5 comments about Signature Flowers : A Revealing Collection of Celebrity Drawings.

1. Take away the celebrity chic aspect of this book, imagine that the drawings of flowers were rendered by a cross-section of not-so-famous people, and its power and pleasure remain undiluted. This is an enormously entertaining and wildly creative collection of words and pictures linked together by a dark and disturbing subtext. And that is something of a miracle, courtesy of the potent mind of the author. You get sneak peaks into the psyches of an amazing array of artists who, best of all, gradually coalesce to create a smartly subtle memoir of the charismatic character who conceived this book.



2. This is a beautiful book to keep and to give. The drawings are very interesting and beautiful, some of them are very basic sketches, some are complex artistic works, but all of them have one thing in common: they were drawn with lots of love. And that shows. Thank you for this book Ms Leacock!



3. This book is absolutely great. Kids of all ages enjoy looking at the flowers that were drawn by the many famous stars that appear in it. I personally know Victoria and the work that she put into the book. There are stories in it that will make you cry, like the Alison Gertz story. It is very heartwarming. Thirty percent of the profits go to the Aid foundation known as Love heals which is absolutely great.



4. A very beautifully well put together book. Not only are the drawings interesting, the text that goes along with them as Ms. Leacock remembers the acquiring of the flowers will make you laugh and cry. The wide range of celebrities drawings of flowers is quite amazing (authors, directors, actors, etc.). That Ms. Leacock would share these very personal rememberances make it quite touching. Makes a wonderful gift for anyone and you will want to display it on your coffee table forever. The fact that a large percentage of the proceeds is going to AIDS charities is even more special.



5. What a cool book! Who knew all these celebrities could also draw! I bought 2 copies. One for myself and one as a gift for Christmas.

5 comments about Jewels of Lalique.

1. What a beautiful book. Full page, full color photos, with many of the pieces being shown larger than life. Original drawings of the same pieces are shown on a facing page. I wish that some of the photos of people and places had been reproduced larger, but the original old photos may have been very small to start with, and may not have blown up well bigger than they were originally printed. All in all an absolutely drool-worthy book.
   
   I ordered this book from Half Price Books from Texas, as Amazon did not have it. The book arrived very fast, and very well wrapped and boxed. The book was listed as used-good with dented corners and scuffed dust jacket. Wrong. It looked brand new. I would order from them again. And the book was half the price of the other sellers.



2. This is by far the best book ever produced on Lalique's jewelry. The photographs in the book document nice close up details as well as front and back shots of his jewelry. Also nice to see is photographs of his beautiful jewelry renderings and nature studies. This book is a must for any Lalique fan. I highly recommend it.



3. This book is a great resource for anyone interested in not just art nouveau jewellery but master jewellers of this period.I had not seen lalique's work before and was completely besotted with the pictures in this book,it includes intial design sketches alongside the finished pieces and discusses his work in great length.Great book when I need inspiration.



4. For lovers of the Art Nouveau movement, this book is a must! Lalique was an amazing artist/jeweler, and this book covers the jewelry portion of his career well.



5. So you missed the exhibit in Dallas? True, this exhibit is possibly the only time these items from private collections will be on display. But do not despair. There is still a wonderful catalog out there to be had.

   When my friends and I went to see this exhibit, we were so enamoured by the beauty of the jewelry, we wanted to carry it all home with us. The catalog was the best we could do.

   The items in this exhibit that were designed and made by Rene' Lalique moved classicism to modernism. Although the luminosity of the jewelry is certainly lost in the book's photographs, like the sheen of the perfectly matched opals and the glow of the glass enamels, the level of detail is not.

   The exhibit was set up to light the plique-a'-jour from the rear of the pieces as well as from the front. Plique-a'-jour is similar to cloisonné. Both techniques use glass enamels separated by cells created from metal, but cloisonné is applied onto a metal surface, whereas plique-a'-jour is openwork, more like a stained glass window. The difference in effect is that plique-a'-jour has a glow that lights up the jewelry, whereas cloisonné receives its shine from the metal behind it.

   The plique-a'-jour technique was not new, having been used during the Renaissance but had been virtually forgotten. The influence of the relatively new trade with Japan opened up the eyes of those artists who were participants in the new arts & Crafts movement centered in London. In fact, Lalique studied in London and picked up on the Japanese influences. In addition, there was also a religious movement centered in Germany at this time that centered more upon appreciation of nature than a single deity.

   These influences combined in Lalique's jewelry that stunned the world when he unveiled over a hundred pieces of bijou at the Exposition Universalle in Paris in 1900. Critics of his work charged that he was merely trying to provoke the public. The public crowded around the exhibit during its run nonetheless, although not all of the items in the exhibit sold during the Exposition. The opal necklace that all of us loved when we saw this exhibit in Dallas was one that did not sell, surprisingly enough.

   So, if you simply could not get to Dallas, then the catalog rates a good look so that you can study Lalique's breathtaking style. He was never matched and, in fact, abandoned making jewelry for glass when cheap, shoddily made knock-offs began to appear. Lalique felt he had gone as far as he could go with jewelry and became a direct Tiffany competitor.

2 comments about From the South Seas.

1. One of the latest books dedicating the oceanic art world (in this case even including a little bit of Indonesian tribal art), originating from a private US collection now on hold and show in the Museum of fine Arts in Boston, MA.
   
