and his behavior on stage often very odd. To say Gould was an iconoclast is an understatement, but such a talented one. He was also an industrious writer, and later in life began conducting.

It was in 1964 that Gould deserted the concert stage to perform solely for records, radio, television, and film. His last recording was made in 1982, the year that he died.

Like some before him Gould's fame has grown since his death. Today many visit Toronto, paying their respects to a man who is arguably one of the greatest contemporary musicians.

- Gail Cooke

An Enigmatic Genius, Understood a Lot Better
Among the classical musicians of the twentieth century, there was none with as eager a fan base as Glenn Gould. The fans have not diminished in number since Gould's death at age fifty in 1982. Gould was a consummate musician who brought light to neglected but important works, but he was also an oddball who adored the Mary Tyler Moore Show, (...), popped dozens of pills every day to help him over imaginary illnesses, and refused to come out of self-imposed isolation to play a recital for a million-dollar fee. There has been an authorized biography of Gould before, but now _Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould_ (Oxford University Press) by Kevin Bazzana must be the one for all fans to have. Bazzana is the editor of nothing less than GlennGould magazine, and has written a previous book about Gould's musicianship. He brings helpful light on such topics as the influence of Gould's one piano teacher and his love of Canada and his home town Toronto. He is especially helpful in illuminating Gould's early life.

Gould's parents were conservative, strict Protestants who stressed propriety as he was growing up in Toronto's Beach district. They had to make sure he did not practice too much (not too little, like most parents of young musicians) and learned that the strictest punishment they ever needed to enforce was locking up the piano. He remained close to them all his life, only moving out of their home when his parents were elderly in 1959. He knew he was going to be a classical pianist from age around five. He loved his neighborhood and the people who knew he was freakish or famous, but treated him as if he were just an unusual guy. He hated performing and touring. Even so, his performances were regarded by many as high points in their lives as listeners. Among the many stories told here is that of his first Russian concert, in Moscow. The auditorium was only a third full, but at intermission, concertgoers hurriedly called their friends to tell them what was going on. There was a small riot for tickets for the second half of the show.

It was the recording studio to which he was devoted and to which he retired from his hated performing. His premiere recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations in 1955 brought to attention a piece that had only rarely been performed or recorded before, being thought too difficult and rarefied. The recording was a sensation, and remains one of the bestselling classical discs of all time. (It ought to be; there is no better join of dazzling technique, speedy fingers, and loving intimacy with the music.) He liked working with the technicians who helped record his performances, and had good humor in the sessions, but it was him in front of the microphone, in the isolation he preferred; he wrote, "Isolation is the one sure way to human happiness." Bazzana relishes the multiple enigmas that Gould presents, and this one is surely key: Gould isolated himself right into millions of homes, where it was obvious he communicated something important. Today, worshipful listeners, some of whom were not alive when he was, make pilgrimages to see his home sites, and his rickety old chair which he used whenever he played. He said that the purpose of art is "... the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity." If that is the purpose of art, he would have admired this graceful, readable, big biography that underscores the full complexity of a monumentally enigmatic artist.

A well balanced, definitive biography
After having started his career with meticulous analyses of Glenn Gould's musical interpretations, Bazzana immersed himself in all available resources to write the oracle of Toronto's definitive biography. After the previous biographies by Friedrich and Ostwald and all the articles that have appeared on Gould, much of the material in this book has limited novelty value, yet thanks to the depth of the writer's research, the detailed context he provides of the environment in which the young pianist grew up, and the balanced view of Gould the man and the performer, this biography deserves the "definitive" stamp.

Starting the book with the flight that Gould's fame has taken after his death and the almost pathological admiration among some of the fans, Bazzana puts down the fundament for this biography by detailing the political and social climate of Toronto in the late 1930s. He really does a great job in bringing the sheltered surroundings in which Gould grew up to life, shatters myths over his heritage and does not play up the friction in the relationship between Glenn and his father that others have explored.

Gould was both a "high tech" performer/recording artist and a true romantic. Bazzana delves into this dichotomy by analyzing Glenn's admiration for the odd couple Schoenberg / Richard Strauss. He hits a lot of right notes here, as he does later in unflattering, yet fair analysis of Gould's best known composition, the string quartet opus one, which was clearly influenced by Arnold and Richard.

With an intermission chapter of Gould the man, this book follows the world's most articulate keyboard player throughout his career until his untimely death. A great strength of the book is its balanced treatment of the "hero". Both fans and critics get their say, and many details of eccentricities that have so much been the focus of previous publications are either put in proper context or just completely debunked.

Even almost 22 years after his death Gould is still among his labels best selling artists and has become the most important pianist of the twentieth century. This book shows that this success was based on a lot of method and very little madness.

