Kategoria BISAC: Art >> American - General

Since its founding in 1898, the Art Commission of the City of New York (ACNY) has served as the city s aesthetic gatekeeper, evaluating all works of art intended for display on city property. And over the years, the commission s domain has expanded dramatically to include everything from parks and courthouses to trash cans and sidewalks. In "The""Politics of Urban Beauty," Michele H. Bogart argues that this unprecedented authority has made the commission host to some complex negotiations involving artists, architects, business leaders, activists, and politicians about not only the role of...

Before coming to national attention for his novel "Sister ""Carrie, " Theodore Dreiser worked for nearly a decade as a magazine editor and freelance writer. Now in paperback, "Art, Music, and Literature, 1897-1902" collects a rich selection of Dreiser's brief, colorful articles and interviews with American artists, musicians, and writers during this period. His profiles and interviews include such notables as Alfred Stieglitz, William Dean Howells, and legendary impresario Major James Burton Pond, as well as...

Ed Ruscha is among the most innovative artists of the last forty years. He is also one of the first Americans to introduce a critique of popular culture and an examination of language into the visual arts. Although he first made his reputation as a painter, Ruscha is also celebrated for his drawings (made both with conventional materials and with food, blood, gunpowder, and shellac), prints, films, photographs, and books. He is often associated with Los Angeles as a Pop and Conceptualist hub, but tends to regard such labels with a satirical, if not jaundiced, eye. Indeed, his work is...

James Martin started his career the same way a lot of aspiring painters do--by imitating other artists. During the 1950s and 60s, he nabbed imagery and mannerisms from Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, van Gogh, Picasso, Chagall, and Calder. But the real source of Martin's mature style isn't buried in the mysticism of the Northwest School or the avant garde trends of European Modernism: it traces back to his days at Ballard High School during the 1940s. He and a buddy used to cut class and head downtown to the Rivoli Theater on Seattle's First Avenue to watch the burlesque.

The...

Elizabeth Catlett, born in Washington, DC, in 1915, is widely acknowledged as a major presence in African American art, and her work is celebrated as a visually eloquent expression of African American identity and pride in cultural heritage. But this is not the whole story. She has lived in Mexico for 50 years, as a citizen of that country since 1962, and she and her husband, artist Francisco Mora, have raised their children there. For 20 years she was a member of the Taller de Grafica Popular (Popular Graphic Arts Workshop) and she was the first woman professor of sculpture at the...

The Princeton University Art Museum s collection of American drawings and watercolors is impressive in both scope and quality, providing a comprehensive overview of the nation s artistic traditions. This lavishly illustrated book highlights seventy-seven master drawings and watercolors chosen from the museum s extensive collection. The selections, which range from the eighteenth century to the present, are by such eminent American artists as Benjamin West, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, Andrew Wyeth, Georgia O Keeffe, Lee Bontecou, and Tom Wesselmann. A group of outstanding...

Encyclopedia of Jewish American Artists presents over 80 19th- and 20-century Jewish American artists, ranging from the critically neglected Theresa Bernstein, Ruth Gikow, and Jennings Tofel, to the well-known Eva Hesse, Roy Lichtenstein, and Larry Rivers. The subject matter of some of these artists may surprise readers. Adolph Gottlieb designed and supervised the fabrication of a 35-foot wide, four-story high stained glass facade for a synagogue; Louise Nevelson sculpted a Holocaust memorial; and Philip Pearlstein painted a version of Moses with the Tablets of the Law early in his...

The rich history and culture of the Arab American people is found in the passionate works of its artists. Whether they be traditional media such as painting and calligraphy, or more sophisticated media such as digital work and installation, the pieces represent the beauty of heritage, the struggles of growing up in war-torn countries, the identity conflicts of female artists in male-dominated societies, and the issues surrounding migration to a Western culture very different from one's own.

Many of the artists included here, though their works appear in museums and galleries throughout...