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Man Ray: Prophet of the Avant-garde by 
Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum by
This latest volume in the acclaimed In Focus series examines the life and work of Alfred Stieglitz, concentrating on the Getty Museum's considerable holdings of the work of this American master. In his studies of his wife, Georgia O'Keefe, in his portraits of the urban scene, and in his pictures of natural form, Stieglitz defined the modern movement on photography. In his periodical Camera Work he championed photography as an art form; in his famous gallery "An American Place," he promoted the work of other American modernists. Fifty reproductions with commentaries by Weston Naef, the Getty's curator of photographs, represent both the range of the Getty's collection and the importance of Stieglitz's contribution. The book also includes an edited colloquium on Stieglitz's life and work. Participants included Emmit Gowin, Sarah Greenough, Charles Hagen, John Szarkowski, and Weston Naef.
American Art Deco by
This splendid book explores the indigenous tradition of Art Deco in America and, in over 500 illustrations, reveals the beauty and extent of the style as it was manifested here. Most of the important buildings, in all parts of the country, were embellished with strong Art Deco themes. William van Alen, Ely Jacques Kahn, and Joseph Urban, among others, created some of the most memorable architecture of the century: the Chrysler Building and Radio City Music Hall in New York; the Union Trust Building in Detroit; the Richfield Oil Building and the Pan-Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles. Furniture, whether in homes, offices, restaurants, or nightclubs, was revolutionized by Art Deco's modernist stylizations (including the uniquely American skyscraper motif), and American designers from Paul Theodore Frankl to Donald Deskey to Russel Wright to Walker von Nessen created sofas, screens, and dressing tables in the Art Deco spirit. On radios, book covers, fabrics, automobiles--the influence of Art Deco abounded.This beautifully produced volume brings American Art Deco to life with illustrations of objects ranging from cocktail shakers to the Trylon and Perisphere of the 1939 World's Fair in New York. Alastair Duncan, an internationally acknowledged authority on Art Deco and Art Nouveau, and author of many books on the subject, has written the definitive volume on the American interpretations of one of the most successful design styles of the century.
American Art Deco by 
American Art Deco Modernistic Architecture and Regionalism by
Art deco architecture flourished in large cities and small towns throughout America in the 1920s and 1930s. Many of the best examples office buildings, movie theaters, hotels, and churches are still in use. Deco architects, artists, and designers drew on European styles but were most committed to a style that grew organically, as they saw it, from their native soil. Two themes bound Deco buildings and their decorative schemes together: a regional pride that tied buildings to their specific locales and functions, and a growing national symbolism that asserted the buildings' identity as uniquely, independently American. American Art Deco features description sand over 500 color photographs of seventy-five lavish and innovatively designed buildings across the country that have been preserved both outside and in, giving the full scope of this beloved, exciting style.
American Modern, 1925-1940: Design for a New Age by
Showcases a pioneer group of designers, architects, & artists who forged a new "Machine Age" design aesthetic that transformed American tastes.
The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright by
Neil Levine's study of the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, beginning with his work in Oak Park in the late 1880s and culminating in the construction of the Guggenheim museum in New York and the Marin County Civic Center in the 1950s, if the first comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the architect's entire career since the opening of the Wright Archives over a decade ago. The most celebrated and prolific of modern architects, Wright built more than four hundred buildings and designed at least twice as many more. The characteristic features of his work--the open plan, dynamic space, fragmented volumes, natural materials, and integral structure--established the basic way that we think about modern architecture. For a general audience, this engaging book provides an introduction to Wright's remarkable accomplishments, as seen against the background of his eventful and often tragic life. For the architect or the architectural historian, it will be an important source of new insights into the development of Wright's whole body of work. It integrates biographical and historical material in a chronologically ordered framework that makes sense of his enormously varied career, and it provides over four hundred illustrations running parallel to the text. Levine conveys the meanings of the continuities and changes that he sees I Wright's architecture and thought by focusing successive chapters on his most significant buildings, such as the Winslow House, Taliesin, Hollyhock House, Fallingwater, Tailsen west, and the Guggenheim Museum. A new understanding of the representational imagery and narrative structure of Wright's work, along with a much-needed reconsideration of its historical and contextual underpinnings, gives this study a unique place in the writings on Wright. In contrast to the emphasis a previous generation of critics and historians placed on Wright's earlier buildings, this book offers a broader perspective that sees Wright's later work as the culmination of his earlier efforts and the basis for a new understanding of the centrality of his career to the evolution of modern architecture as a whole.
Art Deco in Detroit by
Since the 1920s, Art Deco, or "The Modern Style," has delighted people with its innovative use of materials and designs that capture the spirit of optimism to create the style of the future. Although the Detroit metro area is primarily known as an industrial region, it boasts some of the finest examples of Art Deco in the country. Art Deco in Detroit explores the wide-ranging variety of these architectural marvels, from world-famous structures like the Fisher and Penobscot Buildings, to commercial buildings, theaters, homes, and churches. Through a panorama of photographs, authors Rebecca Binno Savage and Greg Kowalski take readers on a fascinating tour of this influential movement and its manifestations in and around Detroit. The grandeur evident in some of the major buildings reflects a time when artisans and architects collaborated to craft structures that transcend functionality-they endure as standing works of art.
Art Deco Style by
The dominant style in architecture and design of the 1920s and 30s, Art Deco was an exuberant reaction to the austerity of the war years. Characterized by geometric shapes, stylized natural forms and the use of luxurious materials, and inspired by sources ranging from Ancient Egypt to the Ballets Russes, the style rapidly spread from France to Britain, the United States and all over the globe during the 1930s. The fascinating text of this attractive volume charts the various worldwide manifestations of Art Deco to demonstrate with eloquence that the style - though labelled a 'movement' only in retrospect - had an astounding coherence that led to its international appeal. The first ever book to explore Art Deco's pervasive influence in all areas of life, Art Deco Styleis illustrated with examples from all over the world, from liners to letter-boxes and lampposts.
The Bauhaus and America by
The Bauhaus school was founded in Weimar in 1919 by the German architect Walter Gropius, moved to Dessau in 1925 and to Berlin in 1932, and was dissolved in 1933 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe under political duress. Although it only existed for 14 years and boasted fewer than 1300 students, its influence is felt throughout the world in numerous buildings, artworks, objects, concepts and curricula.
