american art

Hardcover. Wahington DC, National Gallery of Art, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover,. Published to accompany an exhibition held at the National Gallery in Washington (and later at the Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland) and concentrating on the pivotal decade 1955-1965 when Johns produced his most famous works, this catalogue is filled with well-produced reproductions. Jasper Johns (born 1930) is an important American painter who is variously said to belong to the Minimalist, Pop Art or Neo-Dadaist schools. This catalogue presents paintings from the first decade of his creative output.

Hardcover. New York, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 211 pages. 152 illustrations, including 50 plates in full color. Clean, well preserved copy. Dust jacket in very good condition.

Hardcover. NY, Rizzoli, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, still in publisher's shrinkwrap. A rare and poignant compilation of photography and written anecdotes by American photographer and artist Lee Jaffe that captures his close friendship, collaboration, and travels with the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat as they traversed Japan, Thailand, and Switzerland in 1983. Lee Jaffe, a cross-disciplinary visual artist, musician, and poet, took photos of his friend, Jean-Michel Basquiat, when they traveled abroad in 1983. As a photographer, Jaffe had a connection to Basquiat, and their time spent together resulted in an archive of imagery that captured one of the art world's true legends through an unfiltered and authentic lens. Basquiat and Jaffe connected over reggae music at a mutual friend's art show. It was the early 1980s in New York, when the art scene was raw, complicated, and thriving, and Jaffe cultivated strong connections with cultural figures such as Basquiat, Bob Marley, and Peter Tosh. "For me, watching him [ Jean] paint reminded me of the times I would sit and play harmonica while Bob Marley, with his acoustic guitar, would be writing songs that were eventually to become classics," Jaffe says. "With Jean and Bob, it seemed like they were channeling inspiration coming from an otherworldly place." This beautiful volume presents snapshots of Basquiat: from the artist smiling on a bullet train to Kyoto and behind-the-scenes documentation of Basquiat creating artwork in St. Moritz, to poignant portraits that mirror his undeniable magnetism. These rare depictions of Basquiat come to life with Jaffe's unforgettable experiences of their friendship, collaborations, and travels detailed in private written memories and anecdotes. This insightful and moving illustrated volume captures the soul of the unedited, ambitious, young artist during the height of his short yet unprecedented artistic career.

Softcover. Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover in illustrated wrappers, 304 pages. Illustrated with B&W engravings. Jens Jensen was one of America's greatest landscape designers and conservationists. Using native plants and "fitting" designs, he advocated that our gardens, parks, roads, playgrounds, and cities should be harmonious with nature and its ecological processes-a belief that was to become a major theme of modern American landscape design. In Jens Jensen: Maker of Natural Parks and Gardens, Robert E. Grese draws on Jensen's writings and plans, interviews with people who knew him, and analyses of his projects to present a clear picture of Jensen's efforts to enhance and preserve "native" landscapes.

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 430 pages. The titanic choreographer, creator of memorable ballets, master of Broadway musicals, legendary show doctor and director, now revealed in his own words--the closest we will get to a memoir/autobiography--from his voluminous letters, journals, notes, diaries, never before published. Robbins was famous for reinventing the Broadway musical, creating a vernacular American ballet, pushing the art form to new boundaries where it had never gone before, integrating dance seamlessly with character, story and music, and as Associate Artistic Director, Ballet Master, and Co-Artistic Director, with George Balanchine, shaping the New York City Ballet with daring and brio for more than five decades through his often startling choreography in ballet's classical idiom. He was known as the king of Broadway, the most sought-after director-choreographer and show doctor who gave shape to On the Town (1944), Call Me Madam (1950), The King and I (1951), Wonderful Town (1953), Peter Pan (1954), The Pajama Game (1954), Silk Stockings (1955), West Side Story (1957), Gypsy (1959), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Funny Girl (1964), Fiddler on the Roof (1964), and many other classic musicals, winning four Tony Awards, two Oscars, and an Emmy. He shocked and betrayed those he loved and worked with by naming names to the House Un-American Activities Committee. ("I betrayed my manhood, my Jewishness, my parents, my sister," he wrote in a diary. "I can't undo it.") Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, Thomas Crowell, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 224 pages, illustrated in color and b&w. Jessie Willcox Smith (1863-1935), was one of the most prominent female illustrators in the United States during the Golden Age of American illustration. She illustrated stories and articles for clients such as Century, Collier's Weekly, Leslie's Weekly, Harper's, McClure's, Scribners, and the Ladies' Home Journal. Four appendices give detailed listings of the appearance of Smith's illustrations in books, magazine covers, posters, etc. Bibliography. Notes. Index. With a lightly worn dust jacket that's been price-clipped. Previous owner's inscription on front fly lead, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Dark Horse, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 256 pages. Volume 2 of the collected strip from the 1950s. This is a lost gem of American comic strips. Jerry Robinson's fluid style and supreme draftsmanship are on full display here. Fun, fast-paced stories of a character who's part Bill Nye, part Indiana Jones. The highlight of this discovery is seeing how Robinson played with his own style, slightly altering it to suit each story.

