History of art Books

Book SynopsisIt was none other than Langston Hughes who called Oliver Wendell Harrington America's greatest black cartoonist.Yet largely because he chose to live as an expatriate far from the American mainstream, he has been almost entirely overlooked by contemporary historians and scholars of African American culture.Born in 1912 and a graduate of the Yale School of Fine Arts, he was a prolific contributor of humorous and editorial cartoons to the black press in the 1930s and 1940s, but he achieved fame for his creation of a cartoon panel called Dark Laughter, a satire of Harlem society and featuring Bootsie, a character in the tradition of the wise fool. Bootsie became widely known and loved wherever black newspapers appeared.For airing strong anti-racist views, Harrington was targeted during the McCarthy era. And in 1951, he was self-exiled in Paris. In 1961, he found himself trapped behind the Berlin Wall. But, he chose to remain in East Germany. His powerful political cartoons were published in East German magazines and in the American Communist newspaper The Daily World. He became a favorite among students and intellectuals in the Eastern Bloc. In America he was mainly forgotten.Here, selected from the Walter O. Evans Collection of African-American Art, is an omnibus of Harrington's best cartoons from the past four decades. It highlights his exceptional talent, his potent impact with editorial comment and social criticism, and his deserving of acclaim in his native land.

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Book SynopsisGarcía Lorca at the Edge of Surrealism: The Aesthetics of Anguish examines the variations of surrealism and surrealist theories in the Spanish context, studied through the poetry, drama, and drawings of Federico García Lorca (1898–1936). In contrast to the idealist and subconscious tenets espoused by surrealist leader André Breton, which focus on the marvelous, automatic creative processes, and sublimated depictions of reality, Lorca’s surrealist impulse follows a trajectory more in line with the theories of French intellectuals such as Georges Bataille (1897–1962), who was expelled from Breton’s authoritative group. Bataille critiques the lofty goals and ideals of Bretonian surrealism in the pages of the cultural and anthropological review Documents (1929–1930) in terms of a dissident surrealist ethno-poetics. This brand of the surreal underscores the prevalence of the bleak or darker aspects of reality: crisis, primitive sacrifice, the death drive, and the violent representation of existence portrayed through formless base matter such as blood, excrement, and fragmented bodies. The present study demonstrates that Bataille’s theoretical and poetic expositions, including those dealing with l’informe (the formless) and the somber emptiness of the void, engage the trauma and anxiety of surrealist expression in Spain, particularly with reference to the anguish, desire, and death that figure so prominently in Spanish texts of the 1920s and 1930s often qualified as “surrealist.” Drawing extensively on the theoretical, cultural, and poetic texts of the period, García Lorca at the Edge of Surrealism offers the first book-length consideration of Bataille’s thinking within the Spanish context, examined through the work of Lorca, a singular proponent of what is here referred to as a dissident Spanish surrealism. By reading Lorca’s “surrealist” texts (including Poeta en Nueva York, Viaje a la luna, and El público) through the Bataillean lens, this volume both amplifies our understanding of the poetry and drama of one of the most important Spanish writers of the twentieth century and expands our perspective of what surrealism in Spain means.Trade ReviewThe title of this meticulous endeavor reveals Richter's intent to consider Spanish surrealism via comparative analyses of García Lorca's artistic works. Richter references a plethora of acknowledged Lorcan scholars who attest to García Lorca's impact on the evolution of Spanish culture and art. The book reflects the current tendency to combine study of literature with study of science or of creative arts such as music and painting. . . .Richter illustrates the volume with six of García Lorca's drawings. Richter's detailed history underscores the unorthodoxy of Spanish surrealism. García Lorca's filmscript for Viaje a la luna and play El público classified as surreal and illustrate the eclecticism of García Lorca's artistic efforts. Abundant notes elucidate the evolution and variations of surrealism from its initial appearance to more recent times. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, professionals. * CHOICE *Table of ContentsIllustrations Acknowledgments Permissions Abbreviations Note on Translations Introduction: Foundations for a Dissident Surrealism Chapter 1: Spanish Surrealism’s Absent Father: Sub-Realism from Juan Larrea to Federico García Lorca Chapter 2: Burning in the Void: An Aesthetics of Informe in Lorca’s New York Chapter 3: Truth, Mutation, and the Closure of Representation: Sovereign Identity in Lorca’s Retablillo and El público Chapter 4: Rotten Roses and Other Botanical Bereavements: Vanguardist Floral (Dis)arrangements and Lorca’s Doña Rosita Chapter 5: Lorca and Bataille Beyond Surrealism: Sonetos del amor oscuro and the Erotic Imperative Conclusion: An Ethics of Informe Bibliography Index About the Author

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Book SynopsisWhat made many of the great adventure comics of the 1960s so attractive were their fantastic painted covers by artist George Wilson. Unlike other comic book covers of the era, Wilson''s covers harkened back to the era of pulp magazines and were spectacularly eye-catching. He turned in efforts for literally hundreds of comics titles including: Classics Illustrated, The Twilight Zone, Ripley''s Believe It or Not, Dr.Solar, Magnus Robot Fighter, Turok, Son of Stone and Star Trek, to name but a few. This new art book focuses on over 300 examples of his cover art and features numerous examples of Wilson''s artwork scanned from the originals together with many of the book covers he created including his extensive run on Avon''s The Phantom (as well as his work on the Gold Key version).

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