Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being


Jonathan Fineberg - 1991
    ARTnews hailed this lively volume as "a fascinating book" by "a superb critic and art historian". For this Second Edition, the author adds a new final chapter and extensively reworks the last quarter of the hook to incorporate current thinking on the art of the last 20 years.

The Art Spirit


Robert Henri - 1929
    While it embodies the entire system of his teaching, with much technical advice and critical comment for the student, it also contains inspiration for those to whom the happiness to be found through all the arts is important.No other American painter attracted such a large, intensely personal group of followers as Henri, whose death in 1929 brought to an end a life that has been completely devoted to art. He was an inspired artist and teacher who believed that everyone is vitally concerned in the happiness and wisdom to be found through the arts. Many of his paintings have been acquired by museums and private collectors. Among them are the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Wichita Art Museum, and Yale University Art Gallery.

The Best of Norman Rockwell


Norman Rockwell - 1984
    Rockwell senior, who said he depicted life “as I would like it to be,” chronicled iconic visions of American life: the Thanksgiving turkey, soda fountains, ice skating on the pond, and small-town boys playing baseball-not to mention the beginning of the civil rights movement. Now, the best-selling collection of Rockwell’s most beloved illustrations, organized by decade, is available in a refreshed edition. With more than 150 images-oil paintings, watercolors, and rare black-and-white sketches--this is an uncommonly faithful Rockwell treasury. The original edition has sold nearly 200,000 copies.

Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking


David Bayles - 1993
    Ordinary art. Ordinary art means something like: all art not made by Mozart. After all, art is rarely made by Mozart-like people; essentially-statistically speaking-there aren't any people like that. Geniuses get made once-a-century or so, yet good art gets made all the time, so to equate the making of art with the workings of genius removes this intimately human activity to a strangely unreachable and unknowable place. For all practical purposes making art can be examined in great detail without ever getting entangled in the very remote problems of genius."--from the Introduction

The Art Forger's Handbook


Eric Hebborn - 1997
    Packed with wonderfully entertaining and often outrageous speculations about the nature of art, truth, and value, the world-renowned art forger--who died mysteriously before this book was published--details secrets of his techniques.

This is Pollock


Catherine Ingram - 2014
    His iconic paintings stretch out with the generosity and scale of America's Western landscape where the artist grew up. Pollock said that he painted "out of his conscious": the cathartic dribbled paint reflected his troubled mind.This book traces Pollock's career and discusses how his loose, individual style was used as a political weapon in the Cold War, representing America as the free, democratic nation. Illustrations simplify the theory and reveal the hidden meaning behind the mesh of painted lines.This title is appropriate for ages 14 and up

Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?


Linda Nochlin - 1971
    It is considered a pioneering essay for both feminist art history and feminist art theory.In this essay, Nochlin explores the institutional – as opposed to the individual – obstacles that have prevented women in the West from succeeding in the arts. She divides her argument into several sections, the first of which takes on the assumptions implicit in the essay's title, followed by "The Question of the Nude," "The Lady's Accomplishment," "Successes," and "Rosa Bonheur." In her introduction, she acknowledges "the recent upsurge of feminist activity" in America as a condition for her interrogation of the ideological foundations of art history, while also invoking John Stuart Mill's suggestion that "we tend to accept whatever is as natural". In her conclusion, she states: "I have tried to deal with one of the perennial questions used to challenge women's demand for true, rather than token, equality by examining the whole erroneous intellectual substructure upon which the question "Why have there been no great women artists?" is based; by questioning the validity of the formulation of so-called problems in general and the "problem" of women specifically; and then, by probing some of the limitations of the discipline of art history itself."

