Individual artists, art monographs Books

Book SynopsisIn these shimmering "analects", photographer John Stewart offers gleanings of vivid experiences from more than ninety years of living. Though he has discovered no "avowed meaning" to his life, Stewart finds moments where he "touched something here and there" -- where he experienced moments of "being awake". Stewart shares his encounters with the famous and fascinating: drawing with Henri Cartier-Bresson in the south of France; on the set of The Bridge on the River Kwai in Sri Lanka; a comical meeting with John Cage on the Williamsburg Bridge at midnight; Picasso at a cafe; Matisse in his bedroom; Muhammad Ali; Isak Dinesen; Francis Poulenc; Diana Vreeland. From these accounts of travels far and wide to a poignant elegy for his son, Stewart''s Flotsam is full of wit and tenderness.

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Book SynopsisThe best loved and most spectacular drive in California is documented in a beautifully illustrated artistic and literary journey. Completing the trilogy started in ''An Artist and a Writer Travel Highway 1 North'' and continued in ''An Artist and a Writer Travel Highway 1 Central'', ''An Artist and a Writer Travel Highway 1 South'' is an enchanting exploration of Californias State Highway 1 from Point Hueneme Lighthouse to the Mexican border. Lavishly illustrated with over 130 original full-color Pat Hunter watercolors depicting gorgeous landscapes and architectural treasures,this is a thinking persons travel guide for people who want to explore the history, culture, and architecture of the Southern California Coast -- as well as experiencing the best in dining, lodging, and unusual experiences along the route. This is a triumphant conclusion to a unique travel trilogy.

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Book SynopsisGogi Ochiauri is one of the most important and well-known of contemporary Georgian sculptors. Gogi Ochiauri is generally characterised by a heterogeneity of interests, which is expressed not only in the fact that he aims at a variety of artistic tasks and presents them inhomogeneously, but he also creates monumental figures, most of which stand in Tbilisi and other towns of Georgia. In addition, he creates small sculptures, portraits, graphic works, bas-reliefs on wood and stone and book illustrations. This magnificent album presents over 100 of the artist''s finest works.

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Book SynopsisThis book is dedicated to the great Georgian modern artist David Kakabadze (1889-1952). This book compares the importance of David Kakabadze''s creative work against the background of world avant-garde art of the beginning of the 20th century. This book is of interest for art historians and other experts, studying Georgian and Soviet art/culture, modern art and, especially, abstract art.

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Book SynopsisTiona Nekkia McClodden considers the presence and absence of the Black figure and aesthetic tropes of representation through work traversing film, installation, sculpture, painting, and writing. ---------- “An artist who may be America’s most essential today.” — Siddhartha Mitter, The New York Times ---------- Known for her poignant examinations of biomythography and identity, McClodden uses a research-based approach in her practice as an artist and self-described “historian and cultural custodian.” MASK / CONCEAL / CARRY dissects the many meanings of “masking,” “concealing,” “carrying,” and their opposites, revealing the constant contradiction and harmony between these actions. In this body of work, McClodden creates sculptural meditations on guns—a gold and silver chainmail helmet and a leather molded magazine of an AR15 assault rifle. Through custom lighting, the artist carefully choreographs a performance between the work, space, and viewer. Adding to McClodden’s narrative and psychological concepts, this publication includes a curator’s note from Ebony L. Haynes, a poem by the acclaimed writer and artist Rhea Dillon, and a conversation between the poet Simone White and the artist, as well as a statement penned by McClodden herself.

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Book SynopsisWorld-renowned artist Frances Palmer celebrates the bounty of her garden''s blooms with this all-new 1,000 piece puzzle.Featuring: 1,000 full-color interlocking pieces Art print with puzzle image Finished puzzle is 18 7/8 x 26 3/8

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Book SynopsisThe debut publication from London based artist Daniel David Freeman features collection of musings on the experience of being an artist, collated as a series of posters housed in a screen printed bag. - 32 A2 posters, folded into a 64pp A3 book- Bound with an orange elastic loop- Housed in a screen printed glassine bag- Fluro text page with foreword by Francesca Gavin- An Existential Crisis carpenters pencil- A Mono Lisa postcard- A selection of 5 stickers- 250 Copies, signed and numbered