Benton, Pollock, and the Politics of Modernism by
In this acclaimed revisionist study, Erika Doss chronicles an historic cultural change in American art from the dominance of regionalism in the 1930s to abstract expressionism in the 1940s. She centers her study on Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollock, Benton's foremost student in the early thirties, charting Pollock's early imitation of Benton's style before his radical move to abstraction. By situating painting within the evolving sociopolitical and cultural context of the Depression and the Cold War, Doss explains the reasons for this change and casts light on its significance for contemporary culture. "A welcome addition to the growing body of literature that deals with the art and culture of the depression and cold war eras. It is a pioneering work that makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of a puzzling conundrum of American art--the shift from regionalism to abstract expressionism."--M. Sue Kendall, Winterthur Portfolio "An important scholarly contribution. . . . This book will stand as a step along the way to a better understanding of the most amazing transition in the art of our tumultuous century."--James G. Rogers, Jr., Art Journal "A valuable and interesting book that restores continuity and political context to the decades of depression and war."--Marlene Park, American Historical Review
California on the Breadlines: Dorothea Lange, Paul Taylor, and the Making of a New Deal Narrative by
California on the Breadlines is the compelling account of how Dorothea Lange, the Great Depression's most famous photographer, and Paul Taylor, her labor economist husband, forged a relationship that was private--they both divorced spouses to be together--collaborative, and richly productive. Lange and Taylor poured their considerable energies into the decade-long project of documenting the plight of California's dispossessed, which in 1939 culminated in the publication of their landmark book, American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion. Jan Goggans blends biography, literature, and history to retrace the paths that brought Lange and Taylor together. She shows how American Exodus set forth a new way of understanding those in crisis during the economic disaster in California and ultimately informed the way we think about the Great Depression itself.
Collage in Twentieth-Century Art, Literature, and Culture: Joseph Cornell, William Burroughs, Frank O'Hara, and Bob Dylan by
Emphasizing the diversity of collage in the twentieth century, Rona Cran's book explores the role that it played in the work of Joseph Cornell, William Burroughs, Frank O'Hara, and Bob Dylan. Collage's catalytic effect, Cran argues, enabled each to overcome a crisis in representation that threatened to destabilize their work. Throughout, she shows that rigid definitions of collage severely limit our understanding of artists and writers who used it in non-traditional ways.
A Companion to Dada and Surrealism by
This excellent overview of new research on Dada and Surrealism blends expert synthesis of the latest scholarship with completely new research, offering historical coverage as well as in-depth discussion of thematic areas ranging from criminality to gender. This book provides an excellent overview of new research on Dada and Surrealism from some of the finest established and up-and-coming scholars in the field Offers historical coverage as well as in-depth discussion of thematic areas ranging from criminality to gender One of the first studies to produce global coverage of the two movements, it also includes a section dealing with the critical and cultural aftermath of Dada and Surrealism in the later twentieth century Dada and Surrealism are arguably the most popular areas of modern art, both in the academic and public spheres
Dada: Art and Anti-art by
'Where and how Dada began is almost as difficult to determine as Homer's birthplace', writes Hans Richter, the artist and film-maker closely associated with this radical and transforming movement from its earliest days. Here he records and traces Dada's history, from its inception in about 1916 in wartime Zurich, to its collapse in Paris in 1922 when many of its members were to join the Surrealist movement, down to the present day when its spirit re-emerged first in the 1960s with, for example, Pop Art.This absorbing eye witness narrative is greatly enlivened by extensive use of Dada documents, illustrations and a variety of texts by fellow Dadaists. It is a unique document of the movement, whether in Zurich, Berlin, Hanover, Paris or New York. The complex relationships and contributions of, among others, Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Picabia, Arp, Schwitters, Hausmann, Duchamp, Ernst and Man Ray, are vividly brought to life.
Devouring Frida: The Art History and Popular Celebrity of Frida Kahlo by
Beginning in the late 1970's Frida Kahlo achieved cult heroine status less for her richly surrealist self-portraits than by the popularization of the events of her tumultuous life. Her images were splashed across billboards magazine ads, and postcards; fashion designers copied the so-called "Frida" look in hairstyles and dress; and "Fridamania" even extended to T-shirts, jewelry, and nail polish. Margaret A. Lindauer argues that this mass market assimilation of Kahlo's identity has consistently detracted from appreciation of her work, leading instead to narrow interpretations based on "an entrenched narrative of suffering." While she agrees that Kahlo's political and feminist activism, her stormy marriage to fellow artist Diego Reviera, and the tragic reality of a progressively debilitated body did represent a biography colored by emotional and physical upheaval, she questions an "author-equals-the-work" critical tradition that assumes a :one-to-one association of life events to the meaning of a painting." In kahlo's case, Lindauer says, such assumptions created a devouring mythology, an iconization that separates us from rather than leads us to the real significance of the oeuvre. Accompanied by 26 illustrations and deep analysis of Kahlo's central themes, this provocative, semiotic study recontextualizes an important figure in art history at the same time it addresses key questions about the language of interpretation, the nature of veneration, and the truths within self-representation.
The Diary of Frida Kahlo by
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), whose art mirrors the passion, tumult, & enormous strength of an anguished life, is one of the most charismatic figures of her time. Her paintings mingle Surrealism, folk art, & autobiography in a haunting & visceral style. The diary provides, in Kahlo's own words & pictures, the most personal & candid view possible of this remarkable artist. The diary reflects her stormy relationship with the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, whom she married twice. Kahlo reputedly counted Leon Trotsky & the sculptor Isamu Noguchi among her lovers. Kahlo compiled her diary over the last 10 years of her life when back injuries had made her a semi-invalid. The heart of this book is the facsimile of the diary in its original size with its colorful images & writings. The facsimile is followed by an English transcription of the text with explanatory commentaries. An introduction by the world renowned writer Carlos Fuentes & an essay by art historian Sarah M. Lowe set the diary in the context of Kahlo's art & life as a whole. Order from Harry N. Abrams, 100 5th Ave., New York, NY 10011. 212-206- 7715.
Diego Rivera by
Early in the Depression, Diego Rivera was commissioned by Edsel Ford to create a series of murals in the gallery of the Detroit Institute of Arts, giant frescos whose theme would be America's industrial might. This volume studies the astonishing results and gives us a remarkably close look at Diego and his wife, Frida Kahlo.Rivera's Detroit Industry murals are one of this country's greatest treasures. In addition to providing full coverage and analysis of the murals, the book includes chapters on the murals' planning and antecedents, Rivera's working methods (which can be read as a primer on frescos), Diego and Frida's lives for their nine months in Detroit, and the public's dramatic response to the strong socialist/communist themes in the works.
