Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York


Alexander Nemerov - 2021
    By the decade's end, she had succeeded in establishing herself as an important American artist of the postwar period. In the years in between, she made some of the most daring, head-turning paintings of her day and also came into her own as a woman: traveling the world, falling in and out of love, and engaging in an ongoing artistic education. She also experienced anew--and made her mark on--the city in which she had been raised in privilege as the daughter of a judge, even as she left the security of that world to pursue her artistic ambitions.Brought to vivid life by acclaimed art historian Alexander Nemerov, these defining moments--from her first awed encounter with Jackson Pollock's drip paintings to her first solo gallery show to her tumultuous breakup with eminent art critic Clement Greenberg--comprise a portrait as bold and distinctive as the painter herself. Inspired by Pollock and the other male titans of Abstract Expressionism but set on charting her own course, Frankenthaler was an artist whose talent was matched only by her unapologetic determination to distinguish herself in a man's world.Fierce Poise is an exhilarating ride through New York's 1950s art scene and a brilliant portrait of a young artist through the moments that shaped her.

An Art Lover's Guide to Florence


Judith Testa - 2012
    The sheer number and proximity of works of painting, sculpture, and architecture in Florence can be so overwhelming that Florentine hospitals treat hundreds of visitors each year for symptoms brought on by trying to see them all, an illness famously identified with the French author Stendhal.While most guidebooks offer only brief descriptions of a large number of works, with little discussion of the historical background, Judith Testa gives a fresh perspective on the rich and brilliant art of the Florentine Renaissance in An Art Lover’s Guide to Florence. Concentrating on a number of the greatest works, by such masters as Botticelli and Michelangelo, Testa explains each piece in terms of what it meant to the people who produced it and for whom they made it, deftly treating the complex interplay of politics, sex, and religion that were involved in the creation of those works. With Testa as a guide, armchair travelers and tourists alike will delight in the fascinating world of Florentine art and history.

Anatomy of a Typeface


Alexander S. Lawson - 1990
    An analysis of letter forms, from Garamond and Bembo to the design and manufacture of sans-serif and newspaper type.

FERRY PILOT: Nine Lives Over the North Atlantic


Kerry McCauley - 2020
    

Living with Art


Mark Getlein - 2006
    Living with Art helps students develop an appreciation of art by offering a clear and comprehensive introduction to the visual arts from several perspectives: themes and purposes of art; the vocabulary of art; individual art media (painting, drawing, camera arts, sculpture, architecture, etc.); and the history of art. The book is rich with illustrations drawn from a wide range of artistic cultures and time periods.

The Blue Moment: Miles Davis's Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music


Richard Williams - 2009
    It is the sound of isolation that has sold itself to millions.” Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue is the best-selling piece of music in jazz history and, for many listeners, among the most haunting works of the twentieth century. It is also, notoriously, the only jazz album many people own. Recorded in 1959 (in nine miraculous hours), there has been nothing like it since. Richard Williams’s “richly informative” (The Guardian) history considers the album within its wider cultural context, showing how the record influenced such diverse artists as Steve Reich and the Velvet Underground.In the tradition of Alex Ross and Greil Marcus, the “effortlessly versatile” Williams (The Times) “connects these seemingly disparate phenomena with purpose, finesse and journalistic flair” (Financial Times), making masterly connections to painting, literature, philosophy, and poetry while identifying the qualities that make the album so uniquely appealing and surprisingly universal.

Rolling Stone Magazine: The Uncensored History


Robert Draper - 1990
    Draper's history is an intelligent and witty behind-the-scenes look at this cultural icon and its course from its hippie beginnings to a high-profile magazine. 16 pages of photographs.

Monet's Years at Giverny : Beyond Impressionism


Daniel Wildenstein - 1978
    It includes examples of the Haystacks, Poplars, Morning on the Seine, Japanese Footbridge and Water Lilies series, an account of Monet's life at Giverny and photographs of Monet and his house and garden.

The Craft of Bookbinding


Manly Miles Banister - 1994
    Book sewing of all types (antique, flexible, lockstitch, whipstitch), plus how to make endpapers, attach headbands, case in, cover with cloth and other materials, add titling and decoration, much else. Updated list of suppliers. 254 illustrations and photographs.

