New on my wish list: The Brice Marden Retrospective book. I looked at it recently, and while I've seen it before this time I was struck by certain works, such as a loose grid drawing with splotches, as well as the relentless exploration of his ribbon-like paintings. They have a clarity of complexity. The tension between depth and flatness is mesmerizing. It's partly in how the lines meet at precise junctures that could be overlapping planes or simultaneous crossings on the same plane. A beautifully laid out book.
Library
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"The very fact that there seems little chance of selling pictures till the war is over seems to be a release to me, and I feel free to work on a picture like this, which would neither, even in normal times, increase my standing with the critics, or find a purchaser. Since no pictures of any kind are being bought, I might as well paint entirely for myself. This is what an artist ought to do under any circumstances, but it is not as easy as it sounds." - Charles Burchfield, April 13, 1943
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Motherwell's Open series is one of several muses for me right now. I have a book on him, but this one is dedicated to just that series. Dear Santa, I have been very, very good. Well, pretty good. Okay, okay, I'll get it myself...
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This book shows many paintings and drawings as well as sculptures - and a lot of versions of works you don't usually get to see. To me, this is one of the most valuable things an art book can do as it opens you to new aspects of the artist and broadens your sense of his thinking while creating a well-known piece. Beautiful illustrations. As usual I am biased toward the pictures, but the text seemed fine at a glance, too.
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I've loved David Park's bold, passionate structure of form and color since college and I've been hoping for a monograph for years. Finally, here it is, and I've had a chance to glance through it. I have to mention that one or two of the images were of uneven quality, but this did not deter me from wanting my own copy. It's good to see so many gorgeous pictures that you don't often see reproduced. His story is a harrowing one, and the more inspiring because of it.
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I'm most interested to see this book. For one thing, Marquand Books just won a design prize for it from the American Association of Museums. Then the topic is such a fascinating one. It's easy to think of Cézanne as "belonging" to Europe and to the movements that followed. It's less intuitive to connect him to American artists. Designed by Jeff Wincapaw for the Baltimore Museum of Art and Yale University Press.
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A student copied a chapter of this book for me, the part on Cézanne and how we actually see things and make sense of them. It turns out these are two separate operations. Fascinating. The perspective on sight and the interpretation of Cézanne's achievement make a compelling case, scientifically and artistically, and the prose is highly readable, informative, with a scientific sort of poetry. I'm going out tomorrow to buy the book.
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A young student brought this book in to painting class. British painter, William Scott's simple lines burst with information, decisions, things left out, reductions that add up to more than the source. The book is well laid out and gives a good picture of Scott's career and sensibility.
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I have the earlier edition of Gerald Nordland's beautiful book. It's in the top 5 of the books I refer to most while teaching painting and was a terrific source of inspiration while I was painting my Townscapes. I highly recommend it for the large, high-quality reproductions that span all phases of the artist's career, great layout and good text. I may have to get the new edition.
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Josef Albers' book is a classic. Readable, makes you think, makes you wish you'd been in his class, and makes you a better colorist. The love of color shines through his pragmatic, personal and well-devised exercises and writings.
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What artist is beyond the reassuring kick in the pants this book offers to accept that uncertainty is part of artmaking and get on with it? (I just noticed that I already posted this book, but it stands to be posted twice).
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Engrossing account of Brunelleschi's feat of engineering, imagination, and persistence in the face of naysayers.
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Leon Kossoff is a contemporary of Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, and Lucien Freud. He lays it on with a trowel, so to speak, in a manner that reminds me of Chaim Soutine, but somehow also of Georges Roualt and Max Beckmann. Perhaps it's the simultaneous bare-bulb incisiveness and theatricality. He's new to me; this book looks like a good place to start.
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Mary Heilmann recently won the Guggenheim's Artist of the Year award. She's a West Coast abstract painter with a spontaneous air and some serious influences. Read a bit more about her and see a short video on my 4 Cats blog. This book is the catalog for Heilmann's show at the New Museum.
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Also on my to-buy list. Moholy-Nagy was an innovative thinker, teacher and artist. Imagine him trying to smuggle his Light-Space-Modulator through customs...
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Sometimes I put books on this list I haven't seen yet, but know I want. It's my wish list. And yes, I frequently judge books by their covers. This one's a winner.
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Here is Red Grooms' fascinating review of Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan's new biography of de Kooning. Grooms used to watch de Kooning working in his third storey loft on Broadway at 13th in the 50's.
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Helen Frankenthaler's woodcuts are a revelation. I discovered this book while waiting for my bus after teaching one day, and the images and ideas have entered my brain...to read it is to read the story of an original artistic mind that dares new things and pushes accepted techniques. Read my 4 Cats blog for a bit more of the story.
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More than a grafitti artist, Banksy brings stray corners to life in often brilliant, humorous, and poignant ways that make a point and include the viewer.
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Good overview of Futurism that conveys Europe's excitement about speed and machines in the early 20th century. Catch the Futurism show in London at the Tate Modern if you're lucky enough to be there before it closes on September 20, 2009.
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Beautifully presented photographs of Giacometti's drawings, paintings, and a few sculpture choices for context.
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I have two or three Hans Hoffmann books, but this one is on my wish list. Gorgeous.
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This classic Morandi book is one of my personal, studio, and teaching bibles.
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"I am the notebook" belonging to Monsieur Picasso. So reads the cover of a sketchbook he playfully filled in, then filled up with drawings. The book offers a comprehensive and revealing look into Picasso's thoughts and variations on themes through the years. Indispensable.
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One of two excellent books on the Gee's Bend quilters, this one features interviews with many of the women, rendered respectfully and effectively in dialect. The text and the stories are a book in themselves, quite apart from the gorgeous, full-page reproductions of the quilts.
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The second of two major books by the Arnetts, father and son, and the team at Tinwood Productions on the now famous Gee's Bend quilters. This one features some fascinating photos of houses, barns, fences, and fields in Alabama that can be seen relating to the quilts. At first I feared these were a construct imposed by a scholarly eye, but the truth is that the quilters are often directly inspired in their designs by such scenes. Beautiful images of their work abound.
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It amazes me to recall how I had no time for Mondrian as a freshly graduated art student. How one's vision evolves over time.
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"If there were only one truth, you couldn't paint a hundred canvases on one theme." - Picasso
Picasso didn't write, but luckily others wrote down the things he said. Buy this one, too.
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The Mark Twain of art commentary lets loose on the 70's and the rise of art theory.
See my journal post for more.
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Steven Jesse Bernstein, Seattle underground poet, musician, performer. Brilliant.
Click to View on Amazon