Hardcover. New York, New Press, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 198 pages, b&w illustrations. Readers have long cherished the work of comic masters such as Will Eisner, Jules Feiffer, and Art Spiegelman, all of whom happen to be Jewish. Few, however, are probably aware that the Jewish role in creating the American comic art form is no less significant than the Jewish influence on Hollywood filmmaking. Filled with the most stunning examples of this vital artistic tradition, Jews and American Comics tells us how the "people of the book" became the people of the comic book.With three brief essays by Paul Buhle, the well-known historian of American Jewish life, Jews and American Comics offers readers a pictorial backstory tracing Jewish involvement in comic art from several little-known strips in Yiddish newspapers of the early twentieth century through the mid-century origins of the modern comic book and finally to contemporary comic art, which has at last found its place in museums, in private collections, and on the bookshelves of both critics and millions of avid readers.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Art Gallery, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. "Fifty years after Kennedy's death, this book observes the public's reaction to the president's election and assassination, featuring many photographs published here for the first time. In his travels throughout America during this period, Lee Friedlander (b. 1934) encountered these responses and photographed what he witnessed. From Washington, D.C., to Buffalo to Minneapolis to Los Angeles, Friedlander has captured a moment in American history that galvanized the nation and continues to resonate today." 48 b&w images by Friedlander.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Art Gallery, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. "Fifty years after Kennedy's death, this book observes the public's reaction to the president's election and assassination, featuring many photographs published here for the first time. In his travels throughout America during this period, Lee Friedlander (b. 1934) encountered these responses and photographed what he witnessed. From Washington, D.C., to Buffalo to Minneapolis to Los Angeles, Friedlander has captured a moment in American history that galvanized the nation and continues to resonate today." 48 b&w images by Friedlander.

Softcover. NY, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, yellow wraps with die-cut heart in front cover. 98 pages. 99 color & bw plates. Issued in conjunction with a 1970 exhibition of work by American pop artist Jim Dine (b. 1935). With opening essays and an artist statement. The catalogue addresses 126 works, and quite a few are pictured here. Includes a lengthy bibliography and exhibition history. Clean.

Hardcover. NY, Hudson Hills Press, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. The American son of great German Surrealist master Max Ernst, Jimmy Ernst (1920-1984) developed a distinct style, marrying abstract, crystalline form to sirituality, influenced by jazz and Native American culture. 166 pages, 44 b&w, 62 color plates. Considers the life and work of German-born American expressionist Jimmy Ernst (1920-1984). Brings together reproductions of his finest paintings, along with a tribute by Kurt Vonnegut, two revelatory interviews, poems by Louis Simpson, a selection of the artist's own writings, and a monographic essay by Donald Kuspit. Includes a chronology, exhibitions and collections histories, and a bibliography. Features an essay combining biography, art criticism, and psychological analysis, interviews, and more. Preface by Kurt Vonnegut. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2025, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, large format, pictorial boards, 160 pages. The definitive collection of comics and illustration from 1892 to 1942 by James Swinnerton, one of the founding fathers of the American comic strip. This sumptuous volume covers Swinnerton's six-decade career in comics, from his beginnings as a sports/editorial cartoonist for William Randolph Hearst in San Francisco to his years in the America's Southwest desert, where his love for the land and its people came through in his comics and illustration. Jimmy! includes an illustrated biography and essays by co-editor Michael Tisserand and Eddie Campbell. The comic strips in this volume are carefully restored to their original colors and printed at near-full size. Swinnerton lovers will be delighted by the richness and variety of the works seen here. Those new to this uniquely American artist will likely join the growing numbers who appreciate his important role in the history of the comics. Clean, bright copy. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Softcover. Albany NY, Opalka Gallery, 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 62 pages in color. Exhibition catalog. Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. Montevideo, Impresora Gordon, 1st, 1999, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 272 pages, illustrated in color and b&w. Monograph on the Uruguayan artist who championed a modernist aesthetic in South American art. Color wrappers with light wear, interior clean. SPANISH TEXT.

Hardcover. Chicago, Haase-Mumm Publishing, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 189 pages. #174 of 1, 000 copies signed by author. Biography and critical study of John Barber (1893-1965), American artist and contributor to the radical magazine The Masses. 16 color and 109 b&w plates. Bibliography and index.

