Escher, I am absolutely crazy about your work. In your print Reptiles you have given such a striking illustration of reincarnation.' I replied, 'Madame, if that's the way you see it, so be it, '" An engagingly sly comment by the renowned Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972)--the complex ambiguities of whose work leave hasty or single-minded interpretations far behind. Long before the first computer-generated 3-D images were thrilling the public, Escher was a master of the third dimension. His lithograph "Magic Mirror" dates as far back as 1946. In taking that title for this book, mathematician Bruno Ernst is stressing the magic spell Escher's work invariably casts on those who see it. Ernst visited Escher every week for a year, systematically talking through his entire oeuvre with him. Their discussions resulted in a friendship that gave Ernst intimate access to the life and conceptual world of Escher. Ernst's account was meticulously scrutinized and made accurate by the artist himself. Escher's work refuses to be pigeonholed. Scientific, psychological, or aesthetic criteria alone cannot do it justice. The questions remain. Why did he create the pictures? How did he construct them? What preliminary studies were necessary before he could arrive at the final version? And how are the various images Escher created interrelated? This book, complete with biographical data, 250 illustrations, and explications of mathematical problems, offers answers to these and many other questions, and is an authentic source text of the first order.

    The next day - BLAM! - Pablo bursts through the canvas, paintbrush in hand, ready to paint something fresh and new."Pablo Picasso may have been one of the most famous artists of the 20th century, but that doesn't mean he painted what people wanted him to paint! In fact, some people hated his paintings, and called them "ugly!" and "terrible!" -- something many kids can relate to. But Picasso didn't listen to all those people, and kept on working the way he wanted to work, until he created something so new, so different... that people didn't know what to say!For every young artist who's drawn something other kids think is "ugly," this story of rebellion and creativity is sure to inspire.

    Their marriage was one of the most tumultuous and infamous in history—filled with passion, pain, betrayal, revolution, and, above all, art that helped define the twentieth century. Catherine Reef's inspiring and insightful dual biography features numerous archival photos and full-color reproductions of both artists' work. Endnotes, bibliography, timeline.

    To be a six-hour ABC miniseries from the producer of Roots and The Thorn Birds. 32 pages of photos.

    She was a daughter of the American Revolution—Anglo-Saxon, Republican, Episcopalian. She was tough, disciplined, courageous, dazzling, and went up against the masculine art world at its most entrenched, made her way in it, and disproved their notion that women couldn’t paint.Joan Mitchell is the first full-scale biography of the abstract expressionist painter who came of age in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s; a portrait of an outrageous artist and her struggling artist world, painters making their way in the second part of America’s twentieth century. As a young girl she was a champion figure skater, and though she lacked balance and coordination, accomplished one athletic triumph after another, until giving up competitive skating to become a painter. Mitchell saw people and things in color; color and emotion were the same to her. She said, “I use the past to make my pic[tures] and I want all of it and even you and me in candlelight on the train and every ‘lover’ I’ve ever had—every friend—nothing closed out. It’s all part of me and I want to confront it and sleep with it—the dreams—and paint it.”Her work had an unerring sense of formal rectitude, daring, and discipline, as well as delicacy, grace, and awkwardness.Mitchell exuded a young, smoky, tough glamour and was thought of as “sexy as hell.” Albers writes about how Mitchell married her girlhood pal, Barnet Rosset, Jr.—scion of a financier who was head of Chicago’s Metropolitan Trust and partner of Jimmy Roosevelt. Rosset went on to buy Grove Press in 1951, at Mitchell’s urging, and to publish Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, et al., making Grove into the great avant-garde publishing house of its time. Mitchell’s life was messy and reckless: in New York and East Hampton carousing with de Kooning, Frank O’Hara, James Schuyler, Jane Freilicher, Franz Kline, Helen Frankenthaler, and others; going to clambakes, cocktail parties, softball games—and living an entirely different existence in Paris and Vétheuil.Mitchell’s inner life embraced a world beyond her own craft, especially literature . . . her compositions were informed by imagined landscapes or feelings about places. In Joan Mitchell, Patricia Albers brilliantly reconstructs the painter’s large and impassioned life: her growing prominence as an artist; her marriage and affairs; her friendships with poets and painters; her extraordinary work. Joan Mitchell re-creates the times, the people, and her worlds from the 1920s through the 1990s and brings it all spectacularly to life.

    Two photo inserts.

