Art Criticism

Hardcover. New York, New York University Press, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 274 pages. Hardcover. Previous owners name at top right corner of front endpaper. Black & white illustrations. Faint foxing to edges. Includes Errata slip. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. New York, Asia Society/Creative Time, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 24 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Accordion binding. Very clean, unmarked copy with only minor edgewear. Commissioned to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Central Park, Cai's Light Cycle fireworks display lit the New York sky with a circle of explosions on a September night in 2003. This 24-page accordion book documents it all from planning to performance, executed by the famous Grucci fireworks family. Separating the book's hardbound cloth covers reveals a continuous folded sheet with reproductions of Cai's gunpowder drawings (made by burning scant gunpowder on paper) on one side and photographs of the event and text on the other. In an interview, the artist compares his drawings to "love-making" and explains some technical aspects of his displays, such as a computer chip in each explosive shell.

Hardcover. New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 272 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor dust jacket wear. Illustrated with never-before-seen photographs, cartoons, and drawings, Cartoon County brings the postwar American era alive, told through the relationship of a son to his father, an extraordinarily talented and generous man who had been trained by Norman Rockwell. Cartoon County gives us a glimpse into a very special community-and of an America that used to be.

Hardcover. Seattle, WA, Fantagraphics Books, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 258 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to edges. A tight copy. Cartoons for Victory showcases wartime work by cartoonists such as Charles Addams, Harold Gray, Harvey Kurtzman, Will Eisner, and many others. Most of the cartoons and comics in this book have not been seen since their first publication.

Hardcover. Washington, DC, Princeton University Press, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 352 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Tight copy with minor wear to edges. Previous owner's notes in pencil near rear end paper.

Hardcover. Ann Arbor MI, UMI Research Press, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 315 pages. Issued w/o a dust jacket. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Brighton UK, Alpha Press, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 127 pages, illustrated in color and b&w. This book examines the extraordinary metamorphosis that has occurred in the presentation of the human face during the twentieth century. A series of essays charts the portraits which are the "Milestones" to that change, while the discussion that follows - "Changing Perceptions" - endeavours to identify its nature, its causes, and to show the manner in which the artists reveal this transformation when painting their sitters. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1st Edition, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 155 pages. Hardcover. Color and b/w illustrations throughout. Cover boards bound in orange cloth, gilt title on spine, all excellent. Dust jacket unclipped, has small puncture near spine on front cover (patched from inside a with tape, see image), otherwise very good. Binding tight. Spine straight. In beautiful condition. Hassrick's illuminating discussion of Russell's work, based on much new research, is set against the backgrond of the artist's experiences in the West.

Softcover. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 112 pages, color & b/w plates, text illustrations, notes, bibliography. This book looks closely at the whiz kid of graphic novelists whose 'Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth' (2000) inspired praise from critics & readers alike, and demonstrated that Ware's graphic novels challenged traditional definitions of literature. Here is the career, the work methods, and the graphic innovations, which include pullout, flip-up, and three-dimensional insertions, along with cut-out-and-assemble paper projects that require construction by readers.

Softcover. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 112 pages, color & b/w plates, text illustrations, notes, bibliography. This book looks closely at the whiz kid of graphic novelists whose 'Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth' (2000) inspired praise from critics & readers alike, and demonstrated that Ware's graphic novels challenged traditional definitions of literature. Here is the career, the work methods, and the graphic innovations, which include pullout, flip-up, and three-dimensional insertions, along with cut-out-and-assemble paper projects that require construction by readers.

Softcover. Rochester NY, Visual Studies Workshop Press, 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 199 pages, paperback. Fictions and the fictions of theory from acclaimed theorist of film. With a foreword by Annette Michelson. Mild rubbing and edgewear to wraps. Light bumping to spine. Previous owner's signature to front endpapers. Scarce. A clean and tight copy.

Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 358 pages, color and b&w illustrations. What we call classical art did not simply appear in ancient Rome, or in the Renaissance, or in the eighteenth-century Academy. Endlessly repackaged and revered or rebuked, Greek and Roman artifacts have gathered an amazing array of values, both positive and negative, in each new historical period, even as these objects themselves have reshaped their surroundings. Vout shows how this process began in antiquity, as Greeks of the Hellenistic period transformed the art of fifth-century Greece, and continued through the Roman empire, Constantinople, European court societies, the neoclassical English country house, and the nineteenth century, up to the modern museum. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Tate Publishing, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 144 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor edgewear. Richly illustrated with many images taken from original artwork and rare artefacts, Comics Art gives a fascinating, accessible guide to some of the special properties of sequential art, such as panels, page layouts, speech balloons and wordless or 'silent' narration. It addresses concerns about how comics perpetuate stereotypes and support the status quo, while assessing their growing significance, notably through autobiography and reportage, as vehicles for provocative voices often silenced in other media. Comics Art also explores the diversity of styles, media and approaches now possible in the medium and exciting developments in digital comics and in comics conceived for galleries and installations.

Softcover. New York, Fantagraphics Books, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 199 pages. Softcover with minor wear to paper wrappers. Spine cracked on sencond page. Library embossed stamp on front cover, otherwise clean, tight copy. Minor wear on edges.

Hardcover. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1st , 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 269 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Transl. from German by John W. Gabriel. Black & white illus. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. London, Rodale Press, 1st thus, 1954, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, publisher's original cream and red pattern paper covered boards, gilt title and author lettering to the black cloth spine. 36 printed pages of text with monochrome illustrations throughout. A small (although not really a miniature) book containing an essay by James which was originally published in the Century Magazine in 1890. Illustrated with a portrait of Honore Daumier and 15 his caricatures. Mild foxing to endpapers otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Berkeley CA, University of Calfornis, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 127 b&w and color illustrations. Light edge wear to dust jacket. Light marking on bottom edge. Else a very clean, tight copy.

Softcover. New Britain, CT, New Britain Museum of American Art ; London : University Press of New England, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 84 pages. Softcover. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor edgewear. Color illustrations throughout. This catalogue explores the often uneasy relationship between the art of painting and the art of illustration, featuring American artists who practiced both styles of painting between 1850 and 1950. The catalogue charts the development of both types of art through the eyes of a select group of artists of who engaged in both fine art and illustration.

Softcover. New Britain, CT, New Britain Museum of American Art ; London : University Press of New England, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 84 pages. Softcover. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor edgewear. Color illustrations throughout. This catalogue explores the often uneasy relationship between the art of painting and the art of illustration, featuring American artists who practiced both styles of painting between 1850 and 1950. The catalogue charts the development of both types of art through the eyes of a select group of artists of who engaged in both fine art and illustration.

Hardcover. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1st, March 1, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 245 pages, illustrated throughout. Clean, bright pages and tight binding. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898) was a towering figure in late nineteenth-century France. The country's greatest public painter, he created murals that decorated museums in Amiens, Rouen, and Lyons as well as major buildings in Paris-most notably the Pantheon, the Sorbonne, and the city hall. Critics from the political right, left, and center, the avant-garde, the Academy, and the state all agreed on the importance of Puvis's murals. Avant-garde artists greatly admired and drew from his work. There was much controversy, however, over the meaning of these murals. This handsomely illustrated book is the first full-length examination of Puvis's murals and their critical reception during the artist's lifetime. Jennifer L. Shaw explains that Puvis's paintings were imagined to embody a vision of France. Although his regional images, allegories of the French heritage, and evocations of the nation as an embracing motherland were all part of a grand tradition of public art, Puvis's painting style was more closely aligned with the avant-garde. Rather than providing a specific narrative or allegory of France, Puvis's murals provoked viewers to experience their own fantasies of Frenchness; rather than using the close brushwork favored by most of his contemporaries, Puvis used large flat areas of color to render his subjects. Shaw persuasively argues that Puvis was the only painter of the period to unite the traditions of public art and modernist form. Her original analysis of Puvis's art underlines his importance to the history of modernism; her examination of the public response to his art illuminates debates about art, subjectivity, and national identity in fin de siecle France.

Hardcover. New York, Da Capo Press, Reprint, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover. (Library of American Art Series) 1971 reprint of the original 1926 edition. 110 pages. b&w illustrations. Brown cloth, gilt lettering to spine and front cover. Light wear and unfortunate paper-clip impressions to upper edge of some pages. Still a nice, tight copy.

Hardcover. New York, Praeger, 1st, 1967, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, 117 pages of text followed by black & white plates. Minor age darkening along top edge. Dust jacket worn along edges - now protected with clear plastic cover. Clean, tight copy.