Diego Rivera: The Detroit Industry Murals by
Early in the Depression, Diego Rivera was commissioned by Edsel Ford to create a series of murals in the gallery of the Detroit Institute of Arts, giant frescos whose theme would be America's industrial might. This volume studies the astonishing results and gives us a remarkably close look at Diego and his wife, Frida Kahlo.Rivera's Detroit Industry murals are one of this country's greatest treasures. In addition to providing full coverage and analysis of the murals, the book includes chapters on the murals' planning and antecedents, Rivera's working methods (which can be read as a primer on frescos), Diego and Frida's lives for their nine months in Detroit, and the public's dramatic response to the strong socialist/communist themes in the works.
Diego Rivera As Epic Modernist by
Craven (art history, U. of New Mexico) moves chronologically through Rivera's life, examining the artist's work and life at several stages. He covers his beginning as a child prodigy akin to Picasso, his youth as a modernist, his young adulthood as a muralist, his work as a Trotsky-influenced painte
Dreaming with His Eyes Open: A Life of Diego Rivera by
This fascinating biography--the first in over forty years--of Diego Rivera, the brilliant Mexican artist and revolutionary (and twice-married husband of Frida Kahlo), captures the explosively passionate nature that made Rivera one of this century's most gifted and controversial painters. Drawing on his extensive travels and research, Patrick Marnham explores a character who was, in every sense, larger than life. We are introduced to the rural Mexico, full of mystery and turbulence, that shapes the enormously imaginative young Rivera's worldview--and a place that would remain his most enduring creative influence. We see the young apprentice leave Mexico for Spain on a government grant and then go on to Italy, where he first encounters the work of the great fresco painters that will change his life and art forever; to Paris, where he settles in Montparnasse at the epicenter of the legendary artistic circle living there at the time, including Picasso (both his great friend and his rival), Modigliani, Matisse, Léger and Braque. We see Rivera travel to Moscow to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, and begin his lifelong flirtation with Communism. And by 1930, with his young wife, Frida Kahlo, Rivera finally makes his way to North America, where he is to work on three major mural projects--one of which, commissioned by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller for the new Rockefeller Center, will end in disaster and furious international controversy for the artist, and force his return to Mexico. Throughout we are witness to Rivera's immense passions--his countless lovers, his stormy relationship with Frida Kahlo, his political bravado, his massive strength and maniacal work ethic--which fueled his highest artistic achievements and made for an extraordinarily complex life. Marnham conveys to us the impact of this galvanic force that was Rivera's creative drive and personality, and shows why he was perhaps the greatest muralist since the Renaissance.
Edward Hopper by
In his works, Hopper poetically expressed the solitude of man confronted to the American way of life as it developed in the 1920s. Inspired by the movies and particularly by the various camera angles and attitudes of characters, his paintings expose the alienation of mass culture. Created using cold colours and inhabited by anonymous characters, Hopper's paintings also symbolically reflect the Great Depression.Through a series of different reproductions (etchings, watercolours, and oil-on-canvas paintings), as well as thematic and artistic analysis, the author sheds new light on the enigmatic and tortured world of this outstanding figure.
Edward Hopper by
Traces the life and career of this modern American artist, looks at a variety of his paintings, watercolors, drawings, and etchings, and discusses themes in his work.
Edward Hopper by
Hopper is generally considered the major twentieth-century realist. Such paintings as House by the Railroad, Early Sunday Morning, and Nighthawks seem to embody the very character of our time. Yet few people have penetrated the mask of Hopper's public image. Here, Gail Levin has gone beyond the standard evaluations of the man and his work to investigate the authentic identity of the artist and the way his personality informed his art. She has uncovered aspects of Hopper's life (and even unknown works) that provide the first comprehensive view of the artists early development.The fascinating and often poignant story of Hopper's long struggle for recognition gives new insight into his later pessimism. A complex man is revealed, introspective and intellectual, yet romantic, illuminating the many levels of meaning in the paintings of his maturity.In addition to Hopper's watercolors and oil paintings, there are study drawings for his major works and documentary photographs illuminating all phases of his life.
Edward Hopper in Vermont by
Edward and Jo Hopper first discovered Vermont in 1927, making day trips from the Whitney Studio Club’s summer retreat for New York artists in Charlestown, New Hampshire. In 1935 and 1936 the Hoppers again traveled to Vermont, this time from their summer home in Cape Cod, in Edward’s continuing search for new places to paint. During these quests they identified the White River and what Edward considered to be Vermont’s “finest” river valley, and they returned there for longer visits in 1937 and 1938, boarding at Robert and Irene Slater’s Wagon Wheels farm in South Royalton. These “vacations” were a change from the usual tempo of their lives, a break from the studio-bound easels, canvas, and oils, and an opportunity to paint something different, to be in a new place and paint en plein air. Over the course of his Vermont sojourns, Edward Hopper produced some two dozen paintings, watercolors that are among the most distinctive of his regional works, strongly characterized by place. In this accessible volume, Bonnie Tocher Clause tells the story of the Hoppers’ visits to Vermont, their stays on the Slater farm, and their introduction to farm life. She locates the sites shown in Hopper’s Vermont paintings, identifies two watercolors not previously recognized as Vermont scenes, and traces the development of Hopper’s singular interpretations of the Vermont landscape. In Edward Hopper in Vermont, Clause details the provenance of the Vermont paintings through the years, tracking the history of sales leading to the works’ ultimate homes with private collectors and museums. Showcasing all the Vermont paintings in color, this volume will delight both fans of Hopper’s work and those who are fascinated by the story of the creation, collection, and business of producing great art.
Equal under the Sky: Georgia O'Keeffe & Twentieth-century Feminism by
Equal under the Sky is the first historical study of Georgia O'Keeffe's complex involvement with, and influence on, US feminism from the 1910s to the 1970s. Utilizing understudied sources such as fan letters, archives of women's organizations, transcripts of women's radio shows, and programs from women's colleges, Linda M. Grasso shows how and why feminism and O'Keeffe are inextricably connected in popular culture and scholarship. The women's movements that impacted the creation and reception of O'Keeffe's art, Grasso argues, explain why she is a national icon who is valued for more than her artistic practice.
Frank Lloyd Wright by
A complete biography based on a wide range of previously untapped primary sources, covering Wright's private life, architecture, and role in American society, culture, and politics. Views Wright's buildings as biographical as well as social statements, analyzing his work by type, category, and individual structure. Examines Wright's struggle to develop a new artistic statement, his dramatic personal life, and his political and economic ideas, including those on cities, energy conservation, cooperative home building, and environmental preservation. Includes over 150 illustrations (photographs, floor plans, and drawings--many never before published), extensive footnotes, and the most exhaustive bibliography of Wright's published work available.
