Art Biography

Hardcover. Boston, David R. Godine, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 273 pages, oblong hardcover illustrated in color and b&w. Frank Benson, a pivotal artist of the American Impressionist movement had three great loves in his long and productive life: his family, his art, and the sporting life. As a boy, Benson dreamed of being an ornithological illustrator. In mid-life, after an extremely successful career as a portraitist, he returned to the wildfowl and sporting subjects that were his lifelong passion. Over the next forty years, in etching, lithography, watercolor, and oil and wash, he portrayed birds beloved since childhood, scenes of his hunting and fishing expeditions, and still lives of incomparable delicacy. Whether painting a hunter setting out decoys, a wash of geese by moonlight, a watercolor of a companion poised to gaff a salmon, or an etching of a group of ducks silently gliding in for a landing, Benson conveyed the joy and beauty of a sportsman's life.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 179 pages. From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a meditation on the deeply Jewish and surprisingly spiritual roots of Stan Lee and Marvel Comics Few artists have had as much of an impact on American popular culture as Stan Lee. The characters he created--Spider-Man and Iron Man, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four--occupy Hollywood's imagination and production schedules, generate billions at the box office, and come as close as anything we have to a shared American mythology. This illuminating biography focuses as much on Lee's ideas as it does on his unlikely rise to stardom. It surveys his cultural and religious upbringing and draws surprising connections between celebrated comic book heroes and the ancient tales of the Bible, the Talmud, and Jewish mysticism. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Heidelberg, Germany, Kehrer Verlag, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 108 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy still in shrink wrap. Many color photographs throughout. Tight copy. "State Fair" is filled with captivating images. Christopher Chadbourne takes you on a journey filled with interesting characters, vibrant colors, and memorable moments - all compiled from years of photographing the goings-on at this uniquely American institution. Chadbourne knows state fairs and has an uncanny ability to catch often peculiar scenarios as people mingle, eat, and participate in this once a year event.

Hardcover. Heidelberg, Germany, Kehrer Verlag, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 108 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy still in shrink wrap. Many color photographs throughout. Tight copy. "State Fair" is filled with captivating images. Christopher Chadbourne takes you on a journey filled with interesting characters, vibrant colors, and memorable moments - all compiled from years of photographing the goings-on at this uniquely American institution. Chadbourne knows state fairs and has an uncanny ability to catch often peculiar scenarios as people mingle, eat, and participate in this once a year event.

Hardcover. New York , W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover. SIGNED BY SMALL on half-title page. David Small, a best-selling and highly regarded children's book illustrator, comes forward with this unflinching graphic memoir. Remarkable and intensely dramatic, Stitches tells the story of a fourteen-year-old boy who awakes one day from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he has been transformed into a virtual mute-a vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot. From horror to hope, Small proceeds to graphically portray an almost unbelievable descent into adolescent hell and the difficult road to physical, emotional, and artistic recovery.