Hardcover. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 160 pages. This book offers eleven essays on Fante's career, ranging from close thematic analysis of individual stories and novels to broadly informed assessments of Fante's life and art in the context of his times. Major areas explored in the book include Fante's treatment of the Italian-American experience; his relationship to other American writers of the 1930s and beyond; the deeply Catholic nature of Fante's fiction; his unique and still-seminal vision of Los Angeles; and his lifelong concern to render in fiction both the comedy and the horrors of the writing life. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press;, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 180 pages. John Gutmann (1905-1998) was one of America's most distinctive photographers. Born in Germany where he trained as an artist and art teacher, he fled the Nazis in 1933 and settled in San Francisco, reinventing himself as a photo-reporter. Gutmann captured images of American culture, celebrating signs of a vibrant democracy, however imperfect. His own status as an outsider--a Jew in Germany, a naturalized citizen in the United States--informed his focus on individuals from the Asian-American, African-American, and gay communities, as well as his photography in India, Burma, and China during World War II. This handsome book acknowledges Gutmann's place in the history of photography. Drawing on his archive of photographs and papers at the Center for Creative Photography, it presents both unfamiliar works and little-known contexts for his imagery, linking his photography to his passionate interest in painting and filmmaking, his collections of non-Western art and artifacts, and his pedagogy. In addition to a major essay by Sally Stein, the volume includes an introduction by Douglas R. Nickel, and an overview of the Gutmann archive by Amy Rule.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press;, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 180 pages. John Gutmann (1905-1998) was one of America's most distinctive photographers. Born in Germany where he trained as an artist and art teacher, he fled the Nazis in 1933 and settled in San Francisco, reinventing himself as a photo-reporter. Gutmann captured images of American culture, celebrating signs of a vibrant democracy, however imperfect. His own status as an outsider--a Jew in Germany, a naturalized citizen in the United States--informed his focus on individuals from the Asian-American, African-American, and gay communities, as well as his photography in India, Burma, and China during World War II. This handsome book acknowledges Gutmann's place in the history of photography. Drawing on his archive of photographs and papers at the Center for Creative Photography, it presents both unfamiliar works and little-known contexts for his imagery, linking his photography to his passionate interest in painting and filmmaking, his collections of non-Western art and artifacts, and his pedagogy. In addition to a major essay by Sally Stein, the volume includes an introduction by Douglas R. Nickel, and an overview of the Gutmann archive by Amy Rule.

Softcover. Springfield, Mass., Museum of Fine Arts, 1st, 1985, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 72 pages, b&w illustrations, 8 color plates. Edge wear, small tears to wrappers and spine. Else a clean, tight copy. Of the three great nineteenth-century American trompe l'oeil artists--William Michael Harnett (1848-1892), John Frederick Peto (1854-1907), and John Haberle (1856-1933)--the least well known is Haberle. Haberle approached painting with an informed and sophisticated connoisseurship. A highly original artist, he often alluded to complicated, ingenious, and entertaining aspects of contemporary society. The rarity of his work only adds to its allure.

Hardcover. Hampton, NH, Portsmouth Marine Society/Peter E. Randall, 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover. Biographical and artistic account of John Haley Bellamy and his renowned woodcarving skills. 103 pages with 65 black/white illustrations and 4 color plates. Cloth bound book is in near fine condition, no internal marks; dust jacket is in very good condition, some creasing near the spine.

Hardcover. Atlanta GA, High Museum of Art, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 191 pages, color and b&w plates. Like new in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. John Henry Twatchman (1853 - 1902) was an American painter best known for his Impressionist landscape paintings, though his painting style varied widely through his career. Art historians consider Twachtman's work to be among the more personal and experimental of his generation. He was a member of "The Ten", a loosely allied group of American artists, whose members included Childe Hassam, Edmund Tarbell, Frank Benson, and Robert Reid.

Softcover. New York, Christie's Houston, 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover auction catalog, 435 pages, b&w and color illustrations. Light edge wear to wrappers. Else a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2010-11-09, Book: Near Fine, Dust Jacket: Near Fine, 224 pages, profuse color and b&w illustrations and plates. The essays in John La Farge's Second Paradise explore the artist's reemergence as a plain air landscape painter, his use of the sketchbook, and his late decorative work, which was reinvigorated by the experience of light and color he discovered in the South Seas. Further discussions examine the prevailing notions of tropical paradise perpetuated since Captain Cook's "discovery" of Polynesia in the late 18th century, and offer the first extended comparison of the careers and art of La Farge and Paul Gauguin, who arrived in Tahiti only days after La Farge left in 1891. Featuring many previously unpublished works, this beautiful book is a major contribution to the study of La Farge's life and art. Like new in publishers shrink-wrap.