Here, Mary Street Alinder--who collaborated with Adams on his memoir and was his assistant in later life--is not reticent about the major emotional episodes in Adams's life, including his marriage and extramarital affairs, and his not-altogether-successful fatherhood. She explores the major artistic influences on his work and gives in-depth profiles of the significant figures in his circle. She also explains the technique and style Adams developed to obtain his unique vision, as well as his uneasiness at becoming a commodity. Ansel Adams: A Biography is an intimate and provocative portrait of the world's most famous photographer.

    Collected together in one place, for the first time, are texts by explorers, journalists, physicians, psychiatrists, anthropologists, scholars, novelists, criminologists, and tattoo artists. A brief essay by Gilbert sets each chapter in an historical context. Topics covered include the first written records of tattooing by Greek and Roman authors; the dispersal of tattoo designs and techniques throughout Polynesia; the discovery of Polynesian tattooing by European explorers; Japanese tattooing; the first 19th-century European and American tattoo artists; tattooed British royalty; the invention of the tattooing machine; and tattooing in the circus. The anthology concludes with essays by four prominent contemporary tattoo artists: Tricia Allen, Chuck Eldridge, Lyle Tuttle, and Don Ed Hardy. The references at the end of each section will provide an introduction to the extensive literature that has been inspired by the ancient-but-neglected art of tattooing. Because of its broad historical context, The Tattoo History Source Book will be of interest to the general reader as well as art historians, tattoo fans, neurasthenics, hebephrenics, and cyclothemics.

    Caterina Riario Sforza was one of the most prominent women in Renaissance Italy—and one of the most vilified. In this glittering biography, Elizabeth Lev reexamines her extraordinary life and accomplishments.Raised in the court of Milan and wed at age ten to the pope’s corrupt nephew, Caterina was ensnared in Italy’s political intrigues early in life. After turbulent years in Rome’s papal court, she moved to the Romagnol province of Forlì. Following her husband’s assassination, she ruled Italy’s crossroads with iron will, martial strength, political savvy—and an icon’s fashion sense. In finally losing her lands to the Borgia family, she put up a resistance that inspired all of Europe and set the stage for her progeny—including Cosimo de Medici—to follow her example to greatness.A rich evocation the Renaissance,The Tigress of Forlì reveals Caterina Riario Sforza as a brilliant and fearless ruler, and a tragic but unbowed figure.

    Anne Kingston looks at wife backlash, and the new wave of neo-traditionalism that urges women to marry young; explores the apotheosis of abused wives and the strange celebration of wives who kill; and muses on the fact that Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart, two of the world's wealthiest and most influential women, are both unmarried. The result is an entertaining mix of social, sexual, historical, and economic commentary that is bound to stir debate even as it reframes our view of both women and marriage.

    Today artists routinely dissolve the old boundaries of art by creating works that neither hang on walls nor adorn pedestals, and often willfully overturn conventions of aesthetic value, permanence and optical reward. Curator and educator Weintraub has researched and/or interviewed 35 prominent radical artists and here explores their common concerns, creative processes and media. Devoting one essay to each artist, Weintraub offers a primer for museum and gallery goers who may be confronting such works for the first time, discussing Andres Serrano's photo of a crucifix submerged in urine, the half ton of dirty clothes Christian Boltanski piled on a museum floor worn by children of the Holocaust, Janine Antoni's mammoth blocks of chocolate and lard, Chuck Close's computer art and David Hammon's detritus constructions.

    Making remarkable connections across brain function, myth, and anthropology, Dr. Shlain shows why pre-literate cultures were principally informed by holistic, right-brain modes that venerated the Goddess, images, and feminine values. Writing drove cultures toward linear left-brain thinking and this shift upset the balance between men and women, initiating the decline of the feminine and ushering in patriarchal rule. Examining the cultures of the Israelites, Greeks, Christians, and Muslims, Shlain reinterprets ancient myths and parables in light of his theory. Provocative and inspiring, this book is a paradigm-shattering work that will transform your view of history and the mind.

    It ultimately challenges the cultural assumptions of both conservatives and traditional liberals. 47 photographs.

    The Beats helped make literature a democracy. All one needed, they believed, was passion and a love of the written word. The names of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, and William Burroughs and their friends are well known to the reading public at large, and on its face the beat movement appears to have been an exclusively male phenomenon. But the Beat movement's publicity did not necessarily reflect the reality of its literature and spirit. This singular book is devoted to contributions of women to the body and spirit of the Beat revolution.The women included in this anthology run the gamut from the famous---Carolyn Cassady and Jan Kerouac-to the relatively undiscovered-Mary Fabilli and Helen Adam. The art, prose, and poetry selected represent the full range and development of their work. The women whose work is featured in this anthology were talented rebels with enough courage and creative spirit to turn their backs on "the good life" that the fifties promised and forge their way to San Francisco and Greenwich Village. They dared to attempt to create lives of their own and make their own way. Today an unprecedented amount of brilliant, imaginative and highly experimental writing by women is being recognized and applauded. This anthology looks back to the antecedents for this greater liberty of expression. It is a testament to the lives of the women who helped shape the Beat era. Together, their voices form an energetic force field of consciousness that manifested at a rich and difficult time in cultural history.Women of the Beat Generation profiles 40 women --Precursors, MusesWriters, and Artists-including Elise Cowen, Diane di Prima, Hettie Jones, Joan Vollmer Burroughs, Jan Kerouac, Jane Bowles, Carolyn Cassady, Edie Parker KerouacEileen Kaufman, Joyce Johnson, Denise Levertov, Brenda Frazer, Anne Waldman, Jay DeFeo, Joan Brown, and many othersWomen of the Beat Generation highlights the lives and work of these female iconoclasts, and ensures the world will not forget their contributions to its transformation.