Frank Lloyd Wright by
A cultural icon who defined the twentieth-century American landscape, Frank Lloyd Wright has been studied from what seems to be every possible angle. While many books focus on his works, torrid personal life, or both, few solely consider his professional persona, as a man enmeshed in a web of prominent public figures and political ideas. In this new biography, Robert McCarter distills Wright’s life and work into a concise account that explores the beliefs and relationships so powerfully reflected in his architectural works.nbsp; McCarter examines here how Wright aspired to influence America’s evolving democratic society by the challenges his buildings posed to traditional views of private and public space. He investigates Wright’s relationships with key leaders of art, industry, and society, and how their views came to have concrete significance in Wright’s work and writings. Wright argued that architecture should be the “background or framework” for daily life, not the “object,” and McCarter dissects how and why he aspired to this and other ideals, such as his belief in the ethical duty of architects to improve society and culture.nbsp; A penetrating study of the foremost pioneer in modern architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright offers a fascinating biographical chronicle that reveals the principles and relationships at the base of Wright’s production.
Frank Lloyd Wright by
A clear and sensitive examination of a famous American architect's work and the complex combination of cultures that influenced it.
Frank Lloyd Wright's Florida Southern College by
"Florida Southern College is a signature point in the visioning of American education. Now, Frank Lloyd Wright's genius is documented, revealing how he translated nature's 'occult symmetry' into organic architecture reflecting democratic ideals. Wright belongs to the pantheon of similar utopian aspirants--Flagler, Fischer, Merrick, Nolan, Disney--who came to Florida to express visions of modern life."--Bruce Stephenson, author of Visions of Eden "Dale Gyure has crafted the first thoughtful examination of Frank Lloyd Wright's Child of the Sun campus. This book serves as a benchmark for future studies of Mr. Wright at Florida Southern College."--Randall M. MacDonald, coauthor of The Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright at Florida Southern College Florida Southern College in Lakeland boasts the largest single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in the world. With eleven buildings planned and designed by Wright, the campus forms a rich tableau for examining the architect's philosophy and design practice. In this fully illustrated volume, Dale Allen Gyure tells the engaging story of the ambitious project from beginning to end. The college's dynamic president, Ludd M. Spivey, wanted the grounds and buildings redesigned to embody a modern and distinctly American expression of Protestant theology. Informed by Spivey's vision, his own early educational experience, and his architectural philosophy, Wright conceived the "Child of the Sun" complex. Much like Thomas Jefferson's famous plan for the University of Virginia, the academic village that Wright designed for Florida Southern College expresses a dramatic and personal statement about education in a democratic society. Little studied to date, this significant campus and its history are finally given the attention they deserve in this fascinating volume.
Frank Lloyd Wright: Architect by
From the turn of the century until his death in 1959, Frank Lloyd Wright produced an almost uninterrupted stream of projects that redefined the American architectural vision. The most comprehensive summary and appraisal of Wright's achievement ever assembled, with nearly 500 illustrations, including 190 in color, this volume presents an impressive array of works: single family houses that provided images and models for generations of suburban buildings across the United States, community solutions to housing for Depression America, and an astonishing progression of landmark commercial and institutional structures. In these pages appear Wright's most spectacular commissions--among them Fallingwater, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Tokyo's Imperial Hotel--but also a retrospective selection of other projects from all periods of his enormously productive career. Photographs of actual buildings and of models, plans, and sketches, as well as reproductions of the architect's masterful drawings, many previously unpublished, are all included.
Frank Lloyd Wright: Architect and Nature by
Looks at the architectural details and interior design of Wright's buildings, discusses the influence of nature on his work, and explains his approach to siting and materials selection.
Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward by
Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward features a lifetime of achievement by this titan of American architecture through newly commissioned contemporary photography, archival photography, and wonderfully detailed drawings of more than 200 projects, including such masterworks as the S. C. Johnson & Sons Administration Building in Wisconsin, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and Taliesin West, Wright’s desert home in Arizona, as well as less-known projects designed for Baghdad, Iraq, and beyond. The book is richly accompanied by authoritative text from some of the most important Frank Lloyd Wright scholars and writers at work today, and presents a timely reevaluation of the work and life of Frank Lloyd Wright within the context of social spaces, in the spirit of the exhibition.
Frank Lloyd Wright and His Manner of Thought by
An iconic figure in American culture, Frank Lloyd Wright is famous throughout the world. Although his achievements in architecture are stunning, it is his importance in cultural history, Jerome Klinkowitz contends, that makes Wright the object of such avid and continuing interest. Designing more than just buildings, Wright offered a concept for living that still influences how people conduct their lives today. Wright's innovations in architecture have been widely studied, but this is the most comprehensive and sustained treatment of his thought. Klinkowitz presents a critical biography driven by the architect's own work and intellectual growth, focusing on the evolution of Wright's thinking and writings from his first public addresses in 1894 to his last essay in 1959. Did Wright reject all of Victorian thinking about the home, or do his attentions to a minister's sermon on "the house beautiful" deserve closer attention? Was Wright echoing the Transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson, or was he more in step with the philosophy of William James? Did he reject the Arts and Crafts movement, or repurpose its beliefs and practices for new times? And, what can be said of his deep dissatisfaction with architectural concepts of his own era, the dominant modernism that became the International Style? Even the strongest advocates of Frank Lloyd Wright have been puzzled by his objections to so much that characterized the twentieth century, from ideas for building to styles of living. In "Frank Lloyd Wright and" "His Manner of Thought," Klinkowitz, a widely published authority on twentieth-century literature, thought, and culture, examines the full extent of Wright's books, essays, and lectures to show how he emerged from the nineteenth century to anticipate the twenty-first. "
Frank Lloyd Wright Collected Writings, 1939-1949 by 
The Freak-Garde by
Since the 1890s, American artists have employed the arts of the freak show to envision radically different ways of being. The result is a rich avant-garde tradition that critiques and challenges capitalism from within. The Freak-garde traces the arts of the freak show from P. T. Barnum to Matthew Barney and demonstrates how a form of mass culture entertainment became the basis for a distinctly American avant-garde tradition. Exploring a wide range of writers, filmmakers, photographers, and artists who have appropriated the arts of the freak show, Robin Blyn exposes the disturbing power of human curiosities and the desires they unleash. Through a series of incisive and often startling readings, Blyn reveals how such figures as Mark Twain, Djuna Barnes, Tod Browning, Lon Chaney, Nathanael West, and Diane Arbus use these desires to propose alternatives to the autonomous and repressed subject of liberal capitalism. Blyn explains how, rather than grounding revolutionary subjectivities in imaginary realms innocent of capitalism, freak-garde works manufacture new subjectivities by exploiting potentials inherent to capitalism. Defying conventional wisdom, The Freak-garde ultimately argues that postmodernism is not the death of the avant-garde but the inheritor of a vital and generative legacy. In doing so, the book establishes innovative approaches to American avant-garde practices and embodiment and lays the foundation for a more nuanced understanding of the disruptive potential of art under capitalism.