Softcover. Seattle, WA, Fantagraphics Books, 2nd pr., 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 68 pages. Softcover with light wear to paper wrappers. Black and white illustrations by Gorey. Tight, clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 265 pages, b&w illustrations. This first broad study of the relation between Vincent van Gogh's psychological development and his art stresses the creative rather than the pathological. chronology, section of black & white photographs, notes, selected references, index. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York , Random House, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 409 pages, illustrations in color and b&w. Remainder mark to bottom edge. Light edgewear to dust jacket, else a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harper, 1st, 2025, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 324 pages. Surreal, the long-awaited, definitive biography of Gala Dali, unmasks this famous yet little-known queen of the twentieth-century art world, who graced the canvases, inspired the poetry, and influenced the careers of her illustrious lovers and husbands with tenderness, courage, and agency. Using previously undiscovered material, Surreal tells the riveting story of Gala Dali, (1894-1982) who broke away from her cultured but penurious background in pre-Revolutionary Russia to live in Paris with both France's most famous poet Paul Eluard and Max Ernst. By the time she met the budding artist Salvador Dali in 1929, Gala was known as the Mother of Surrealism. She rapidly became his mentor, muse, and protector, marrying him in 1934 and subsequently engineering their vast fortune. At a time when artists were celebrities, Gala acted as the ambassador of the Surrealist movement, spreading its popularity across the globe. Remainder mark to top edge otherwise clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Picador/Farrar Straus Giroux, 1st US, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 398 pages, Illustrated in color and b&w. In 1922, Cyril Power, a fifty-year-old architect, left his family to work with the twenty-four-year-old Sybil Andrews. They would be together for twenty years. Both became famous for their dynamic, modernist linocuts-streamlined, full of movement and brilliant color, summing up the hectic interwar years. Yet at the same time, they looked back to medieval myths and early music, to country ways that were disappearing from sight. Jenny Uglow's Sybil & Cyril: Cutting Through Time traces their struggles and triumphs, conflicts and dreams, following them from Suffolk to London, from the New Forest to Vancouver Island. This is a world of futurists, surrealists, and pioneering abstraction, but also of the buzz of the new, of machines and speed, of shops and sport and dance, shining against the threat of depression and looming shadows of war. Remainder dot to top edge otherwise like new.

Hardcover. New York, Bloomsbury USA, 1st US, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 296 pages. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket.

Hardcover. New York, Bloomsbury , 1st US, 2004-07-02, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 296 pages. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 118 pages, illustrations in color. Clean, unmarked copy in excellent condition. In Telling Stories, David Kaufmann focuses on Philip Guston's controversial figurative paintings of the late 1960s and 1970s. He looks at the early critical reception of these works to see what the artist was actually doing and, at another level, to investigate the odd alchemy of artists and their audiences. Grounding his historical approach in careful readings of the paintings, Kaufmann pays close attention to Guston's intense and complicated relationship to Judaism. At the same time, by situating Guston in the context of the fashions of the New York art world, Kaufmann provides unique insight into the workings of that world at the moment when the strictures of artistic modernism began to fade.

Hardcover. Austin, TX, Texas Monthly Press, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, A book devoted to the various forms of folk art that have developed in Texas. Includes over 200 illustrations, approximately half of which are in color. Also contains biographical notes on the various featured artists. Very good condition, some wear to the edges and spine of the dust jacket.

Hardcover. US, Glitterati, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. The only truly personal biography of one of the greatest artists of our time.Eighty interviews with illustrious artists, designers, and others, each of whom was influenced by Andy Warhol

Hardcover. San Francisco, Calif., Chronicle Books, 1st, September 1, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 248 pages. Oversized. Blue cloth cover, embossed design, minor wear to edges and corners. Dust jackethas light edgewear, some small dents. Many color and b&w illustrations throughout. A bright and clean copy.That's the Way I See It offers a revealing look at one of our most popular artists. In this tour de force, over 350 reproductions of Hockney's paintings, graphic designs, and experimental work are closely interwoven with the artist's insightful and highly personal narrative. Accessible, articulate, and always ahead of their time, Hockney's compostions and reflections offer a fascinationg look at a uniquely talented artist.

Softcover. NY/Boston, Twelve, reprint, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 841 pages, b&w illustrations, index. Spanning the mid-1970s until just a few days before his death in 1987, THE ANDY WARHOL DIARIES is a compendium of the more than twenty thousand pages of the artist's diary that he dictated daily to Pat Hackett. In it, Warhol gives us the ultimate backstage pass to practically everything that went on in the world-both high and low. He hangs out with "everybody": Jackie O ("thinks she's so grand she doesn't even owe it to the public to have another great marriage to somebody big"), Yoko Ono ("We dialed F-U-C-K-Y-O-U and L-O-V-E-Y-O-U to see what happened, we had so much fun"), and "Princess Marina of, I guess, Greece," along with art-world rock stars Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francis Bacon, Salvador Dali, and Keith Haring. Warhol had something to say about everyone who crossed his path, whether it was Lou Reed or Liberace, Patti Smith or Diana Ross, Frank Sinatra or Michael Jackson. A true cultural artifact, THE ANDY WARHOL DIARIES amounts to a portrait of an artist-and an era-unlike any other.

