An Artist in Venice

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Architect and artist Van Doren offers a love letter to Venice in this elegant and slender volume, and he sings his praise to the city through majestic prose and 23 beautiful watercolor paintings of Venice. He quickly discovers, after wandering into San Giacomo di Rialto, perhaps Venice's oldest church, that the city has one "great transformative advantage: Mediterranean light," which offers a new way of seeing the city's architecture, the history of art, and his own painting. Van Doren praises numerous artists from whom he draws lessons as he explores the city. James Whistler captures the "sweet serenity with perfect pitch." He admires deeply John Singer Sargent's watercolors of Venice that exhibit his "supreme confidence with color." Van Doren takes John Ruskin as his model, confessing that Ruskin was an "artist of architecture" whose writings convinced him that he could become a painter. In all of his paintings, he has attempts to keep in mind the lesson of one of his teachers: "Keep it simple. Don't try to make it more complicated than it already is." Clearly, he's learned his lesson well. Illus. (Jan.) Copyright 2013 Publishers Weekly.

New Markets for Artists: How to Sell, Fund Projects, and Exhibit Using Social Media, DIY Pop-Ups, eBay, Kickstarter, and Much More

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Although the book title touts mostly online markets, artist and writer Carey ("Making It in the Art World: New Approaches to Galleries, Shows, and Raising Money") also covers the benefits, drawbacks, and strategies for success in art fairs, public art, museums, and galleries. However, the bulk of the book is about using web-based tools: one chapter details relevant features of Facebook and Twitter in great depth, others advise on website development, advertising, eBay, and digital art galleries. Carey occasionally misses the mark, as when he devotes an entire chapter to selecting appropriate passwords (information readily available on the web), but in most cases the information provided is carefully tailored to artists. Case studies throughout illustrate successful usage of each tool, market venue, or strategy. He also offers advice on interpersonal communication, such as how to talk to studio visitors and how to follow up with email and phone contacts. A final chapter suggests methods for using the book in a professional development course. VERDICT Recommended for all artists looking for a market online.--Heidi Senior, Univ. of Portland Lib., OR Copyright 2012 Reed Business Information. Library Journal (11/01/2012)

Midnight to the Boom: Painting in India After Independence

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At midnight on August 15, 1947, India declared its independence from British rule. India's anticolonial movement--synonymous with Mohandas Gandhi, peaceful resistance, and civil disobedience--is celebrated here, but the book also reveals the movement's dark side, namely, the coinciding partition into India and Pakistan, remembered for its violent riots and upwards of a million deaths. Editor Bean (curator, South Asian & Korean art, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA) explores how these transformative moments brought political, social, and economic change to India and Indian artists, particularly painters, who responded by experimenting with content, style, and new artistic techniques. Over the next 50 years, the Indian economy bloomed and boomed, and its rapid growth continued to shape both culture and postindependence art. This book tackles the period from 1947 to the 1990s, and its contributors are scholars and curators who have deep knowledge of the postindependence Indian art scene and modern and contemporary art. The catalog is beautifully written and illustrated with 122 color plates, nearly all of which are works in the Peabody Essex Museum's Herwitz Collection. Library Journal (02/15/2013)

The Civil War and American Art

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Released alongside an extensive exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this latest from Harvey (The Painted Sketch) provides a nuanced, sensitive, and deeply informed accounting of a major period in the history of American art. Harvey sees with fresh attention the "war-infected layer of meaning" that permeates the period around the Civil War, gracefully navigating the political and aesthetic complexities that altered the literal and metaphoric landscapes of the time. She balances the broader world of military campaigns with detailed examinations of prominent artists, turning her attention to topics such as the rumbling skies of landscape artist Frederic Edwin Church and the subtleties of Winslow Homer's attitudes regarding race. Her sustained exploration is accompanied by striking reproductions of the images, with the gruesome photography of ravaged bodies and landscapes affecting enough to invigorate interest in the historical topics. Paired alongside these studies are considerations of popular poetry and journalism, highlighting the ways that visual art both altered the broader culture while remaining inseparable from it. The comprehensive study manages to remain engaging across its redolent academic and historical interests, creating a sincere excitement appropriate to Harvey's always insightful and vital reckoning with America's scarred past. Color illus.
 Publishers Weekly (01/21/2013):

Zentangle Untangled: Inspiration and Prompts for Meditative Drawing

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In "Zentangle Untangled," Kass Hall introduces you to the fun and relaxing doodling" process of Zentangle(c)--an engaging art form that uses repetitive patterns to create striking works of art that anyone can achieve regardless of age or artistic ability.

Georgia O'Keeffe and Her Houses: Ghost Ranch and Abiquiu

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In flight from her hectic New York life with her avidly sociable husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, and in pursuit of quiet and isolation, O'Keeffe found the perfect refuge in New Mexico. Her passion for the land and sky and her profound attachment to her homes at Ghost Ranch and Abiquiu shape and vitalize all of her best-known paintings, yet the full story of how she acquired and lived and worked in these sanctuaries has never been told before. Lynes (Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collections, 2007), curator of the Georgia O'Keefe Museum in Santa Fe, and Lopez, director of Abiquiu Historic Properties, thoroughly and thoughtfully chronicle the ways the artist turned her cherished homes and studios into veritable works of art. With information on adobe construction and the Pueblo Revival style, striking black-and-white photographs of the artist in her homes by such famous photographers as Ansel Adams, O'Keeffe's paintings of Ghost Ranch and Abiquiu, and new color photographs that capture the enduring beauty and serenity of O'Keeffe's gracefully pristine sanctuaries, this is a gorgeous and enriching addition to the O'Keeffe collection. Booklist (11/01/2012):

Banksy: The Man Behind the Wall

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The British artist known as Banksy creates illegal street paintings with superhero daring and political conviction. But his most impressive feat is his anonymity, which is zealously protected by his cultish followers and ace organization, Pest Control. Ellsworth-Jones had no intention of revealing Banksy's identity when he sought an interview with the artist, but he was refused. So be it. Secrecy feeds the flame of this thought-provoking, irony-steeped, unauthorized investigation into how a regular guy from Bristol elevated graffiti to a fine art only to find himself trapped in the paradox of becoming a commercially successful, anticapitalist guerrilla artist. While he gamely searches for extant street paintings, Ellsworth-Jones chronicles ludicrous battles over wall removal, the tagging of Banksy's work by rival street artists, pop-up exhibits, and the lengths to whichfans go to purchase Banksy prints. Formerly chief reporter for the Sunday Times of London, Ellsworth-Jones redresses his lack of an art historian's fully dimensional perspective by candidly sharing his learn-on-the-go adventures and discoveries in a thoroughly ensnaring, eye-popping account of the paradigm-shifting innovations of a bold and brilliant masked artist.
Booklist (01/01/2013)