1 comments about Historic Pottery of the Pueblo Indians, 1600-1880.

1. Art, or pottery in this case, defines the culture. Historic Pottery of the Pueblo Indians (of Southwestern United States) is an impressive collection of photographic works and analysis that exemplifies the highest artistic achievement of these Native Americans. The Pueblo Indians have kept their culture basically intact for over a thousand years. Their works of pottery are an essential and practical form of artistic expression. The basic ingredient for making pottery is clay dug up from deposits in the earth. These deposits of clay were pulverized and cleaned of impurities and used in the process of making pottery. This book examines this process and details the different types of Pueblo pottery both of practical use and those exemplifying the highly decorative samples of artistic expression. This pottery truly defines the culture of these people.

No comments about Album: On and Around, The Work of Urs Fischer, Yves Netzhammer, Ugo Rondinone, and Christine Streuli.

No comments about Greek Geometric Pottery: A Survey of Ten Local Styles and Their Chronology. Revised Second Edition.

1 comments about Miller's: Encyclopedia of British Transfer-Printed Pottery Patterns, 1790 - 1930 (Mitchell Beazley Antiques & Collectables).

1. The book is good; not totally comprehensive but good for a collector. I ended up finding it elsewhere. Be careful when ordering... I ordered it in early May and just got word that the ship date has been delayed AGAIN until late August! Go find it elsewhere!

5 comments about George Ohr, Art Potter: The Apostle of Individuality.

1. A must have for any person that appreciated the work of George Ohr.
   Thank you Robert A. Ellison Jr. for this amazing book. If you can't see
   the actual work this book is the next best thing.



2. The book is beautiful and the photos are superb, but I was somehow led to believe I'd find photos of early utilitarian pottery in this book and I did not. I will use the book. It does enhance my knowledge of George Ohr and his work, but I wanted to see the really old pieces from his work with his mentors and beyond.



3. If you like pottery and George Ohr this is an outstanding book. Amazing photo quality of some of George's coolest work..He was truly one of the worlds best at what he did..This has become one of our favorites, and we found it for less money on AMAZON.COM!!! Thanks,TESSRS



4. Ohr does break the mold when it comes to art pottery. Whereas other potters, no matter how innovative or imaginative they are, stay within certain classic forms for vases, bowls, goblets, etc., Ohr often departs radically from the forms. His art pottery is perhaps best considered as free-form sculpture inspired by, but not made according to, traditional pottery. Thus, a "pot" has "elaborate configuration: sharp bends, angles, blades, swirls, and quasi-cylinders [making for] complexity from every angle." Another "pot" has "crinkling result[ing] in dramatically deep three-dimensional spaces...[which] radiate highlights that contrast with the dark-brown glaze...[giving] this piece...a brooding, enigmatic presence." The foregoing quotes are from captions of two of the color photographs of individual pieces of Ohr's pottery on nearly every page. The work is a tour through Ohr's artistic career from "The Early Years" to "A Final Phase" noting and illustrating phases of development and points of his individuality. With their colors and polymorphous, though mostly rounded, shapes, Ohr's pottery/sculpture has a deep earthiness, as if plucked whole from the ground's depths, though they patently demonstrate a clear, singular vision and matching consummate skill.



5. 
   "Geo E Ohr has challenged any potter on earth! `You' Prove the Contrary!" These are the words painted by George Ohr on a sign at the 1895 Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition.
   
   He did more than challenge fellow artists, he set a standard for them by digging his own clay, shaping his own pots, firing his own kiln, and creating forms that were unlike the currently popular shapes. In fact, his shapes were so outre at the time that he was called "The Mad Potter of Biloxi." As the world now knows he was prescient.
   
   The words that he painted in 1895 followed the total destruction of his studio and some 10,000 pieces by fire, plus a devastating hurricane that hit the Mississippi coast prior to that. Obviously, he was a resilient and determined individual. Today, in the wake of Katrina, the Ohr O'Keefe Museum in Biloxi is being rebuilt. If he were still living Ohr would have it no other way.
   
   Married and the father of ten children, he sold most of his works at expositions and fairs. He received only a modicum of artistic appreciation during his lifetime, although he was presented with the Silver Medal at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. It was not until the 1960s that a New Jersey antique dealer, Jim Carpenter, came to Biloxi and saw Ohr's works now housed in an auto repair shop. Carpenter eventually bought nearly 7000 pots and introduced Ohr to art aficionados in New York City. The potter's stature as an extraordinary artist has continued to grow.
   
   Robert Ellison became an admirer of Ohr's and now owns some 370 pieces. His creation of this beautiful volume is a gift to all. With 192 color illustrations illuminated by scholarship George Ohr, Art Potter, is both a tribute to the artist and an outstanding reference for his work.
   
   - Gail Cooke

1 comments about Color Woodcut International: Japan, Britain, and America in the Early Twentieth Century (Chazen Museum of Art Catalogs).

1. In his seminal 1915 work, "Chats on Japanese Prints", Arthur Davison Ficke lists five periods of development in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints starting from roughly 1500 and ending at approximately 1850, just before the arrival of the Peary expedition in 1850. He then proclaims the end of the tradition of the classical Japanese woodblock print. This volume essentally corrects Mr. Ficke and tells the fascinating story of the Japanese woodblock after it left its homeland. It can very much be described as a sequel to Mr. Ficke's work, but it is better seen as a major advance in art history on its own merits.
   