Frida Kahlo by
Behind Frida Kahlo's portraits, lies the story of both her life and work. It is precisely this combination that draws the reader in. Frida's work is a record of her life, and rarely can we learn so much about an artist from what she records inside the picture frame. Frida Kahlo truly is Mexico's gift to the history of art. She was just eighteen years old when a terrible bus accident changed her life forever, leaving her handicapped and burdened with constant physical pain. But her explosive character, raw determination and hard work helped to shape her artistic talent. And although he was an obsessive womanizer, the great painter Diego Rivera was by her side. She won him over with her charm, talent and intelligence, and Kahlo learnt to lean on the success of her companion in order to explore the world, thus creating her own legacy whilst finding herself surrounded by a close-knit group of friends. Her personal life was turbulent, as she frequently left her relationship with Diego to one side whilst she cultivated her own bisexual relationships. Despite this, Frida and Diego managed to save their frayed relationship. The story and the paintings that Frida left us display a courageous account of a woman constantly on a search of self discovery.
Frida Kahlo by
Frida Kahlo stepped into the limelight in 1929 when she married Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. She was twenty-two; he was forty-three. Hailed as Rivera s exotic young wife who dabbles in art, she went on to produce brilliant paintings but remained in her husband s shadow throughout her life. Today, almost six decades after her untimely death, Kahlo s fame rivals that of Rivera and she has gained international acclaim as a path-breaking artist and a cultural icon. Cutting through Fridamania, this book explores Kahlo s life, art, and legacies, while also scrutinizing the myths, contradictions, and ambiguities that riddle her dramatic story. Gannit Ankori examines Kahlo s early childhood, medical problems, volatile marriage, political affiliations, religious beliefs, and, most important, her unparalleled and innovative art. Based on detailed analyses of the artist s paintings, diary, letters, photographs, medical records, and interviews, the book also assesses Kahlo s critical impact on contemporary art and culture. Kahlo was of her time, deeply immersed in the issues that dominated the first half of the twentieth century. Yet, as this book reveals, she was also ahead of her time. Her paintings challenged social norms and broke taboos, addressing themes such as the female body, gender, cross-dressing, hybridity, identity, and trauma in ways that continue to inspire contemporary artists across the globe. "Frida Kahlo" is a succinct and powerful account of the life, art and legacy of this iconic artist."
Frida Kahlo: An Open Life by
Uses medical records, journals, letters, interviews, and personal recollections to bring us closer than ever to the Mexican artist and her milieu.
Georgia O'Keeffe by
Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings - the exquisite recesses of flowers, the southwestern hills, clouds, and bleached bones, the sculptural abstract forms painted in strong, clear colours - are beloved by critics and public alike. This book examines O'Keeffe's life and work, focusing on the quintessential American qualities of her art and her idiosyncratic way of seeing.
Gertrude Stein: Modernism, and the Problem of "Genius" by
Gertrude Stein frequently called herself a genius, but what did this term really mean for her. Stein's claims to genius are legendary, appearing frequently throughout her texts and public lectures. Were they the signs of excessive egotism, of desperate self-advertisement, or of something else entirely. This book examines the centrality and the specificity of the idea of 'genius' to Stein's work and to the aesthetic ideals and contradictory intellectual affiliations of high modernism in general.Through a chronological reading, it maps Stein's move from an early investment in an essential and essentializing notion of 'genius' to her later use of the term to describe an anti-essentialist, democratic textual process. It considers how this revisionary idea of 'genius' came to correspond with Stein's identification of herself as Jewish, queer and American. And it ends with Stein's seemingly paradoxical decision to call a text about being a genius in America, Everybody's Autobiography.Drawing upon a wide range of literary theory, cultural criticism and historical evidence, and offering new readings of previously unexamined texts by Stein, Barbara Will challenges received understandings of Stein's claims to 'genius' and of modernist literary hermeticism by reconceptualising the textual practice of this exemplary modernist writer.
In a Rugged Land: Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and the Three Mormon Towns Collaboration, 1953-1954 by
Though photographers Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams were contemporaries and longtime friends, most of their work portrays contrasting subject matter. Lange's artistic photodocumentation set a new aesthetic standard for social commentary; Adams lit up nature's wonders with an unfailing eye and preeminent technical skill. That they joined together to photograph Mormons in Utah in the early 1950s for Life magazine may come as a surprise. In a Rugged Land examines the history and content of the two photographers' forgotten collaboration Three Mormon Towns. Looking at Adams's and Lange's photographs, extant letters, and personal memories, the book provides a window into an important moment in their careers and seeks to understand why a project that once held such promise ended in disillusionment and is now little more than a footnote in their illustrative biographies. Swensen's in-depth research and interpretation help make sense of what they did and place them alongside others who were also exploring the particular qualities of the Mormon village at that time. Winner of the Joan Paterson Kerr Book Award for best illustrated book on the history of the American West from the Western History Association. Winner of the Best Book Award from the Utah State Historical Society. Winner of the 15 Bytes Book Award for Art Book. Honorable mention for Best Book from the Mormon History Association. Interview with Tom Williams at Access Utah
Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series by 
A Journey Through American Art Deco: Architecture, Design, and Cinema in the Twenties and Thirties by
"Organized as a pilgrimage and a kind of travelogue, much in the style of those RKO newsreels of the thirties, A Journey through American Art Deco manages to entertain, inform, and interpret all at the same time. Its style is as arch as its subject matter, but its purpose is serious: to save the remains of Art Deco that are threatened by urban renewal all over the United States". -- Hayden White, University of California and Stanford University Beginning with the dreams of Hollywood and ending in its lobbies and boulevards, A Journey through American Art Deco passes through a series of itineraries that display the most interesting examples of Art Deco, from Chicago to New York, from Denver to Phoenix, from Seattle to Los Angeles and Miami Beach. The two most notable highlights of the journey are New York and Los Angeles, with their long list of Art Deco monuments. At the great Exposition Internationale des Arts Dicoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris in 1925 American designers encountered the new style, then called moderne, which was to become Art Deco. Once in the U.S., European Dico turned into American Deco, utilizing clean, geometric lines and industrial materials such as steel, plastic, and glass, as well as highly polished wood to create furniture; to adorn the interiors of hotel rooms and lobbies, stores, movie theaters, offices, elevators, and transatlantic liners; and to give a characteristic stamp to building exteriors. This new style ca
Latin American Vanguards: The Art of Contentious Encounters by
In this first comprehensive study of Latin America's literary vanguards of the 1920s and 1930s, Vicky Unruh explores the movement's provocative and polemic nature. Latin American vanguardism--a precursor to the widely acclaimed work of contemporary Latin American writers--was stimulated by the European avant-garde movements of the World War I era. But as Unruh's wide-ranging study attests, the vanguards of Latin America--emerging from the continent's own historical circumstances--developed a very distinct character and voice. Through manifestos, experimental texts, and ribald public performance, the vanguardists' work intertwined art, culture, and the politics of the day to produce a powerful brand of aesthetic activism, one that sparked an entire rethinking of the meaning of art and culture throughout Latin America.
