Best of
Art-History

1972

History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present


Beaumont Newhall - 1972
    No other book has managed to relate the aesthetic evolution and technical innovations of photography with such an absorbing combination of clarity, scholarship and enthusiasm.

Treasures of Tutankhamun


Katherine Stoddert Gilbert - 1972
    ForewordThe Discovery of Tutankhamun's TombTutankhamun & His WorldColor PlatesCatalogueBibliography

Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972


Lucy R. Lippard - 1972
    Lippard documents the chaotic network of ideas that has been labeled conceptual art. The book is arranged as an annotated chronology into which is woven a rich collection of original documents—including texts by and taped discussions among and with the artists involved and by Lippard, who has also provided a new preface for this edition. The result is a book with the character of a lively contemporary forum that offers an invaluable record of the thinking of the artists—a historical survey and essential reference book for the period.

The Complete Engravings, Etchings & Drypoints of Albrecht Dürer


Albrecht Dürer - 1972
    Among them are his most famous works, Knight, Death and Devil; Melencolia I; and St. Jerome in His Study. Also included are portraits of his contemporaries, including Erasmus of Rotterdam and Frederick the Wise, as well as six engravings formerly attributed to Dürer.

Magritte


René Magritte - 1972
    At least, that is, in the world of Magritte. And who wouldn't want to believe in that world, or at least take pleasure in the ability to recognize parts of it in our own? One of the most charming and beloved of the surrealists, Rena Magritte took a light, witty paintbrush and created a world both familiar and not--but always recognizable in our dreams. His plays on semiotics, identity, the idea of woman, the possibilities inherent in objects, and the idea that everything was not necessarily what it seemed--or what it was supposed to be--are celebrated here in an intelligent retrospective monograph, featuring more than 150 paintings, sculptures, objects, and works on paper. The organization of this catalogue paints Magritte as an innovator, and an artist who has had significant influence on contemporary creators. Accompanying essays, including an introduction by Alain Robbe-Grillet, inventor of the nouveau roman, consider Magritte's influence on modern and contemporary art. Magritte's relationships with his surrealist contemporaries Louis Scutenaire and Andra Breton, and the art dealers Edward James and Alexandre Iolas, are each revealed through individual art historical texts and a selection of unpublished letters. An illustrated chronology is included as well. This catalogue is published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris.

Posada's Popular Mexican Prints


José Posada - 1972
    For over forty years he worked tirelessly as an incorruptible and truly popular artist, illustrating cookbooks and fortune-telling books, collections of songs and riddles, periodicals and newspapers, children's books and novels, and most of all famous broadsides that were distributed throughout the country. After his death he was venerated by the artists of the new generation — Rivera, Orozco, and many others, who realized that he had both saved and renewed the art of engraving in Mexico, and incorporated much of Posada's imagery into their own work.Here are close to 300 of Posada's best engravings, all done for the printer and publisher A. Vanegas Arroyo in Mexico City. Posada worked in two techniques — engraving on type metal with a many-pointed burin and, later, relief etching on zinc. The broadsides he illustrated commemorated all sorts of occasions — disasters, political events, crimes, and miracles — or they glorified great popular heroes like Zapata. Posada was known for his calaveras — skeletons that cavorted, ate and drank, rode bicycles and horses, wielded swords and daggers, or were revolutionaries, streetcleaners, dishwashers, and almost everything else. This was traditional art for All Souls' Day, the Mexican Day of the Dead, but in Posada's hands it became extremely versatile, sometimes an instrument of social and political satire, sometimes a sympathetic portrait of a revolutionary, sometimes a comic, cartoon-like memento mori. He did engravings of murders, suicides, catastrophes, robberies, and executions, as well as of snake-men, giant snails, and other grotesques and deformation. He pictured the daily pleasures and chagrins of the people from a proletarian point of view, and with overflowing imaginativeness. There is brutality and horror in his art, but there is also humor, political consciousness, and a sprawling, immediate vitality.This edition includes explanatory notes and commentary, often giving precise topical meaning to what otherwise appears vague or allegorical. It presents all of Posada's various themes, and all of the many forms in which he worked in his maturity. It is hoped that through it he will gain the wider audience, especially in America, that he deserves.

Other Criteria: Confrontations with Twentieth-Century Art


Leo Steinberg - 1972
    The latter, which Francine du Plessix Gray called “a tour de force of critical method,” is widely regarded as the most eye-opening analysis of the Johns’s work ever written. This edition includes a new preface and a handful of additional illustrations.“The art book of the year, if not of the decade and possibly of the century. . . .The significance of this volume lies not so much in the quality of its insights—although the quality is very high and the insights are important—as in the richness, precision, and elegance of its style. . . . A meeting with the mind of Leo Steinberg is one of the most enlightening experiences that contemporary criticism affords.”

Outsider Art


Roger Cardinal - 1972
    Text by Roger Cardinal includes essays on cultural conditioning, madness and art, Dubuffet and Art Brut, authenticity and originality, along with individuals such as Adolf Wölfli, Simon Rodia, Guillaume, Joseph Crépin, Madge Gill, The Abbé Fouéré, and 23 others. Includes detailed bibliography and index.

Arp on Arp


Jean Arp - 1972
    

Norman Rockwell: 60 Year Retrospective


Thomas S. Buechner - 1972
    Norman Rockwell traces the evolution of the artist and his craft through his paintings, sketches, and photographs of him at home. And, of course, there is the artwork itself; the diverse array of full-color reproductions here represent Americans at work, at play, at home, and fighting for the Four Freedoms during World War II.

The Most Of John Held, Jr


John Held Jr. - 1972
    

Varieties Of Visual Experience; Art As Image And Idea


Edmund Burke Feldman - 1972
    Discusses the functions, styles, structure, and themes of art, and describes the problems of art criticism.

A Sense of Place: The Artist And The American Land


Alan Gussow - 1972
    Award-winning artist Alan Gussow presents a powerful collection of paintings that range from the earliest depiction of America by a European (John White's "Indians Fishing," c.1585), to contemporary masterpieces such as Reuben Tam's "White Sea."For each picture -- works by Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, George Innes, Georgia O'Keeffe, Anne Poor, Albert Bierstadt, Wolf Kahn, and many others -- the author provides a selection of the artist's own words that describe the painting and the scene that inspired it, along with a brief introduction to the artist and his or her work. An introduction by National Book Award and Pulitzer prize winning poet Richard Wilbur explores the complex relationship between artist and land, while a new preface by Gussow discusses the history and enduring importance of the book.Island Press/Shearwater Books is proud to bring forth a new edition of this stunning, long out-of-print volume.

A Concise History of Posters: 1870-1970


John Barnicoat - 1972
    A Concise History of Posters: 1870-1970. New York: Harry N. Abrams, [1972]. Octavo. 288 pages. Profusely illustrated in color and black-and-white. Publisher's cloth and original pictorial dust jacket.