art biography

Hardcover. NY, Doubleday & Company/MOMA, 1st, 1963, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 228 pages illustrated in b&w, some color. Although falling well short of a definitive biography, this treatment of Rodin is chronologically sound, contains some evocative photographs, and a good bibliography, and serves as a solid point of departure for the student of monumental sculpture, and of turn-of-the-20th century French art. Biographical Outline, Selected Bibliography, List of Illustrations, and Index; [Notes] at the end of most topics. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Henry Holt , 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 738 pages, Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) was arguably the world's greatest sculptor, known for such works as "The Thinker, The Kiss, The Hand of God" and dozens of others. Beautifully written and illustrated, "Rodin" is the definitive biography of a man whose influence on sculpture was as profound as Michelangelo's. Clean copy.

Hardcover. San Francisco, Pomegranate Communications, 1st US, October 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Oversized. Black cloth cover, very little wear. Dust jacket has minor wear to edges and corners. Inside is bright and clean, many b&w photographs throughout. A nice copy.

Hardcover. San Francisco, Pomegranate Communications, 1st, 2004, Book: Near Fine, Dust Jacket: Near Fine, Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. Hardcover, 136 pages, b&w photos of the artist at work. Foreword by David Driskell, introduction by Ruth Fine.

Hardcover. San Francisco, Pomegranate Communications, 1st, 2004, Book: Near Fine, Dust Jacket: Near Fine, Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. Hardcover, 136 pages, b&w photos of the artist at work. Foreword by David Driskell, introduction by Ruth Fine.

Hardcover. San Francisco, Pomegranate Communications, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. Hardcover, 136 pages, b&w photos of the artist at work. Foreword by David Driskell, introduction by Ruth Fine.

Hardcover. Los Alamitos, CA, Art Bagnall Publishing, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 379 pages, with photographs throughout and illustrated cover. Minor corner and edge wear, previous owner's embossed stamp on title page, otherwise, very clean and tight copy. Richter was a professional auto racer in Southern California in the 1930s and 1940s who then founded Bell Auto Parts and devoted his life to creating specialty safety products for auto and motorcycle sports, including the Bell helmet, which quickly became an essential and popular part of driving gear.

Softcover. New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 278 pages including plates. (INSCRIBED) Softcover. B/w illustrations throughout. Wrapper has a touch of age yellow, otherwise very good. A small bit of soil on bottom edge. In very good condition.

Hardcover. Chicago, Ivan R. Dee, reprint, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 287 pages. Illustrated with black & white portraits and paintings. When Peter Paul Rubens died in 1640 he left an indestructible reputation as one of the world's great painters. In every sense Baroque, his paintings have a wonderful fluidity, a powerful sensuality, a beauty and richness of color and texture. His prolific output included some 1,300 paintings (compare this with Leonardo's twenty and Vermeer's thirty-six) as well as books of engravings, architectural drawings, and sketches. He also left a beautiful young wife, a vast personal fortune, a palatial house in Antwerp, and collections of old masters, antiquities, precious stones, and silver work. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Cooper Square Press, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 432 pages. The most popular painter of his day, yet an artist whose reputation has fluctuated among art scholars and critics of the succeeding centuries, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) is chiefly remembered today for his large canvases of sensual gardens, religious scenes, and voluptuous "Rubenesque" women. In Oppenheimer's account of his life, Rubens emerges not only as a talented painter but also as an intellectual with a unique conception of beauty that proved very influential and ahead of his time. Oppenheimer explores Rubens' ideas as he tells the story of his life, which included years as a diplomat, and illuminates his response to the humanism of the Renaissance in which he lived.