   The collection of Bertha and William Teel shows not only Oceanic but also African art in general.
   This book covers a very good part of their Oceanic art collection from areas like Indonesia (Nias, Sumatra, Borneo, Timor), Melanesia / Papua (Asmat, Korvar, Sentani, Keram, Yuat, Biwat, Korewori, Papua Gulf), Melanesia / Islands (Trobriand, Tami, New Britain, New Ireland, New Caledonia,Admiraltity, Witu, Solomon, Banks), Micronesia (Kiribati, Matty, Marshall) and Polynesia (Fiji, Austral, Rapanui, Marquesas, Aotearoa).
   
   The pieces are very well photographed and described (esp. worth mentioning are detailed information about pedigree/history, aquired from and when and bibliography). Mentioning when and of whom they once have been aquired is something pretty new in art books and i personally like a lot.
   
   As some pieces have a very good (means special or very interesting) pedigree, the preface of the book shows a deeper insight into this early periods when collecting begun; like Johan Cesar Godeffroy, London Missionary society or Richard Parkinson just to mention a few.
   
   Overall a very informative book for the novice of Oceanic (tribal) art with lots of good pictures and informative stories as well as the collector/dealer who knows about as it has new pieces not too much known or published untill now and deeper insight into early collecting periods.Art of the Senses: African Masterpieces from the Teel Collection.



2. Oceania is a region of the Pacific Ocean that ranges from New Guinea to New Zealand, and from Easter Island to Hawaii. The native populations have created a unique tradition with their sculptures, pots and paintings that are now acknowledged for their artistic values. Compiled, organized, and edited by Christraud Geary (Curator of African and Oceanic Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), From The South Seas: Oceanic Art In The Teel Collection showcases some 80 Oceanic works of art, each of which is superbly illustrated through full-color photography with an accompanying text describing the object's form and function. An informative introduction by Michael Gunn (Associate Curator for Oceanic Arts, Saint Louis Art Museum) places these showcase works within their historical and cultural context. Curator Geary discusses provenance and survey scholarship to a simply beautiful presentation of Oceanic artifacts. From The South Seas is a prized and highly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library Art History reference collections.

No comments about Dan Flavin: A Retrospective.

1 comments about Kerouac and Friends: A Beat Generation Album.

1. Anyone interested in Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation will be enchanted by "Kerouac and Friends: A Beat Generation Album" by father and son writing team Fred W. McDarrah and Timothy S. McDarrah. As picture editor of the Village Voice for more than forty years, Fred McDarrah was friendly with all the Beats in their heyday and went to all their parties and readings, always with his camera in hand. On intimate terms with many of them, McDarrah didn't consider himself a Beat because he always had a paying job. In subsequent years, he kept in touch with Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Amiri Baraka, Ted Joans, and others, and in 1984, twenty-five years after Kerouac's "On the Road" was published, numerous friends and his sons Timothy and Patrick convinced him to publish a book with all his old photos.
   
   The pictures alone are worth the price of admission, but to give the book its substance, the McDarrahs have put together a compendium of twenty-eight of the best articles, both pro and con, about the Beat scene, from the original essay by John Clellon Holmes defining "Beat," through articles by Kenneth Rexroth, Seymour Krim, Diana Trilling, Fred McDarrah, and Jack Kerouac in his essay "The Last Word," concluding with Jack McClintock's sad finale, "This Is How the Ride Ends."
   
   Reading these seminal articles about a literary phenomenon that divided American literary critics puts the reader in touch with the controversial vibes of the times. This is the meat of the book, but it wouldn't be nearly so appetizing without the sauce provided by McDarrah's intimate pictures of the participants, youthful and sincere, in their Greenwich Village pads and hangouts, cafes and jazz joints, auditoriums and back alleys.
   
   The book concludes with a twenty-five-page section of brief biographical sketches of everyone identified in the photographs and the writers of the articles and is worth reading in its entirety, from Daisy Aldan, editor, translator and publisher of the poets and painters of the New York School, to Louis Zukofsky, noted New York poet born of Russian immigrant parents. Reading the sketches is like eating a light dessert after a fine meal. For connoisseurs of the Beats, "Kerouac and Friends" is indeed a feast. The book is truly a portrait of an age.

No comments about Homer: 16 Art Stickers (Fine Art Stickers).

No comments about The Care of Antiques and Historical Collections: Second Edition: Second Edition (American Association for State and Local History Book Series).

No comments about Street Art, Street Life.

No comments about Woven Textile Design in Britain to 1750 (The Victoria & Albert Museum's Textile Collection).

1 comments about This Rimy River: Vaughn Oliver and Graphic Works 1988-94.

1. This was a book that I purchased a few years back direct from the company. I heard that there is a new book on Vaughn Oliver and v23's work coming someday soon. In the meantime, I thought that I might write this review.

   The book format is big with plenty of lovely photos and nice subtle details (i.e. silver ink throughout the pages). It really makes you see the evolution of his work over the years of v23's conception. There are also quotes throughout the book from fellow musicians and designers who have come to know Vaughan Oliver that make for a very nice retrospective.

   The only problems with this book is that I wish that it had more text particularly from the Vaughan Oliver himself about his experiences and design methods. The book format is easy to damage and get dirty, and the inks from one page sometimes rub off onto the next page.

   Other than that, a good book overall.