Le Corbusier in America: Travels in the Land of the Timid by
How Le Corbusier's first trip to the United States shaped his critique of the country and affected both his work and the diffusion of his ideas. Le Corbusier's first trip to the United States in 1935 is generally considered a failure because it produced no commissions. The experience nevertheless had a profound effect on him, both personally and professionally. Sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Le Corbusier promoted his ideas through a lecture tour, exhibition, and press conferences, as well as in meetings with industrialists, housing reformers, New Deal technocrats, and editors. His lectures were watershed events that advanced the cause of European modernism. Yet he returned to France empty-handed and published a bittersweet account, Quand les Cathédrales étaient blanches: Voyage au Pays des Timid Personnes ( When the Cathedrals Were White: Journey to the Country of Timid People), which faulted America for lacking the courage to adopt his ideas. In this first major study of Le Corbusier's American tour, Mardges Bacon reconstructs his encounter with America in all its fascinating detail. Through extensive archival research and interviews, she presents a critical history of the tour as well as a nuanced and intimate portrait of the architect. Drawing on the methods of microhistory, she also considers how small ordinary events affect larger biographical, architectural, and cultural developments. Bacon notes that Le Corbusier's dialogue with America was drafted within a spirited European discourse on Américanisme. She contends that the trip validated his concept of a "second machine age" that would unite standardized industrial methods with a new humanism. Le Corbusier's subsequent work, she suggests, reflected an "Americanization," evidenced by the introduction of tension structures and the textured skyscraper conceived as an integrated system with functions articulated. She also defines Le Corbusier's role in the debate over New York City high-rise public housing. Appearing here in print for the first time are color reproductions of the pastel drawings that illustrated Le Corbusier's American lectures.
The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 1913-1946 by
This monumental collection of correspondence between Gertrude Stein and critic, novelist, and photographer Carl Van Vechten provides crucial insight into Stein's life, art, and artistic milieu as well as Van Vechten's support of major cultural projects, such as the Harlem Renaissance. From their first meeting in 1913, Stein and Van Vechten formed a unique and powerful relationship, and Van Vechten worked vigorously to publish and promote Stein's work. Existing biographies of Stein-including her own autobiographical writings-omit a great deal about her experiences and thought. They lack the ordinary detail of what Stein called "daily everyday living": the immediate concerns, objects, people, and places that were the grist for her writing. These letters not only vividly represent those details but also showcase Stein and Van Vechten's private selves as writers. Edward Burns's extensive annotations include detailed cross-referencing of source materials.
Man Ray: Human Equations: A Journey from Mathematics to Shakespeare by
How does one make sense of a purported link between mathematics, William Shakespeare, and art? The answer lies within the oeuvre of Man Ray (1890-1976). The publication sets out to unravel the Surrealist puzzle beginning with his photographs of mathematical models he encountered at the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris in the thirties. Moreover, it charts a path culminating in his Shakespearean Equations (1947-1954) series of oil paintings, which were inspired by the photographs and painted in Hollywood over a decade later. The arc the images strike from painting back to photography reveals the ease with which Man Ray moved between various disciplines and forged his own path. An inveterate experimenter, he pioneered artistic activities in the realms of painting, object making, film, and photography, challenging conventional boundaries and blurring established aesthetic categories. Exhibitions: The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., February 7-May 10, 2015 - NY Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, June 11-September 20, 2015 - The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, October 20, 2015-January 23, 2016
Maria Izquierdo and Frida Kahlo by
Maria Izquierdo (1902-1955) and Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) were the first two Mexican women artists to achieve international recognition. During the height of the Mexican muralist movement, they established successful careers as easel painters and created work that has become an integral part of Mexican modernism. Although the iconic Kahlo is now more famous, the two artists had comparable reputations during their lives. Both were regularly included in major exhibitions of Mexican art, and they were invariably the only women chosen for the most important professional activities and honors.In a deeply informed study that prioritizes critical analysis over biographical interpretation, Nancy Deffebach places Kahlo's and Izquierdo's oeuvres in their cultural context, examining the ways in which the artists participated in the national and artistic discourses of postrevolutionary Mexico. Through iconographic analysis of paintings and themes within each artist's oeuvre, Deffebach discusses how the artists engaged intellectually with the issues and ideas of their era, especially Mexican national identity and the role of women in society. In a time when Mexican artistic and national discourses associated the nation with masculinity, Izquierdo and Kahlo created images of women that deconstructed gender roles, critiqued the status quo, and presented more empowering alternatives for women. Deffebach demonstrates that, paradoxically, Kahlo and Izquierdo became the most successful Mexican women artists of the modernist period while most directly challenging the prevailing ideas about gender and what constitutes important art."
The Master Architect: Conversations with Frank Lloyd Wright by
Previously unpublished conversations of `The Father of Modern Architecture' with such notables as Carl Sandburg, Mike Wallace, Alistair Cooke and Hugh Downs. In this magnificiently illustrated volume, Wright shares his often controversial views on art, literature, society, history and architecture. Photographs of Wright's greatest achievements accompany these provocative conversations. This book presents a penetrating protrait of the architect, exposing his humor, charm and guiding philosophy-an intense faith in the individual, the independent mind and the free spirit.
The Master Builders by
Le Corbusier gave to modern design a sure and brilliant sense of form; Mies brought an almost Gothic discipline of structure; and Wright heralded a new and dramatic concept of space and freedom. Through this triple focus, Peter Blake provides a perspective on the entire range of twentieth-century architecture.
