2 comments about C20th Furniture.

1. This was a very helpful book to determine furniture in different periods of time. It's a good resource.



2. Overall, a pretty good book. Starting a little earlier than most modern books, it begins with some examples of Arts & Crafts, Nouveau and Deco which help give some interesting perspective.
   
   The photos are large, but of varying quality. Some pics surprised me with new angles and views than I am used to. (There is a shot of a Nelson Marshmallow couch in a very large size that I had never heard of.) Some of the shots show some aging and wear and tear which is refreshing to see and sometimes adds some nice character to the pieces.

1 comments about Inspiring Impressionism: The Impressionists and the Art of the Past (Denver Art Museum).

1. This book is extremely well written, has beautiful, full color illustrations and has so much information about this exhibit. I have encouraged my students to purchase it because it is so informative and has the historical information you could find no where else.
   The paintings are reproduced in wonderful detail, and large enough so that you can actually learn from studying them.
   I have gone to the exhibit twice and the book was such a great introduction, knowing all the backgrounds to this exhibit was invaluable.

No comments about Light Art. Artificial Light (Emanating).

4 comments about Love and Loss: American Portrait and Mourning Miniatures.

1. I liked this book. Nice photos, good value. I can't say that I will go back and read it again, but it had decent information on the first read and great art.



2. Informative and well written with beautiful color photos of the miniatures. A book we'll treasure.



3. This is a wonderful book on American miniatures and mourning portraits. Ostensibly a catalogue of the Yale collection, it also gives a great history of miniatures in their cultural context, a discussion of miniature painters and processes, and a synopsis of the tradition of mourning items. Very well researched and well written. Beautiful pictures of miniatures, most at actual size, and many enlarged to reveal tiny details. This book is accessible to both scholars and the interested public.



4. I began my interest in miniature paintings several years ago, but found that long searches on the internet rarely produced any new information on this topic. Owning about 4 "worthwhile" books in my collection on the subject, I anxiously awaited Robin Jaffee Frank's book (which I became aware was "in the works" about 6 months before publication). I hoped that this book would be the frosting on the cake of knowledge I possessed on miniatures. I was delighted to find it is the cake itself. Miniature itself in size, it contains a whopping 358 pages packed with information and insights, along with plenty of full-size illustrations. It's presented in a format that can be easily followed, with many paintings also shown magnfied to enhance the concept being presented. You will want to take your time in reading and relishing this book, there's alot of information here. Well worth the wait.

No comments about Op Art.

1 comments about Rhinestone Jewelry, Figurals, Animals And Whimsicals: Identification & Values.

1. I wasn't sure how this book would be after the disappointing Coro book but it is very good. There are lots and lots of photos of a wide variety of figurals. The pricing seems pretty average for the industry too. This is a good one!

3 comments about Ancient Faces : Mummy Portraits in Roman Egypt (Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications).

1. The book is large and full of portraits from diferent sites in Egypt, not only the Fayum, which are not always included in other books. It contains several articles from diferent specialists conserning the history, techniques, archaeological facts and findings as well as the dating of these objects, which are very usefull and enlightening. Three fourth's of the book presents the portraits themselves and the study cases of each one of them. Unfortunetly, the portraits are not always full length page and all are placed on a white background. In this respect, the book by Berenice Geoffory-Schneiter, Fayum, is superior. Nevertheless, the book is nicely presented and a good basic book for those interest in the study of this fascinating cultural expression.



2. A companion to an exhibition taking place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, this book presents colored panel and shroud portraits of Roman Egypt. Contributors, including R. Bagnall, M. Bierbrier, K. Gschwantler, J. Taylor and S. Walker, give a concise acccount of mummy portraits and their discovery, as well as the Fayum and its people. Extensively illustrated in color, this is a useful book covering a little-known subject. An excellent reference for everyone.



3. This exhibition is a facinating personal document of the Roman mummy portraits and their Egyptian and greek influenced hybrid artworks. The incredible freshness of the works themselves is lost in the printing here. Perhaps the encaustic is difficult to photograph? Anyway the topic and text is wonderful, but the images pale next to the 1st person experience of these vital energizing works of the Roman era.A good book to own, if you saw the show it's better.

1 comments about Andy Warhol (Museum of Modern Art).

1. You can get a excellent sense of Warhol's progress from this book. 1962 seems to have been a decisive years. Before 1962, one can see Warhol's transition from commercial artist and early experimentalism. Beginning sometime in 1962, one sees the emergence of the well-chosen, well-executed images that Warhol is known for.
   
   It seems helpful in understanding his growth to see some of Warhol's less appealing works. Nonetheless, with a total of about 320 pages of images, there are still plenty of Warhol's bettter works to see here.
   
   Four high-quality, significant essays about Warhol open this book. The closing includes a chronology, a "collective portrait" consisting of short contributions from many who knew Warhol well, and "Warhol in his own words", selections that reveal how insightful yet straight-forward Warhol could be.
   
   This seems to be the single best bible of Warhol's paintings. There is a comprehensive collection of Warhol's prints available in "Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonne: 1962-1987" which seems prettier but may suffer from excessive prettiness. Warhol's trashier aspects are not apparent, nor is his experimental reach, in the prints. Both books have their appeal, but as a one source collection of Warhol's painting and critical assessments of it this Retrospective seems unparalleled.
   
   For a good exposure to Warhol in all his diversity, "Andy Warhol: 365 Takes" by the staff of the Andy Warhol Museum is also valuable, but to focus on the paintings, this retrospective seems ideal.

1 comments about The Way We Lived in North Carolina.

1. History by committee--updated and consolidated edition of a 30-year-old five-volume history of North Carolina focusing on physical culture (architecture and historic sites).
   
   Not bad, just not great. Interesting to learn that North Carolina has had an inferiority complex for a long time, due to lagging in population, manufacturing, and culture even from the early days of colonization due to lack of transportation and ingrained conservatism. Ironically, that could have helped pave the way for the recent renaissance in tourism, high-tech jobs, and population explosion as people want to live and play in the relatively unspoiled state "of the state we call home", to quote the current tourism-office slogan.
   
   The updating to cover the most recent years seems like a rushed and tacked on list of names and events from the last three decades, not an extension of the narrative history to truly bring the history up to now.

1 comments about The Frontier in American Culture: An Exhibition at the Newberry Library, August 26, 1994-January 7, 1995.

1. Quality publisher of the exhibition at the Newberry Library, with smooth matte expensive thick paper and excellent reproductions of artifacts. Highly recommended.