    The rest of us just show up and get to work."Chuck CloseInside an art gallery, it is easy to forget that the paintings there are the end products of a process involving not only creative inspiration, but also plenty of physical and logistical details. It is these "cruder," more mundane aspects of a painter's daily routine that motivated Brooklyn artist Joe Fig to embark almost ten years ago on a highly unorthodox, multilayered exploration of the working life of the professional artist. Determined to ground his research in the physical world, Fig began constructing a series of diorama-like miniature reproductions of the studios of modern art's most legendary painters, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. A desire for firsthand references led Fig to approach contemporary artists for access to their studios. Armed with a camera and a self-made "Artist's Questionnaire," Fig began a journey through the workspaces of some of today's most exciting contemporary artists.Inside the Painter's Studio collects twenty-four remarkable artist interviews, as well as exclusive visual documentation of their studios. Featured artists were asked a wide range of questions about their day-to-day creative life, covering everything from how they organize their studios to what painting tools they prefer. Artists open up about how they set a creative mood, how they choose titles, and even whether they sit or stand to contemplate their work. Also included are a selection of Fig's meticulously detailed miniatures. In this context Fig's diminutive sculpturesreproducing minutiae of the studio, from paint-tube labels and paint splatters on the floor to the surface texture of canvasesbecome part of a fascinating new form of portraiture as diorama. Inside the Painter's Studio offers a rare look into the self-made universe of the artist's studio. Inside the Painter's Studio features interviews with Gregory Amenoff, Ross Bleckner, Chuck Close, Will Cotton, Inka Essenhigh, Eric Fischl, Barnaby Furnas, April Gornik, Jane Hammond, Mary Heilmann, Bill Jensen, Ryan McGinness, Julie Mehretu, Malcolm Morley, Steve Mumford, Philip Pearlstein, Matthew Ritchie, Alexis Rockman, Dana Schutz, James Siena, Amy Sillman, Joan Snyder, Billy Sullivan, and Fred Tomaselli.

    Her vivid visual vocabulary--sensuous flowers, bleached bones against red sky and earth--had a stunning, profound, and lasting influence on American art. O'Keeffe's personal mystique is as intriguing and enduring as her bold, brilliant canvases. Here is the first full account of her exceptional life-- from her girlhood and early days as a controversial art teacher, to her discovery by the pioneering photographer of the New York avant-garde, Alfred Stieglitz, to her seclusion in the New Mexico desert, where she lived until her death. And here is the story of a great romance between the extraordinary painter and her much older mentor, lover, and husband, Alfred Stieglitz. Renowned for her fierce independence, iron determination, and unique artistic vision, Georgia O'Keeffe is a twentieth-century legend who career spanned the history modern art in America.

    history. She earned her degree thirty-one years before women could vote and thirty-five years before Indians could become citizens in their own country.By age twenty-six, this fragile but indomitable Indian woman became the doctor to her tribe. Overnight, she acquired 1,244 patients scattered across 1,350 square miles of rolling countryside with few roads. Her patients often were desperately poor and desperately sick—tuberculosis, small pox, measles, influenza—families scattered miles apart, whose last hope was a young woman who spoke their language and knew their customs.This is the story of an Indian woman who effectively became the chief of an entrenched patriarchal tribe, the story of a woman who crashed through thick walls of ethnic, racial and gender prejudice, then spent the rest of her life using a unique bicultural identity to improve the lot of her people—physically, emotionally, politically, and spiritually. A Warrior of the People is the moving biography of Susan La Flesche’s inspirational life, and it will finally shine a light on her numerous accomplishments.The author will donate all royalties from this book to a college scholarship fund he has established for Native American high school graduates.

    The originals are in the Riccar Art Museum in Tokyo, the world's largest and most celebrated collection of such prints. On account of their rarity and value, 87 of them have been designated Japanese National Treasures or Major National Cultural Heritage Items. The introductory essay, "Ukiyo-e - Origins and History", by the Curator of the Riccar Art Museum, Mitsunobu Sato, familiarizes the reader with the history of this art form. This is followed by the chapter "Cherry - Wood - Blossom", in which Thomas Zacharias, Professor at the Munich Academy of Art examines the technique, content and style of Japanese prints and their influence on European art at the turn of the century. The major section of the book consists of the 139 reproductions, grouped by artist, each accompanied by a detailed, sensitive commentary. Street scenes, lovers' trysts, festivals, portraits of courtesans and actors, landscapes and travelogues - these are the motifs of the ukiyo-e print. The dominant theme, however, is woman's beauty, the grace of her posture and attitudes, and the decorative aesthetics of her flowing garments. Amongst the most celebrated of the artists featured here are Utamaro, with his beautiful courtesans and geishas; Sharaku, with his portraits of actors on the kabuki stage; Hokusai, with his landscapes, among them the "36 Views of Mount Fuji"; and Hiroshige, with his "53 Stations on the Tokaido" and his "100 Views of Famous Places in and around Edo". The ten-page appendix includes a glossary of technical terms and biographies of all 43 artists.

    In doing so they took control of their lives -- and those of other people -- and made the world do their will.Extremely accomplished, well-educated, and unusually literate, courtesans exerted an incredible influence as leaders of society. They were not received at court, but inhabited their own parallel world -- the demimonde -- complete with its own hierarchies, etiquette, and protocol. They were queens of fashion, linguists, musicians, accomplished at political intrigue, and, of course, possessors of great erotic gifts. Even to be seen in public with one of the great courtesans was a much-envied achievement.