My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume I, 1915-1933 by 
The National Trust Guide to Art Deco in America by
Your coast-to-coast guide to the architecture that changed the face of America The Art Deco design revolution of the 1920s and 1930s symbolized the optimism and rapid change of the industrial age--clean lines, dramatic shapes, colorful and ornate surfaces. Art Deco changed the look of everything from ocean liners and passenger trains to toasters and wall clocks; but nowhere was this transformation more dramatic or more lasting than in architecture. In this comprehensive state-by-state guide, historian and bestselling author David Gebhard leads you on an unforgettable Art Deco tour of the United States. You'll discover treasures large and small, from hotels and office towers to gas stations and movie theaters--even some rare examples of Art Deco single-family houses. Along with the finest works by the leading lights in the movement, you'll find surprising contributions from unsung local architects who brought the delights of Art Deco to far-flung regions. Gebhard's introductory essay supplies historical perspective and clarifies the distinctions between Art Deco, Streamline Moderne, and other popular styles of the day. Each entry includes the building's street address, a thumbnail history, and a description of the building's main features. With more than 500 entries and well over 200 photos, this is the ultimate Art Deco handbook for architects and architectural historians, designers and preservationists, students, travelers, and armchair adventurers alike.
New York Art Deco by
The first guidebook devoted exclusively to New York City's Art Deco treasures.
New York Deco by
New York calls to mind many things: the Chrysler Building with its innovative design and sunburst pattern, the Empire State building with its amazing views and dominating size, Rockefeller Center seamlessly merging commerce and art. Each of these cherished pieces of New York were created during one of the cities most stylish and dazzling decades: the 1920s and 30s. New York Deco profiles this magnificent period of creativity in architecture when art deco thrived with its emphasis on machine-tooled elegance and sleek lines. Many of the New York City landmarks were born of this age, as well as dozens of lesser--known office buildings and apartment houses. Together, they make the skyline of the Big Apple what it is today. Richard Berenholtz's extraordinary and voluptuous photographs have offered the best of New York in the large scale New York New York and Panoramic New York and now brilliantly highlight the finest examples of NYC's art deco architecture. Berenholtz's photography is accompanied by text from writers, artists, and personalities of the era, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Ogden Nash, and Frank Lloyd Wright to create a wonderful celebration of the era. A perfect gift for the New Yorker and tourist alike, this gem of a book is a window into one of city's most divine periods.
O'Keeffe by
In 1905 Georgia travelled to Chicago to study painting at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1907 she enrolled at the Art Students' League in New York City, where she studied with William Merritt Chase. During her time in New York she became familiar with the 291 Gallery owned by her future husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz. In 1912, she and her sisters studied at university with Alon Bement, who employed a somewhat revolutionary method in art instruction originally conceived by Arthur Wesley Dow. In Bement's class, the students did not mechanically copy nature, but instead were taught the principles of design using geometric shapes. They worked at exercises that included dividing a square, working within a circle and placing a rectangle around a drawing, then organising the composition by rearranging, adding or eliminating elements. It sounded dull and to most students it was. But Georgia found that these studies gave art its structure and helped her understand the basics of abstraction. During the 1920s O'Keeffe also produced a huge number of landscapes and botanical studies during annual trips to Lake George. With Stieglitz's connections in the arts community of New York - from 1923 he organised an O'Keeffe exhibition annually - O'Keeffe's work received a great deal of attention and commanded high prices. She, however, resented the sexual connotations people attached to her paintings, especially during the 1920s when Freudian theories became a form of what today might be termed "pop psychology". The legacy she left behind is a unique vision that translates the complexity of nature into simple shapes for us to explore and make our own discoveries. She taught us there is poetry in nature and beauty in geometry. Georgia O'Keeffe's long lifetime of work shows us new ways to see the world, from her eyes to ours.
Painting Gender, Constructing Theory: The Alfred Stieglitz Circle and American Formalist Aesthetics by
How critical conceptions of gender and sexuality helped to advance the artistic careers of the Alfred Stieglitz Circle and influenced American formalist aesthetics. After the closing of his first art gallery in 1917, photographer Alfred Stieglitz reemerged in the New York art world in the 1920s. He achieved his comeback in large part through the innovative means he used to promote himself and the artists of his inner circle. Stieglitz and a number of well-established critics drew on period conceptions of sexuality, gender, and cultural identity to characterize the artists he championed as the fulfillment of a shared vision of a vital, nonrepressed American art. In Painting Gender, Constructing Theory, Marcia Brennan examines how Stieglitz and the critics drew on early-twentieth-century discourses on sex and the psyche, particularly the theories of Sigmund Freud and Havelock Ellis, to characterize the artworks of the Stieglitz circle. Critics routinely described the often highly abstracted paintings of Georgia O''Keeffe, Arthur Dove, John Marin, Marsden Hartley, and Charles Demuth as transparent displays of the most intimate aspects of the self, taking both subject matter and painterly form to be guided by the artist''s own gendered and psychic energies. Focusing on the key historical criticism and artworks, Brennan shows how the identities of all five Stieglitz circle artists were presented in terms of the masculinity and femininity, and the heterosexuality and homosexuality, thought to be embedded in their work. Brennan also discusses Stieglitz''s relation to competing artistic and critical movements, including Thomas Hart Benton''s regionalist art and Clement Greenberg''s reformulation of formalism. Arguing that American formalist criticism consisted of a complex and paradoxical mixture of corporeality and disembodied transcendence, Brennan provides insight not only into the works of the Stieglitz circle but into the development of formalist criticism itself. stracted paintings of Georgia O''Keeffe, Arthur Dove, John Marin, Marsden Hartley, and Charles Demuth as transparent displays of the most intimate aspects of the self, taking both subject matter and painterly form to be guided by the artist''s own gendered and psychic energies. Focusing on the key historical criticism and artworks, Brennan shows how the identities of all five Stieglitz circle artists were presented in terms of the masculinity and femininity, and the heterosexuality and homosexuality, thought to be embedded in their work. Brennan also discusses Stieglitz''s relation to competing artistic and critical movements, including Thomas Hart Benton''s regionalist art and Clement Greenberg''s reformulation of formalism. Arguing that American formalist criticism consisted of a complex and paradoxical mixture of corporeality and disembodied transcendence, Brennan provides insight not only into the works of the Stieglitz circle but into the development of formalist criticism itself. stracted paintings of Georgia O''Keeffe, Arthur Dove, John Marin, Marsden Hartley, and Charles Demuth as transparent displays of the most intimate aspects of the self, taking both subject matter and painterly form to be guided by the artist''s own gendered and psychic energies. Focusing on the key historical criticism and artworks, Brennan