More manifesto than polite discussion, more call to action than criticism, The Invisible Dragon aims squarely at the hyper-institutionalism that, in Hickey’s view, denies the real pleasures that draw us to art in the first place. Deploying the artworks of Warhol, Raphael, Caravaggio, and Mapplethorpe and the writings of Ruskin, Shakespeare, Deleuze, and Foucault, Hickey takes on museum culture, arid academicism, sclerotic politics, and more—all in the service of making readers rethink the nature of art. A new introduction provides a context for earlier essays—what Hickey calls his "intellectual temper tantrums." A new essay, "American Beauty," concludes the volume with a historical argument that is a rousing paean to the inherently democratic nature of attention to beauty.Written with a verve that is all too rare in serious criticism, this expanded and refurbished edition of The Invisible Dragon will be sure to captivate a new generation of readers, provoking the passionate reactions that are the hallmark of great criticism.

    How did the Old Masters create their masterpieces? What kind of education allowed these great artists to create such beautiful work, and how can an artist learn these lessons today? Traditional Oil Painting answers those questions and many more. This comprehensive sourcebook explores the most advanced levels of oil painting, with full information on the latest scientific discoveries. Author and distinguished artist Virgil Elliott examines the many elements that let artists take the next step in their work: mental attitude, aesthetic considerations, the importance of drawing, principles of visual reality, materials, techniques, portraiture, photographic images versus visual reality, and color. Traditional Oil Painting helps artists master the secrets of realistic painting to create work that will rival that of the masters.

    In Girl Culture, she combines a photojournalists sense of story with fine-art composition and color to create an astonishing and intelligent exploration of American girls. Her photographs provide a window into the secret worlds of girls social lives and private rituals, the dressing room and locker room, as well as the iconic subcultures of the popular clique: cheerleaders, showgirls, strippers, debutantes, actresses, and models. With 100 hypnotic photographs, 20 interviews with the subjects, and an introduction by foremost historian of American girlhood Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Greenfield reveals the exhibitionist nature of modern femininity and how far it has drifted from the feminine ideologies of the past.

    In 1980, anger brewed over a show at New York's Artists Space entitled Nigger Drawings. In 1968, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition Harlem on My Mind did not include a single work by a black artist. In all three cases, black artists and writers and their allies organized vigorous responses using the only forum available to them: public protest.Whitewalling: Art, Race, & Protest in 3 Acts reflects on these three incidents in the long and troubled history of art and race in America. It lays bare how the art world--no less than the country at large--has persistently struggled with the politics of race, and the ways this struggle has influenced how museums, curators and artists wrestle with notions of free speech and the specter of censorship. Whitewalling takes a critical and intimate look at these three "acts" in the history of the American art scene and asks: when we speak of artistic freedom and the freedom of speech, who, exactly, is free to speak?Aruna D'Souza writes about modern and contemporary art, food and culture; intersectional feminisms and other forms of politics; how museums shape our views of each other and the world; and books. Her work appears regularly in 4Columns.org, where she is a member of the editorial advisory board, as well as in publications including the Wall Street Journal, ARTnews, Garage, Bookforum, Momus and Art Practical. D'Souza is the editor of the forthcoming Making it Modern: A Linda Nochlin Reader.

    Each work is accompanied by a detailed description to enhance the appreciation of the artist's creation.

    With an A to Z format that departs from the usual emphasis on genres and time periods, it offers an unparalleled overview of the most influential and best-loved American artists from Colonial times to the present. This book is now available in a new mini version that presents the compelling content of the original edition in a highly portable format that is both useful as a serious work of reference and fun for on-the-go art enthusiasts.The American Art Book presents 500 artists and their works, ranging from Puritan portraits to the luminous paintings of the Hudson River School and the American Impressionists, to the videos and digital works of today's most intriguing conceptual artists. Its alphabetical format generates intriguing juxtapositions: Jenny Holzer faces Winslow Homer, and Richard Avedon sits next to Milton Avery, encouraging readers to contemplate the connections between art and American history and popular culture. Each artist is represented by a full-page colour plate of a representative work, and an informative, engaging text which places the artist and the image in the context of contemporary movements and preceding traditions. The book includes an easy-to-use glossary of artistic terms and movements, and a directory of museums and public collections across the United States and around the world with important holdings in American art. With its original format and fresh selections of artwork, this volume offers a stimulating way to approach this rich, varied subject.

    Collected here for the first time in one deluxe volume are over 100 of these vintage educational posters now important relics in the history of science, art, and design. From the anatomy of a tulip or an apple tree to that of a hedgehog or starfish, the botanical and zoological images in this collection are captivating with their curious visuals and intricate details. With a compelling introduction about the history of educational charts and their production, The Art of Instruction provides a glimpse into a rich, significant heritage and will enlighten those with an interest in art, design, science, or natural history.

    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.

    A memoir of ideas and perceptions, Bone Black shows the unfolding of female creativity and one strong-spirited child's journey toward becoming a writer. She learns early on the roles women and men play in society, as well as the emotional vulnerability of children. She sheds new light on a society that beholds the joys of marriage for men and condemns anything more than silence for women. In this world, too, black is a woman's color—worn when earned—daughters and daddies are strangers under the same roof, and crying children are often given something to cry about. hooks finds good company in solitude, good company in books. She also discovers, in the motionless body of misunderstanding, that writing is her most vital breath.