Matisse


Volkmar Essers - 1990
    As seen here, his color harmonies can be analogous to musical compositions, complex and expressive. Full-color reproductions and thorough text provide a quick yet solid introduction to this master.

The Perfect House: A Journey with the Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio


Witold Rybczynski - 2002
    Palladio elevated the architecture of the private house into an art form, and he not only designed and built, he wrote. His late-sixteenth-century architectural treatises were read and studied by great thinkers as diverse as Thomas Jefferson and Inigo Jones, profoundly influencing the design of Monticello, the tidewater plantation houses of Virginia, and the White House. All across America today, Palladio's influence is evident in ample porches and columned porticoes, in grand ceiling heights and front-door pediments.In The Perfect House, Witold Rybczysnki, whose books on domestic and landscape architecture have transformed our understanding of parks and buildings, looks at Palladio's famous villas, not with the eye of an art historian but with the eye of an architect. He wanted to know why a handful of houses in an obscure corner of the Venetian Republic should have made their presence felt hundreds of years later and halfway across the globe.More than just a study of one of history's seminal architectural figures, "The Perfect House" reflects Rybczynski's intimacy with and enthusiasm for his subject. He not only reveals why the villas were so architecturally and culturally influential, he also imparts his enormous affection and admiration for the man who designed them. Embracing the elements of Rybczynski's most successful books on domestic architecture, Home and The Most Beautiful House in the World, this charming, revelatory meditation explores the dawn of domestic architecture and provides a new way of looking at everybuilding we inhabit or visit today.

Rothko: The Color Field Paintings


Christopher Rothko - 2017
    This collection presents fifty large-scale artworks from the American master's color field period (1949–1970) alongside essays by Rothko's son, Christopher Rothko, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art curator of painting and sculpture Janet Bishop. Featuring illuminating details about Rothko's life, influences, and legacy, and brimming with the emotional power and expressive color of his groundbreaking canvases, this essential volume brings the renowned artist's luminous work to light for both longtime Rothko fans and those discovering his work for the very first time. A textured case and large-scale tip-on on the front cover round out this sumptious package.

Wisconsin Supper Clubs: An Old-Fashioned Experience


Ron Faiola - 2013
    Also recorded in this book are the regional specialties served at these clubs, ranging from popovers and fried pickles in the northern part of the state to Shrimp de Jonghe in the south. One Northwoods supper club even features fry bread, a traditional Native American dish uncommon to most any restaurant.The "supper club experience" is a tradition embodied by many long-standing restaurants scattered throughout the small towns of Wisconsin. It is based around a bygone idea that going out to dinner is an experience that lasts an entire evening. The clubs emphasizing food made from scratch, slow-paced dining, and family-run businesses. Combine this with stately dark-panel decor, complimentary relish trays, and the best brandy Old Fashioned sweet you'll ever have, and you have barely scratched the surface of the Wisconsin supper club's appeal.Author Ron Faiola is the critically acclaimed director and producer of the documentary by the same name. Supper clubs are hugely popular with Wisconsin locals and regularly frequented by all Midwestern foodies "in the know." With Wisconsin Supper Clubs as a guide, these establishments are primed to be choice summer road trip destinations for anyone looking for low-cost vacations this summer. After the successful debut of Faiola's documentary, this book is sure to be a hit throughout the region and beyond.

Wall and Piece


Banksy - 2005
    Not only did he smuggle his pieces into four of New York City's major art museums, he's also "hung" his work at London's Tate Gallery and adorned Israel's West Bank barrier with satirical images. Banksy's identity remains unknown, but his work is unmistakable with prints selling for as much as $45,000.

Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music


Ted Templeman - 2020
    Along the way, Ted details his late ’60s stint as an unlikely star with the sunshine pop outfit Harpers Bizarre and his grind-it-out days as a Warner Bros. tape listener, including the life-altering moment that launched his career as a producer: his discovery of the Doobie Brothers. Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music takes us into the studio sessions of No. 1 hits like “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers and “Jump” by Van Halen, as Ted recounts memories and the behind-the-scene dramas that engulfed both massively successful acts. Throughout, Ted also reveals the inner workings of his professional and personal relationships with some of the most talented and successful recording artists in history, including Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Eric Clapton, Lowell George, Sammy Hagar, Linda Ronstadt, David Lee Roth, and Carly Simon.