Hardcover. New York, Abrams ComicArts, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 224 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Very minor wear to top edge of dust jacket. An otherwise very clean, unmarked, tight copy. Throughout his 25-year career, alternative cartoonist/screenwriter Daniel Clowes has always been ahead of artistic and cultural movements. Clowes has been praised for his emotionally compelling narratives that reimagine the ways that stories can be told in comics. The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist is the first monograph on this award-winning, New York Times-bestselling creator. It includes all of Clowes's best-known illustrations as well as rare and previously unpublished work, all reproduced from the original art.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 272 pages. The prolific talents of painter Joan Brown (1938-1990) inform every page of this shining testament to a singular artist. For Brown, art was a means of self-revelation and self-investigation, a fact made abundantly clear by the autobiographical nature of her work. In the first book to fully explore Joan Brown's artistic career, Karen Tsujimoto provides an overview of Brown's life from her San Francisco childhood to her years as a mature artist and teacher. Jacquelynn Baas focuses on Brown's use of universal and personal symbolism by analyzing one of her most celebrated paintings, The Bride. Both authors make extensive use of interviews that let Joan Brown speak for herself about art and the creative process.

Hardcover. Boston , David R. Godine , reprint , 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 110 pages, hardcover. Color illustrated dust jacket with blue cloth covers. Extensive color and black and white illustrations though out. Illustrated end pages and flyleaves. (Originally published in 1984). Previous owner's notation on half-title page otherwise clean, minor wear to dust jacket.

Hardcover. Boston, David R. Godine , 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn, price-clipped dust jacket, 110 pages. INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR on the half-title page. Here is a full representation of Pleissner at his very best, covering his early years in Brooklyn, the superb work he did for the War Department during World War II, his splendid landscapes, and his sporting art. Written by Peter Bergh, with an introduction by Thomas S. Buechner. Light fading to dj along spine. Small chip to dust jacket. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 148 pages. 150 reproductions of Tudor's artwork, including fashion sketches, holiday cards, book illustrations, paintings, and more. Bibliography. A retrospective of the life and art of the late Tasha Tudor. Clean copy.

Softcover. Louisville KY, Chicago Spectrum Press, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, b&w illustrations throughout. INSCRIBED BY HAMILTON on the front fly leaf. Ed Hamilton was raised on a street, in a neighborhood, that no longer exists. But Walnut Street and the now razed black professional district are vibrant and alive in this account of how one skinny black youth became a nationally acclaimed sculptor. This autobiography chronicles not just one man, but a way of life. It is filled with photos of art work now located all over the U.S., in private homes, public plazas, and prestigious museums.

Hardcover. NY, Pegasus Books, 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 338 pages, b&w illustrations. At the turn of the last century, the Guggenheim family ran the most powerful mining conglomerate on earth. Decades later came the Guggenheim museum, which became the hub of the world's most powerful art brand. In between, the Guggenheim name was uttered in every field from aviation to politics, from journalism to rocketry. But who was behind this epic sphere of influence? It took three generations of Guggenheims to build the wealth in its first era. Yet it was the singular force of Harry Guggenheim who would guide the family's next generation of businesses into modernity. Part angel investor, part entrepreneur, part technologist, Harry launched businesses whose impact on 20th century America went far beyond the Guggenheims' mines or museum. His visionary investments continue to profoundly influence our world and hold valuable business lessons for billionaire dynasty builders like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. A flawed but brilliant man, Harry Guggenheim was the confidante to five American presidents and a key financial force behind commercial aviation and space exploration, two innovations that catapulted the nation into the future. Clean copy.