    Sachiko Umoto’s engaging, relaxing techniques include a primer on drawing basics, plus detailed steps for creating animals from start to finish, including deer, sheep, horses, giraffes, dolphins, and more. Learn about essential materials, then discover the best methods for starting and adding onto a drawing, and incorporating shading and color. Sachiko’s instructions are so easy to follow, you’ll be creating a whole menagerie in your sketchbook in no time. Create a marching dog, a sleepy bear, and a bouncy bunny. Trace or copy the designs, then enhance them with unique doodles and details to make them your own. Add color for even more punch. Sachiko’s illustrations will inspire you to incorporate drawings into art journal pages, book art, planners, scrapbooks, and cards. Connect with the world and share your creations with friends and family. Using these techniques, you’ll discover how to:Draw cute character faces that come aliveEasily incorporate details such as fur, patterns, wings, and hornsGet ideas for taking your illustrations further with cute poses and facial expressionsBe inspired by ideas for drawing animals in their surroundingsAdd fun scene-setting extras, such as footprints, food, plants, and moreTake this book with you wherever you, and have fun practicing drawing the cutest animals around. Grab a pencil and get started! Discover how the Illustration School series of books makes drawing enjoyable and stress-free. Using Sachiko Umoto’s fun, easy techniques for sketching quirky animals, plants, landscapes, and people in the Japanese character style, you’ll fill pages with charming illustrations that are uniquely you.

    In the thirties and forties, along with Arshile Gorky and Jackson Pollock, he became a key figure in the revolutionary American movement of abstract expressionism. Of all the painters in that group, he worked the longest and was the most prolific, creating powerful, startling images well into the 1980s.The first major biography of de Kooning captures both the life and work of this complex, romantic figure in American culture. Ten years in the making, and based on previously unseen letters and documents as well as on hundreds of interviews, this is a fresh, richly detailed, and masterful portrait. The young de Kooning overcame an unstable, impoverished, and often violent early family life to enter the Academie in Rotterdam, where he learned both classic art and guild techniques. Arriving in New York as a stowaway from Holland in 1926, he underwent a long struggle to become a painter and an American, developing a passionate friendship with his fellow immigrant Arshile Gorky, who was both a mentor and an inspiration. During the Depression, de Kooning emerged as a central figure in the bohemian world of downtown New York, surviving by doing commercial work and painting murals for the WPA. His first show at the Egan Gallery in 1948 was a revelation. Soon, the critics Harold Rosenberg and Thomas Hess were championing his work, and de Kooning took his place as the charismatic leader of the New York school—just as American art began to dominate the international scene.Dashingly handsome and treated like a movie star on the streets of downtown New York, de Kooning had a tumultuous marriage to Elaine de Kooning, herself a fascinating character of the period. At the height of his fame, he spent his days painting powerful abstractions and intense, disturbing pictures of the female figure—and his nights living on the edge, drinking, womanizing, and talking at the Cedar bar with such friends as Franz Kline and Frank O’Hara. By the 1960s, exhausted by the feverish art world, he retreated to the Springs on Long Island, where he painted an extraordinary series of lush pastorals. In the 1980s, as he slowly declined into what was almost certainly Alzheimer’s, he created a vast body of haunting and ethereal late work.This is an authoritative and brilliant exploration of the art, life, and world of an American master.

    Everything is old and boring and there are so many rules: Don’t Touch! Do Not Enter! Quiet! A vigilant guard keeps a close eye on the energetic little girl, but even so, Anna manages to set off an alarm and almost tip over a vase.A half-open door draws Anna’s attention, but the No Entry sign means yet again that it’s off-limits. This time, however, the guard surprises her by inviting her to go in. Here she finds a “secret workshop” where paintings are being cleaned and repaired. Staring out from one of the canvases is a girl who looks grumpy and bored—just like Anna herself. With the realization that art often imitates life, Anna discovers the sheer joy to be had from the paintings on the wall, especially those that reflect what is happening all around her.Filled with representations of paintings from many world-class galleries, this charming book is the perfect prelude to a child’s first visit to an art museum.

    What she got was a skeleton, suspicious cops ... and Charlie. Ex-truckstop waitress/new heiress Lizbet Lange inherited a mansion from her ex-husband, who neglected to put in an outdoor, Olympic-size pool in the back "grounds" before he died. So, thinking it would be just the thing to cheer her up, seeing as how she's young and alone, she sets up a "dig" with the local pool company, who promptly unearth a human skeleton. And if that isn't bad enough, what with the cops and FBI and all, tromping around in her back yard, thirty minutes later the skeleton's owner, also shows up, albeit in ghost form, and asks Lizbet to help him find out who murdered him back in 1969!