Hardcover. NY, Thames & Hudson, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, oversize format. 408 pages with 534 color illustrations. Rudolph de Harak (1924-2002) is one of the most influential graphic designers of the mid-twentieth century. This beautifully produced, comprehensive monograph is devoted to this fascinating and significant figure and provides an in-depth account of de Harak's life and work.From his early years in Los Angeles to his success as a design consultant and educator in New York City, de Harak brought inventiveness to everything he designed, from record covers to book jackets, from furniture to exhibitions. De Harak's work was influenced by early modernist masters, such as Will Burtin, Gyorgy Kepes, Alvin Lustig, and Max Bill, as well as by the rigor, simplicity, and rationalism of the International Style, Abstract Expressionism, Op Art, and Pop Art. Organized chronologically into six chapters that cover de Harak's life and career, each supported by sidebars on the designers, architects, and art movements that have influenced his work, Rudolph de Harak Graphic Designer documents de Harak's pioneering and prolific fifty-year career in graphic, experiential, industrial, and furniture design for a wide range of clients, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cummins engine company, McGraw Hill publishing, and many others. PLEASE NOTE: DUE TO WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 172 pages. Hailed by Ansel Adams as "the greatest photographer of the nude," Ruth Bernhard is an icon in the photographic world. As told by Ruth in countless conversations with close friend and biographer Margaretta Mitchell, this thoughtful, illustrated memoir is a true tribute to the legendary artist. Reminiscent of a personal scrapbook, the engaging text is adorned with an abundance of fascinating memorabilia and nostalgic snapshots. Woven throughout is correspondence between Ruth and her mentor Edward Weston, as well as interviews with friends, colleagues, students, and her long-time printer. Also included is a special section entitled "Workshop," which surveys Ruth's acclaimed teaching methods. Coinciding with an exhibition in honor of Ruth's 95th birthday, Ruth Bernhard: Between Life and Art is a beautiful celebration of an extraordinary woman.

Hardcover. San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 172 pages. Hailed by Ansel Adams as "the greatest photographer of the nude," Ruth Bernhard is an icon in the photographic world. As told by Ruth in countless conversations with close friend and biographer Margaretta Mitchell, this thoughtful, illustrated memoir is a true tribute to the legendary artist. Reminiscent of a personal scrapbook, the engaging text is adorned with an abundance of fascinating memorabilia and nostalgic snapshots. Woven throughout is correspondence between Ruth and her mentor Edward Weston, as well as interviews with friends, colleagues, students, and her long-time printer. Also included is a special section entitled "Workshop," which surveys Ruth's acclaimed teaching methods. Coinciding with an exhibition in honor of Ruth's 95th birthday, Ruth Bernhard: Between Life and Art is a beautiful celebration of an extraordinary woman.

Hardcover. NY, Arcade, 1st , 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 221 pages. Hardcover. B&w photographs throughout. Red gilt titles on spine. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Follows the rise and fall of Iraqi-born Jewish brothers from London, Charles and Maurice Saatchi, who created some of the most memorable ad campaigns of the 1970s and 1980s, and then in 1994 were ousted from their firm by an American shareholder revolt.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown and Co., 1st, 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket with light edgewear, 419 pages. Saint-Gaudens was one of the major artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries; his outstanding craftsmanship remains a tremendous influence on American sculpture to this day. Fifty-five b/w illustrations throughout.

Hardcover. Milan/London, Skira/Thames & Hudson, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 192 pages. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. This book is the catalogue of an exhibition that took place at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art (29 March-7 May 2008) to celebrate the eighty-year anniversary of the company. Photographs, sketches, and drawings explore design processes and showcase shoes, handbags, and accessories --a magnificent selection of fashion works embodying social and cultural changes over time. Illustrated with b&w and color photos. Includes bibliography and three essays.

Hardcover. NY, Little, Brown and Company, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 763 pages, b&w illustrations. From the author of the critically acclaimed Elvis Presley biography: Last Train to Memphis brings us the life of Sam Phillips, the visionary genius who singlehandily steered the revolutionary path of Sun Records. The music that he shaped in his tiny Memphis studio with artists as diverse as Elvis Presley, Ike Turner, Howlin' Wolf, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash, introduced a sound that had never been heard before. He brought forth a singular mix of black and white voices passionately proclaiming the vitality of the American vernacular tradition while at the same time declaring, once and for all, a new, integrated musical day. With extensive interviews and firsthand personal observations extending over a 25-year period with Phillips, along with wide-ranging interviews with nearly all the legendary Sun Records artists, Guralnick gives us an ardent, unrestrained portrait of an American original as compelling in his own right as Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, or Thomas Edison.