A must for everyone interested in a visionary artist. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Van Day Truex was born in Kansas, the artistically inclined son of a stern and intolerant shop manager. After the seemingly obligatory stint living with a sympathetic and worldly aunt in Wisconsin, he escaped to New York City and design school (quite against his parents' wishes), turning in a stellar performance at the institution that would become Parsons School of Design and immediately earning the notoriously hard-won approval of none other than Frank Alvah Parsons. Several hundred society introductions, garden parties, and black-and-white balls later, Truex found himself at the center of the international elite, one of the social register's most sought-after interior designers--not to mention one of the most prized dinner guests in New York and on the Riviera.

As an enormously popular instructor at Parsons, and the school's president from 1942 to 1952, Truex influenced American interior design far beyond the rarefied circles of his friends and clients--Brooke Astor, Lady Mendl, Grace Bingham, and the like. And as director of design at Tiffany & Co. from 1955 to 1962, arguably the store's heyday, Truex indeed had a hand in defining upper-class taste--he called it "design judgment"--or at least what went into the place settings on the dining tables of the very wealthy. Many of the designs Truex commissioned and developed for Tiffany's are still sold today as classics of the brand: the all-over wild strawberry china pattern, for example.

Adam Lewis's illustrated biography is not particularly vivid, and details of Truex's work and design philosophy are scant compared to the exhaustive (and exhausting) descriptions of the charming, urbane decorator's endless social engagements. One must remember, though, that Lewis is writing about the man whose preferred color came to be known as "Truex beige." Perhaps the designer himself would have approved of the stilted style of Lewis's prose, but for those not instantly enchanted by minor high-society and interior-design intrigue, the book's studied humorlessness will make for dull reading. --Liana Fredley ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Completes a significant gap in American design history
Lewis has obviously unearthed a treasure trove of very important material in the form of Truex' scrapbooks bringing to light an amazing tapestry of relationships bridging the worlds of fashion, product design, interior design, design education, and various cultural elites. It's refreshing to read a biography that is illustrated with the subject's own snapshots, original works, and previously published material that has been long unavailable. Parsons School of Design itself celebrated a centennial not long ago giving Truex no more than a few lines in its retelling of its story--the author has filled in a gaping hole in American design history for Parsons as well as Tiffany and Co.

Contrary to another reader review, I am relieved not to be subjected to the "spice" that is strewn over so many other biographies. Lewis gives us as much personal information as is appropriate to the subject. This will be a requisite acquisition for many libraries, circulating and otherwise, I think.

Is That All There Is?
Lewis is to be commended for his valiant attempt at constructing a biography about one of the 20th century's most invisible design talents. Truex had a minor influence on a certain coterie of designers and products that never reached very far beyond 57th and Fifth. His circle was rich, cultured and insular, therefore preventing him from gaining a kind of commercial notoriety that some of his peers were able to. Yet we still reap the fruits of his efforts to this day, with some of most lovely flatware,china and objets Tiffany's has to offer. What is most curious about Truex as a subject, is that perhaps he should have been a chapter in another book. He just wasn't that compelling (except for his fastidious neatness and controlled eating habits). Not to minimize the amount of work it must have been for Lewis to assemble all of this vaguely interesting material. I just wanted to know a little bit more about his personal life. Just a tiny bit more gossip might have been like a dash of paprika! ... Read more

Book Description

Novelist and essayist Hilary Masters recreates a moment in 1940s Pittsburgh when circumstances, ideology, and a passion for the arts collided to produce a masterpiece in another part of the world.

E. J. Kaufmann, the so-called "merchant prince" who commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, was a man whose hunger for beauty included women as well as architecture.

He had transformed his family's department store into an art deco showcase with murals by Boardman Robinson and now sought to beautify the walls of the YM&WHA of which he was the president. Through his son E. J. Kaufmann, jr (the son preferred the lowercase usage), he met Juan O'Gorman, a rising star in the Mexican pantheon of muralists dominated by Diego Rivera, O'Gorman's friend and mentor.

O'Gorman and his American wife spent nearly six months in Pittsburgh at Kaufmann's invitation while the artist researched the city's history and made elaborate cartoons for the dozen panels of the proposed mural. Like Rivera, O'Gorman was an ardent Marxist whose views of society were radically different from those of his host, not to mention the giants of Pittsburgh's industrial empire-Carnegie, Frick, and Mellon. The murals were never painted, but why did Kaufmann commission O'Gorman in the first place? Was it only a misunderstanding?

In the discursive manner for which his fiction and essays are noted, Masters pulls together the skeins of world events, the politics of art patronage, and the eccentric personalities and cruel histories of the period into a pattern that also includes the figures of O'Gorman and his wife Helen, and Kaufmann, his wife Liliane, and their son. Masters traces the story through its many twists and turns to its surprising ending:E. J. Kaufmann's failure to put beautiful pictures on the walls of the Y in Pittsburgh resulted in Juan O'Gorman's creation of a twentieth-century masterpiece on a wall in the town of Pátzcuaro, Mexico. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A wonderful voice behind the paintings
How many great painters have been eloquent on their work or methods, or, for that matter, on art or culture in general?In recent times, only Ad Reinhardt compares with Agnes Martin, who has that rarest of gifts among the non-literary, a voice.In a series of articles, some of which were apparently talks given to art students, she delves into consciousness, creativity, judgment, personal development, self-assurance, transcendence, meaning, value.She takes on the big subjects with language that is gloriously unpretentious in a style epigrammatic and occasionally poetic.