Tintin: The Art of Hergé


Michel Daubert - 2013
    Millions followed Tintin from the wilds of the Congo to the streets of Prague, Moscow, New York, and more. Lavishly illustrated with photographs, original plates, and ephemera, Tintin: The Art of Hergé offers fresh insight into the story behind this iconic character, with unprecedented access to original sources from the Hergé Museum in Belgium. Offering a new and nuanced look into the world of Tintin, journalist Michel Daubert explains how the artist Georges Remi became the world-famous Hergé. The book also includes profiles on the beloved characters, selections from Hergé’s earliest work, and chapters that trace the development of a rough sketch into a masterpiece. With its dynamic narrative and visual treasures, Tintin underscores the artist’s varied inspirations, revealing how Hergé’s creations have become modern classics. Praise for Tintin: The Art of Hergé: Working with the Hergé Museum in Belgium, journalist Michel Daubert has produced Tintin: The Art of Hergé, a rich collection of photographs, early works, character profiles, and more that trace the life and artistic development of Tintin creator Georges Remi, aka Hergé.” —Publishers Weekly

Art as Experience


John Dewey - 1934
    Based on John Dewey's lectures on esthetics, delivered as the first William James Lecturer at Harvard in 1932, Art as Experience has grown to be considered internationally as the most distinguished work ever written by an American on the formal structure and characteristic effects of all the arts: architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and literature.

Eames


Gloria Koenig - 2015
    Though best known for their furniture, the husband and wife team were also forerunners in architecture, textile design, photography, and film.The Eames work defined anew, multifunctional modernity, exemplary for its integration of craft and design, as well as for the use of modern materials, notablyplywood and plastics.The Eames Lounge Chair Wood, designed with molded plywood technology, became a defining furniture piece of the twentieth century, while the couple s contribution to theCase Study Housesproject not only made inventive use of industrial materials but also developed anadaptable floor plan of multipurpose spaceswhich would become ahallmark of postwar modern architecture.From the couple s earliest furniture experiments to their seminal short filmPowers of Ten, this book covers all the aspects of the illustrious Eames repertoire and itsrevolutionary impact on middle-class American living. About the Series: Each book in TASCHEN s Basic Architecture Series features: an introduction to the life and work of the architect the major works in chronological order information about the clients, architectural preconditions as well as construction problems and resolutions a list of all the selected works and a map indicating the locations of the best and most famous buildings approximately 120 illustrations (photographs, sketches, drafts and plans) "

Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings


Yoko Ono - 1970
    Back in print for the first time in nearly thirty years, here is Yoko Ono's whimsical, delightful, subversive, startling book of instructions for art and for life."A dream you dream alone may be a dream, but a dream two people dream together is a reality.""Burn this book after you've read it." -- Yoko Ono"This is the greatest book I've ever burned." -- John Lennon

Pastel Pointers: Top 100 Secrets for Beautiful Paintings


Richard McKinley - 2010
    Factor in nearly as many years of teaching experience, and that adds up to a whole lot of know-how to share. In Pastel Pointers, he lays it all out: information on tools, materials, color, composition, landscape elements, finishes and more. Compiles the best of McKinley's popular Pastel Pointers blog and Pastel Journal columns Covers frequently asked questions ("How do I achieve natural-looking greens?") and simple solutions to common problems, such as excess pigment buildup Includes a chapter on "The Business of Pastels"—tips for framing, shipping, preparing for gallery shows, and otherwise representing your work in a professional manner This book covers everything from the fundamentals to get you going (how to lay out your palette, create an underpainting, evoke luminous effects) to inspirations that will keep you growing (plein air painting, working in a series, keeping a painting journal). Whether you're a beginner or an experienced painter anxious to explore the expressive possibilities of pastel, this is your guide to making the most of the medium.