   In December of 2006, the Chazen Art Museum of the University of Madison-Wisconsin held an exhibition of the Van Vleck print collection. This collection documents the renaissance of woodblock printmaking in the West around the turn of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This volume is the print guide to that showing and most of the works contained are from the Van Vleck collection. There are also important essays on this period by renowned art authorities.
   
   Following the Peary expedition, there was an outpouring of trade and information exchange between Japan and the West. This allowed Western artists and collectors to see and study Japanese artforms and creative techniques for the first time. The result was an explosion of interest in and influence by Japanese art on the West. The resulting cross-currents of influences on the Japanese print from English-speaking, Continental and indigenous sources resulted in an International Style of color print that was a tremendous influence on the art and aesthetics of the twentieth century that continues into the twenty-first.
   
   In common with Japan, traditional woodblock printing in the late nineteenth century was on the wane, ill-suited as it was to modern print technology. It was William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement he helped found that revived woodblock printing as a means of creative expression. Perhaps the greatest English woodblock printer is Frank Morley Fletcher, whose synthesis of Japanese influence and the traditional English landscape can be best seen in such prints as his "Mt. Shasta, California". Among the other fascinating artist personalities profiled in Nancy Green's essay is that of Mokuchu Urushibahara, who was trained in printmaking in Japan, emigrated to Great Britain and subsequently trained British artists, becoming an important link in the cultural interchange between East and West as well as an accomplished artist in his own right.
   
   In America, the American Arts and Crafts movement was largely led by Arthur Wesley Dow. Here, the traditional woodblock met American innovation in the Provincetown or white line print that revolutionized modern art printing. Andrew Stevens' essay reflects on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the American print, introducing us to such topics as the Provincetown artists' colony in Massachusetts and the Printmakers' Society of Los Angeles (later the Print Makers Society of California).
   
   The massive reception of Japanese prints and print-making rebounded back to its country of origin in the form of the soseku hanga (art print) and shin hanga (new print) styles that tried to re-introduce the print. Many of the artists cited are obscure and hopefully more attention will be given to them in future. Kendall H. Brown's essay tells the fascinating story of these movements and their efforts to gain recognition both in their homeland and abroad.
   
   Among the British artists whose works are presented are Frank Morley Fletcher, Ethel Kirkpatrick and William Nicholson. American artists include Arthur Wesley Dow, Bertha Lum and Frances Gearhart. Japanese artists include Yoshida Hiroshi who later immigrated to the USA and Tsuguharu Foujita who later was a prominent part of the Paris art scene in the '20's.
   
   Finally, attention is also paid to Continental, particularly French, artists such as Henri Riviere, Gustave Baumann and Paul Jacoulet.
   
   For those persistent students of art who aren't satisfied with textbook descriptions of 'Japanese influences on modern art', who would rather see, touch and feel the passion, the personalities and the hard work that made these trends possible, then this volume is a worthwhile investment. No doubt, the modern viewer and reader will also be taken aback by how views on inter-cultural relationships expressed today echo those of a century ago.

No comments about Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity.

No comments about Collectors Encyclopedia of Red Wing Art Pottery: Identification & Values.

2 comments about Gardens of Pleasure: Eroticism and Art in China.

1. Maybe it wasn't altruism that led Bertholet share his collection in this book. I'm grateful anyway. It's an outstanding collection of Chinese erotic art, from about the end of the 17th century to the late 19th. The works here are all silk paintings, except for a few drawings. They are printed in beautiful color, large enough for easy reading, with expanded details of a few. Bertholet adds plenty of useful commentary (much of which I skipped, I admit). He also adorns most pages with brief extracts from classic Chinese poetry, all on the topic of physical love.
   
   Two things stand out in every artwork and in the collection as a whole. First is the gentle, consensual tone. The closest thing to aggression is a jealous wife twisting the ear of a husband caught 'in flagrante,' and that's more humorous than anything. Voyeurism, whether peeking in on a lady's solitary pleasure, secret viewer of a couple's engagement, or the reader's own participation with the artwork, is always un-threatening. Humor is always close to the surface, the natural good humor of happy people.
   
   The second thing that strikes a Western eye is the very non-Western conventions these artists followed in rendering men and women. The figures are very similar - women aren't given the guitar figure one might expect, and men have rounded and nearly hairless bodies. Women's breasts get only a little attention, and are covered by a bandeau or bib in many scenes. Genitalia aren't exaggerated, and their realistic scale may jar an eye that expected size and importance to go together.
   
   But that's why these works are so enjoyable. They aren't Western, they're a very different look at the thing all people have in common. They're still beautiful, both in the Chinese tradition and in the visual celebration of sex.
   
   //wiredweird



2. This stunning collection of more than 100 color illustrations from the Bertholet Collection is a magnificent achievement. Prestel has created a thoroughly engaging publication here, and never before has the world been able to view most of these breathtaking visions of love and sex from pre-modern China. Much of the visual works date to the 18th century. But, in addition to the visual feast, the entire book overflows with verses that match the age and mood of each work of art, as well as essays on the history of the art form, the effect of Taoism on erotica, Confucianism, the trials a husband undergoes getting his wife to accept a concubine, and even the history of Bertholet's collection itself, and lots more. This is a fascinating read! Intellectual, artistic, and even at times, quite humorous, this is a superb collection of erotic imagery and one of the most enjoyable publications one will find in this genre. This is one book that owners should proudly display on their "coffee-tables" for all to enjoy.

1 comments about The Complete Potter: Porcelain (The Complete Potter).

1. I would have prefered more technical information. If you are looking for a book to assist you in getting started working in porcelain there are better choices but it is a nice addition to an existing library.