Visiting an exhibition of her pencil-grid paintings a few years ago, I experienced the transformative power of her paradoxically simple physical means to create shimmering, magical spaces.The staying power of that work has inclined me to believethat she's one of the greatest painters of the second half of the twentieth century. This book of her writings is a delightful enhancement to that discovery.

Quiet and Quite...
...lovely and profound.

Martin's work here and on the canvas is deceptively simple. Not really about silence but about the possibility of grace and knowledge within.

This book recommended for all artists and lovers of art, life, and silence. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Excellent Book About Artists in America
This is a collection of essays about the private lives of important American authors and artists. Cohen's essays are based almost entirely on secondary works and begin with 19th Century authors and artists and then continue on through the 20th Century.
These essays are written in such a way that you get a feel for the kind of folks that these artistic types actually were. The reader learns all sorts of interesting things about these people such as their vices, lusts and secret desires.

This is an excellent book about the history of artistic endeavor in America.

Relax and Set Sail on Artistic Adventures with a Noble Cast
Rachel Cohen has created a diversion in A CHANCE MEETING: INTERTWINED LIVES OF AMERICAN ARTISTS, 1854 - 1967 that is more a series of illuminated daydreams than it is a sourcebook for biographical data on the important artists in American over a century spanning 1860s through 1960s. No, this is not a code of secretive encounters between unlikely and disparate writers, photograpahers, and artists, nor is it a professed series of inside stories meant to reveal the truths about those we deem as gifted. Cohen writes splendidly, and though she documents with copious bibliography and chapter notes the instances she encountered in her survey of 'chance meetings ' by a diversity of disparate artists, she seems more intent on using fact as springboard to create cadenzas of intricately woven possibilities to stimulate the reader to enter the wonderful world of 'what if?' than in declaring new-found discoveries of data/gossip.

Here in short and terse chapters we meet Matthew Brady, Walt Whitman, Henry James, Marcel Duchamp, Langston Hughes, Hart Crane, Mark Twain, Willa Cather, Alfred Steiglitz with and without Georgia O'Keefe, Charlie Chaplin, Richard Avedon, Gertrude Stein with and without Alice B. Toklas, etc., etc. - you get the picture. The joy of Cohen's writing is the possibilities created by perseverating on the conversations that might have occurred among these people, whether in duet or in orchestrated outcome. My bet is that if the casts of characters here discussed were to read these informative and provocative pages, they doubtless would smile, swoon, curse, or laugh, but in some way react to the vision and imagination of Rachel Cohen. This is a delightful book for devout readers and lovers of artistic history. There is so much to learn about artists who even today are on the periphery as well as the giants we all 'think' we know! This wonderful book is for relaxation and diversion and the rewards are many.

William Dean Howells liked blueberry cake
A CHANCE MEETING, divided into into 36 short chapters, contains stories of the relationships between noted writers and artists from just before the Civil War to the late 1960s. Most of the chapters are framed around a single meeting, but contain digressions which sometimes encompass other famous figures.
What are we to make of this unique, celebratory, and quite often infuriating work? Each chapter is backed up by Rachel Cohen's source notes, detailing the basis for the events and behavior described. Yet, throughout the book there's a curiously speculative tone, Cohen describes many of her beloved figures as "maybe" doing or thinking this or that. In the opening chapter, Henry James (then a young boy) is described as feeling a "persistent uneasiness" while eating ice cream after having his portrait taken by Matthew Brady. Cohen notes this episode is invented, but then one must ask, "Why is this important?" Surely a book very much like this could have been written without such flights of fancy?

Indeed, several chapters fail to coalesce at all. In a chapter on Willa Cather and Sarah Orne Jewett, Cohen asserts that the fact Cather did NOT meet Henry James changed the artistic direction of her career. How can this be proven? In most of these vignettes, no direct suggestion is made of how the characters influenced each other. Cohen is edging away from history and criticism and dangerously close to short fiction here. The book picks up in the last third, with some gossipy stuff about Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop and a funny scene of Marianne Moore and Muhammad Ali together, but the whole thing is much too ephemeral. The photographer Richard Avedon provided several photos - he's thanked in the acknowledgements - but did he deserve to be included in the title of several chapters? It's not as if the people he photographed (Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, for example) hadn't met before.
A suggestion: read some of the books Cohen sites in her bibliography instead of A CHANCE MEETING.

Comfort Reading
What an exhilierating experience! I savored these 36 essays over a few weeks, reading only a handful a night before I went to bed. The book is just beautiful; there is no other word to describe the writing, tone, and voice of Rachel Cohen's book.

A Chance Meeting : Intertwined Lives of American Writers and
Cohen, who teaches in the Sarah Lawrence nonfiction M.F.A. program, won the 2003 PEN/Jerard Fund Award for emerging women nonfiction writers for the manuscript of this book. Entertaining and accessible, A Chan