Hardcover. NY, Barnes & Noble, reprint, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 194 pages. Includes a bibliography of Bannerman's books and 47 reproductions of the first British and first American editions and her illustrations for them. Phyllis Yuill and Justin Schiller helped with the publishing history and supplied illustrations. Hay shows that it was the illustrations of later artists that provoked the controversy over THE STORY OF LITTLE BLACK SAMBO, not Bannerman's original text or pictures. Bound in the original gilt-stamped red boards. From the dust jacket: "This first biography of Helen Bannerman covers much new ground and is based on the vast collection of letters to the children, usually lovingly illustrated, in the possession of the Bannerman family. As well as telling the story of one of the most popular children's books of all time, Elizabeth Hay's biography offers an intimate picture of the daily life of a British memsahib in the heyday of the Raj." Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 160 pages, 120 illustrations including 54 plates in full color. Nice clean copy with tight binding and flawless dust cover. Printed in association with The National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Hardcover. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 298 pages. B&W and color illustrations throughout. Nice clean copy with tight binding and dust jacket in good condition. Preface by David M Sokol. This is the definitive study of one of America's major artists and inventors, Samuel F.B. Morse (1791-1872). It covers his prodigious achievements in painting and technology, his passionate cultural ambitions, and his key role in the historic development of American art. The book imaginatively combines intellectual biography with interpretation of more than one hundred pictures. Three chapters consider Morse's most extraordinary artistic achievements: The House of Representatives, The Gallery of the Louvre, and The National Academy of Design. In a final chapter on the electromagnetic telegraph, an invention that imprinted his name on our language, there is a special discussion of the conceptual relationship between artistic and mechanical inventions.

Hardcover. UK, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 304 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Pictures throughout. Sarah Angelina Acland (1849-1930) is one of the most important photographers of the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods. Born to a preeminent English family, Acland first gained note as a portraitist whose illustrious subjects--among them two prime ministers, the physicist Lord Kelvin, and the noted art critic John Ruskin--were visitors to her family's Oxford home. Yet it was through her work in the thenfledgling field of color photography that Acland achieved her greatest acclaim. When her color photographs were shown at the Royal Photographic Society in 1905, many considered them to be among the finest work produced in the new medium. An introduction to Acland's entire body of work, this volume contains more than two hundred previously unpublished examples of her photographs, spanning portraiture, studies of Oxford architecture, and landscape and garden photographs captured in Madeira, Portugal. Additional images include four unrecorded portraits by Lewis Carroll of Acland and her brothers--shed light on the work of her contemporaries, including acquaintances and artistic influences like Carroll and Julia Margaret Cameron. A fascinating look at the earliest days of color photography, this book also offers a glimpse into the lives of an influential English family and its circle of friends.

Hardcover. New York, Abbeville Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 256 pages. b&w and color illustrations throughout. Takes us away from Sargent's famous society portraits and enters a world of open air studies and landscape paintings. Includes exerpts from Sargent's travel diaries. Light gray cloth, gilt lettering to spine. Beautiful, clean, crisp and tight copy in MINT condition. Looks brand new.

Hardcover. New York, Abbeville Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 256 pages. b&w and color illustrations throughout. Takes us away from Sargent's famous society portraits and enters a world of open air studies and landscape paintings. Includes exerpts from Sargent's travel diaries. Light gray cloth, gilt lettering to spine. Beautiful, clean, crisp and tight copy in MINT condition. Looks brand new.

Hardcover. New York, Nan A. Talese, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 732 pages, illustrations in color and b&w. Light edgewear to dust jacket, else a clean, tight copy. From National Book Award winner Deirdre Bair, the definitive biography of Saul Steinberg, one of The New Yorker's most iconic artists.