shows how the identities of all five Stieglitz circle artists were presented in terms of the masculinity and femininity, and the heterosexuality and homosexuality, thought to be embedded in their work. Brennan also discusses Stieglitz''s relation to competing artistic and critical movements, including Thomas Hart Benton''s regionalist art and Clement Greenberg''s reformulation of formalism. Arguing that American formalist criticism consisted of a complex and paradoxical mixture of corporeality and disembodied transcendence, Brennan provides insight not only into the works of the Stieglitz circle but into the development of formalist criticism itself. stracted paintings of Georgia O''Keeffe, Arthur Dove, John Marin, Marsden Hartley, and Charles Demuth as transparent displays of the most intimate aspects of the self, taking both subject matter and painterly form to be guided by the artist''s own gendered and psychic energies. Focusing on the key historical criticism and artworks, Brennan shows how the identities of all five Stieglitz circle artists were presented in terms of the masculinity and femininity, and the heterosexuality and homosexuality, thought to be embedded in their work. Brennan also discusses Stieglitz''s relation to competing artistic and critical movements, including Thomas Hart Benton''s regionalist art and Clement Greenberg''s reformulation of formalism. Arguing that American formalist criticism consisted of a complex and paradoxical mixture of corporeality and disembodied transcendence, Brennan provides insight not only into the works of the Stieglitz circle but into the development of formalist criticism itself. of Georgia O''Keeffe, Arthur Dove, John Marin, Marsden Hartley, and Charles Demuth as transparent displays of the most intimate aspects of the self, taking both subject matter and painterly form to be guided by the artist''s own gendered and psychic energies. Focusing on the key historical criticism and artworks, Brennan shows how the identities of all five Stieglitz circle artists were presented in terms of the masculinity and femininity, and the heterosexuality and homosexuality, thought to be embedded in their work. Brennan also discusses Stieglitz''s relation to competing artistic and critical movements, including Thomas Hart Benton''s regionalist art and Clement Greenberg''s reformulation of formalism. Arguing that American formalist criticism consisted of a complex and paradoxical mixture of corporeality and disembodied transcendence, Brennan provides insight not only into the works of the Stieglitz circle but into the development of formalist criticism itself.
Photographs by Man Ray: 105 Works, 1920-1934 by
Rich selection of various techniques include over and under exposure, shooting through fabric, superimposing images, and zeroing in on tiny details. Photographs are divided into general subjects, female figures (mainly nudes); women's faces (including Gertrude Stein); celebrity portraits (Dali, Derain, Matisse, Picasso, and others); and rayographs, cameraless compositions created by resting objects on unexposed film.
Rivera by
They met in 1928, Frida Kahlo was then 21 years old and Diego Rivera was twice her age. He was already an international reference, she only aspired to become one.An intense artistic creation, along with pain and suffering, was generated by this tormented union, in particular for Frida. Constantly in the shadow of her husband, bearing his unfaithfulness and her jealousy, Frida exorcised the pain on canvas, and won progressively the public's interest. On both continents, America and Europe, these commited artists proclaimed their freedom and left behind them the traces of their exceptional talent.In this book, Gerry Souter brings together both biographies and underlines with passion the link which existed between the two greatest Mexican artists of the twentieth century.
Studies and Executed Buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright by
Frank Lloyd Wright's Wasmuth folios, one of the most important publications on modern architecture in the 20th century, is available once again from Rizzoli. First published in Germany in 1910, these 100 plates of Wright's early work had enormous influence on the architects of the time and will provide a valuable resource to historians and architects today. This facsimile edition includes the original selection of presentation and working drawings form the Oak Park period, the years perhaps most crucial to Wright's development. Also faithfully reproduced are the architect's own introduction and his comments on each project. A new foreword discusses the recently discovered historic background of these folios and Wright's intention to proffer them as a primer for a new democratic American architecture.
Surrealist Ghostliness by
In this study of surrealism and ghostliness, Katharine Conley provides a new, unifying theory of surrealist art and thought based on history and the paradigm of puns and anamorphosis. In Surrealist Ghostliness, Conley discusses surrealism as a movement haunted by the experience of World War I and the repressed ghost of spiritualism. From the perspective of surrealist automatism, this double haunting produced a unifying paradigm of textual and visual puns that both pervades surrealist thought and art and commemorates the surrealists’ response to the Freudian unconscious. Extending the gothic imagination inherited from the eighteenth century, the surrealists inaugurated the psychological century with an exploration of ghostliness through doubles, puns, and anamorphosis, revealing through visual activation the underlying coexistence of realities as opposed as life and death. Surrealist Ghostliness explores examples of surrealist ghostliness in film, photography, painting, sculpture, and installation art from the 1920s through the 1990s by artists from Europe and North America from the center to the periphery of the surrealist movement. Works by Man Ray, Claude Cahun, Brassaï and Salvador Dalí, Lee Miller, Dorothea Tanning, Francesca Woodman, Pierre Alechinsky, and Susan Hiller illuminate the surrealist ghostliness that pervades the twentieth-century arts and compellingly unifies the century’s most influential yet disparate avant-garde movement.
Tulsa Art Deco by 
Walter Gropius, 1883-1969: The Promoter of a New Form by
Born and educated in Germany, Walter Gropius (1883-1969) belongs to the select group of architects that massively influenced the international development of modern architecture. As the founding director of the Bauhaus, Gropius made inestimable contributions to his field, to the point that knowing his work is crucial to understanding Modernism. His early buildings, such Fagus Boot-Last Factory and the Bauhaus Building in Dessau, with their use of glass and industrial features, are still indispensable points of reference. After his emigration to the United States, he influenced the education of architects there and became, along with Mies van der Rohe, a leading proponent of the International Style.
Watching the Red Dawn: The American Avant-garde and the Soviet Union by
This book offers the first sustained examination of the cultural relations of the American and Soviet avant-gardes in a period of major transformation. From the formation of the USSR in 1922 until its recognition by the American government, American avant-garde artists, writers and designers watched the 'Red Dawn' with fascination, enthusiastically reporting on its post-revolutionary cultural developments in articles and books, and brought these works to an American audience in ground-breaking exhibitions. Americans also emulated and adapted aspects of Soviet culture, as in the case of the New Playwrights Theatre, a group that mixed Russian avant-garde theatrical techniques with jazz, vaudeville and slapstick comedy in plays about strikes and racial injustice. Figures discussed include Louis Lozowick, Jane Heap, Frederick Kiesler, Ralph Steiner, John dos Passos, Margaret Bourke-White and Langston Hughes.Watching the red dawn takes an innovative interdisciplinary approach, considering these developments in architecture, theatre, film, photography and literature, and will be invaluable for students and specialists in these subject areas. It provides a new perspective on American avant-garde culture of the inter-war years.