    Yet in 1979, the Amon Carter Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, daringly commissioned him to do just that.The resulting 1985 exhibition and book, In the American West, was a milestone in American photography and Avedon's most important body of work. His unflinching portraits of oilfield and slaughterhouse workers, miners, waitresses, drifters, mental patients, teenagers, and others captured the unknown and often-ignored people who work at hard, uncelebrated jobs. Making no apologies for shattering stereotypes of the West and Westerners, Avedon said, "I'm looking for a new definition of a photographic portrait. I'm looking for people who are surprising—heartbreaking—or beautiful in a terrifying way. Beauty that might scare you to death until you acknowledge it as part of yourself."Photographer Laura Wilson worked with Avedon during the six years he was making In the American West. In Avedon at Work, she presents a unique photographic record of his creation of this masterwork—the first time a major photographer has been documented in great depth over an extended period of time. She combines images she made during the photographic sessions with entries from her journal to show Avedon's working methods, his choice of subjects, his creative process, and even his experiments and failures. Also included are a number of Avedon's finished portraits, as well as his own comments and letters from some of the subjects.Avedon at Work adds a new dimension to our understanding of one of the twentieth century's most significant series of portraits. For everyone interested in the creative process it confirms that, in Laura Wilson's words, "much as all these photographs may appear to be moments that just occurred, they are finally, in varying degrees, works of the imagination."

    5, 1948 sell for $140 million?            Intriguing and entertaining, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark is a Freakonomics approach to the economics and psychology of the contemporary art world. Why were record prices achieved at auction for works by 131 contemporary artists in 2006 alone, with astonishing new heights reached in 2007? Don Thompson explores the money, lust, and self-aggrandizement of the art world in an attempt to determine what makes a particular work valuable while others are ignored.            This book is the first to look at the economics and the marketing strategies that enable the modern art market to generate such astronomical prices. Drawing on  interviews with both past and present executives of auction houses and art dealerships, artists, and the buyers who move the market, Thompson launches the reader on a journey of discovery through the peculiar world of modern art. Surprising, passionate, gossipy, revelatory, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark reveals a great deal that even experienced  auction purchasers do not know.

    Guerrilla Girls: The Art of Behaving Badly is the first book to catalog the entire career of the Guerrilla Girls from 1985 to present.The Guerrilla girls are a collective of political feminist artists who expose discrimination and corruption in art, film, politics, and pop culture all around the world.This book explores all their provocative street campaigns, unforgettable media appearances, and large-scale exhibitions.Each copy comes with a punch-out gorilla mask that invites readers to step up and join the movement themselves.Captions by the Guerrilla Girls themselves contextualize the visuals.Explores their well-researched, intersectional takedown of the patriarchyIn 1985, a group of masked feminist avengers—known as the Guerrilla Girls—papered downtown Manhattan with posters calling out the Museum of Modern Art for its lack of representation of female artists.They quickly became a global phenomenon, and the fearless activists have produced hundreds of posters, stickers, and billboards ever since.More than a monograph, this book is a call to arms.This career-spanning volume is published to coincide with their 35th anniversary.Perfect for artists, art lovers, feminists, fans of the Guerrilla Girls, students, and activistsAdd it to the shelf with books like Wall and Piece by Banksy, Why We March: Signs of Protest and Hope by Artisan, and Graffiti Women: Street Art from Five Continents by Nicholas Ganz

    A compendium of the life and work of Maxfield Parrish, it is an essential part of a Parrish library. For the collector, the publisher has included a value guide to some of the products that bear Parrish images. Examples of Parrish's most famous book illustrations are shown, including selections from Mother Goose in Prose and the Arabian Nights. Also included are his famous magazine covers-from Life, Collier's, Harper's Weekly, etc., as well as all the landscapes that he painted for Brown and Bigelow, who reproduced them as calendars every year from 1936 to 1963. One of the highlights of the book is the chapter on Parrish's technique, examining in depth his materials, favorite methods, and unique way of painting. In addition, there is a lengthy excerpt from an unpublished manuscript by Maxfield Parrish, Jr., explaining step-by-step his father's glazing technique and use of photography in his work. This definitive study also contains numerous revealing excerpts from Parrish's unpublished correspondence with family, friends, and clients.

    It lets you juxtapose disparate elements, styles, and media against each other and create something entirely novel, bizarre, arresting, beautiful, ironic, or unsettling. Old and new can be fused together; the digital and hand-made can be combined.What you can create with collage knows no bounds.This little book is full of big ideas from contemporary collage artists to inspire you to think differently. It's the perfect gift for creative friends and family, providing inspiration for curious beginners as well as seasoned collagists looking for new ways of working.With a new idea on every page, you will discover fresh ways of tackling the medium to create work that is original and exciting.Ideas include:- monoprint- embroidery- felting- portraiture- painting- body art- sketchbooking- miniature dioramas- Surrealism- Photoshop- and many more!

    A loosely formed autobiography by Andy Warhol, told with his trademark blend of irony and detachmentIn The Philosophy of Andy Warhol—which, with the subtitle "(From A to B and Back Again)," is less a memoir than a collection of riffs and reflections—he talks about love, sex, food, beauty, fame, work, money, and success; about New York, America, and his childhood in McKeesport, Pennsylvania; about his good times and bad in New York, the explosion of his career in the sixties, and his life among celebrities.