A Needle in the Right Hand of God: The Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Making and Meaning of the Bayeux Tapestry


R. Howard Bloch - 2006
    It is also one of history’s most mysterious and compelling works of art. This haunting stitched account of the battle that redrew the map of medieval Europe has inspired dreams of theft, waves of nationalism, visions of limitless power, and esthetic rapture. In his fascinating new book, Yale professor R. Howard Bloch reveals the history, the hidden meaning, the deep beauty, and the enduring allure of this astonishing piece of cloth.Bloch opens with a gripping account of the event that inspired the Tapestry: the swift, bloody Battle of Hastings, in which the Norman bastard William defeated the Anglo-Saxon king, Harold, and laid claim to England under his new title, William the Conqueror. But to truly understand the connection between battle and embroidery, one must retrace the web of international intrigue and scandal that climaxed at Hastings. Bloch demonstrates how, with astonishing intimacy and immediacy, the artisans who fashioned this work of textile art brought to life a moment that changed the course of British culture and history. Every age has cherished the Tapestry for different reasons and read new meaning into its enigmatic words and images. French nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century, fired by Tapestry’s evocation of military glory, unearthed the lost French epic “The Song of Roland,” which Norman troops sang as they marched to victory in 1066. As the Nazis tightened their grip on Europe, Hitler sent a team to France to study the Tapestry, decode its Nordic elements, and, at the end of the war, with Paris under siege, bring the precious cloth to Berlin. The richest horde of buried Anglo-Saxon treasure, the matchless beauty of Byzantine silk, Aesop’s strange fable “The Swallow and the Linseed,” the colony that Anglo-Saxon nobles founded in the Middle East following their defeat at Hastings–all are brilliantly woven into Bloch’s riveting narrative.Seamlessly integrating Norman, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, and Byzantine elements, the Bayeux Tapestry ranks with Chartres and the Tower of London as a crowning achievement of medieval Europe. And yet, more than a work of art, the Tapestry served as the suture that bound up the wounds of 1066. Enhanced by a stunning full-color insert that includes reproductions of the complete Tapestry, A Needle in the Right Hand of God will stand with The Professor and the Madman and How the Irish Saved Civilization as a triumph of popular history.From the Hardcover edition.

Joseph Cornell: Shadowplay. . .Eterniday


Lynda Roscoe Hartigan - 2003
    Lavishly illustrated with more than seventy-five boxes andcollages, as well as images of the fascinating source material that the artistcollected to create his exquisitely crafted worlds, it communicates to thereader the sense of surprise and delight that one experiences on viewingthe actual boxes with their toys, stuffed birds, maps, clay pipes, marbles,shells, and other paraphernalia of daily life.The book’s essays bring together the expertise of Lynda Roscoe Hartigan,former director of the Joseph Cornell Study Center; the compelling commentaryof Walter Hopps, art dealer, museum curator and director, and theartist’s personal friend; the wide-ranging scholarship of Richard Vine; andthe sensitivity of Robert Lehrman, a leading Cornell collector whose firsthandexperience lends this publication its distinctive intimacy. Among thetopics explored are the role of dualities in the artistic process, the dominantthemes of Cornell’s oeuvre, and the importance of his Christian Science faith.

Hieronymus Bosch: Visions and Nightmares


Nils Büttner - 2016
    The creator of expansive tableaus of fantastic and hellish scenes—where any devil not dancing is too busy eating human souls—he has been as equally misunderstood by history as his paintings have. In this book, Nils Büttner draws on a wealth of historical documents—not to mention Bosch’s paintings—to offer a fresh and insightful look at one of history’s most peculiar artists on the five-hundredth anniversary of his death.             Bosch’s paintings have elicited a number a responses over the centuries. Some have tried to explain them as alchemical symbolism, others as coded messages of a secret cult, and still others have tried to psychoanalyze them. Some have placed Bosch among the Adamites, others among the Cathars, and others among the Brethren of the Free Spirit, seeing in his paintings an occult life of free love, strange rituals, mysterious drugs, and witchcraft. As Büttner shows, Bosch was—if anything—a hardworking painter, commissioned by aristocrats and courtesans, as all painters of his time were. Analyzing his life and paintings against the backdrop of contemporary Dutch culture and society, Büttner offers one of the clearest biographical sketches to date alongside beautiful reproductions of some of Bosch’s most important work. The result is a smart but accessible introduction to a unique artist whose work transcends genre.