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Book SynopsisA thought-provoking art book exploring changing landscapes through the pioneering work of Canadian photographer Sylvia Grace Borda. Sylvia Grace Borda made a substantial debut into new media and photo art when she launched Every Bus Stop in Surrey, BC. With this piece, Borda reclaimed California coastal conceptual photo strategies from the 1960s and used them to document a large Canadian city by its own transit system. This marked her entry into international recognition. Since then, Borda has undertaken epic projects to re-imagine urban spaces, from the "New Towns" of East Kilbride and Glenrothes in Scotland to modernist faith buildings in Northern Ireland. In this dazzling new monograph, Sylvias exceptional body of work is examined and placed in both a regional and international context. Specifically, her practice developed in Surrey is examined in relation to art history, the Vancouver School of Art, digital media, community engagement, and projects concluded in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Finland. Featuring essays by renowned curators, artists, and scholars -- each presenting specific perspectives on how Bordas diverse arts practice has shifted and expanded the mediums of art, photography, and social awareness -- Sylvia Grace Borda: Shifting Perspectives constructs a conversation between the remembrance of place and current narratives in art history.

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Book SynopsisAll Sky, Mirror Ocean is for everyone looking to understand the complex issues around mental illness and healing. Combining autobiography, research-creation, poetry, and creative philosophy, Brad Necyk uses art and words to uncover and tell new stories about trauma and recovery. Necyk weaves his own histories with bipolar affective disorder and childhood medical trauma with those of other people dealing with grief and loss: head and neck cancer patients in Edmonton, psychiatric inpatients in Toronto, and communities in Iqaluit stricken by suicide. Punctuated with art, these lived experiences intertwine with scholarship on arts-based research, neuroscience, collaboration, and psychedelic altered states to reveal the understanding and acceptance that comes from acknowledging our deep connections—to ideas and emotions, to our environments, to art, and to each other. Showing great compassion and wisdom, All Sky, Mirror Ocean is a model for research-creation and artistic fieldwork.Trade Review"All Sky, Mirror Ocean is beautifully written, invitingly complex, heartbreakingly real. This visionary work is not so much a contribution as a live wire. It is unbearably important." Erin Manning, Concordia UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgements for sha : on writing Introduction Alberta #3 Iqaluit, Nunavut Telling Stories Otherwise Edmonton, Alberta No Trespassing Cancer A research meeting Being Healing World Gone Wrong 1987 The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario Unwell Stories and Worlds Worlding The Open Morning Light Death #1 A Dry City Spaciousness Knowing An Arts-Based Workshop The Abyss For Mom, For Dad The Origin of the Work of Art Visionary Art The Visionary Artist Distant Early Warning Self-Showing North Bay, Ontario Unthinkable Stories The Behaviour of Art Knowing Otherwise Creation-as-Research Co-Creating Cancer Waiting Room For my Grandma For Jesse For Ellie For Him For Mary The New Girl Co-Creation Default-Mode Network Entropic Brain Psilocybin For Derek and Luanna ECT A Sermon Psychiatric Rooms Music Room Into Mania For the young girl next to me, who is still with me Death #2 Life For Candace Select Annotated Bibliography References Alternative Tables of Content Iqaluit Iqaluit, Nunavut No Trespassing Morning Light A Dry City An Arts-Based Workshop Cancer Edmonton, Alberta Cancer A Research Meeting Self-Showing Unthinkable Stories Co-creating Cancer Waiting Room Centre for Addiction and Mental Health The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Canada Unwell North Bay, Ontario For Jesse For Him The New Girl Co-creation For Derek and Luanna ECT A Sermon Psychiatric Rooms Music Room Family Alberta #3 World Gone Wrong 1987 For Mom, For Dad For my grandma For Ellie For Mary Into Mania For the young girl next to me, who is still with me For Candace Visionary Art Telling Stories Otherwise Being Healing Stories and Worlds Worlding The Open Death #1 Spaciousness Knowing The Abyss The Origin of the Work of Art Visionary Art The Visionary Artist Distant Early Warning The Behaviour of Art Knowing Otherwise Creation-as-research Default-Mode Network Entropic Brain Psilocybin Death #2 Life

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Book SynopsisIn this intimate investigation of the artistic process, Lezli Rubin-Kunda explores the nuanced path of creative work and the way artists make sense of home and place within their art practice and their lives. Rubin-Kunda is a multidisciplinary artist who examines these issues in her own work. But in this book, she expands her horizons, travelling across Canada to talk to more than fifty practicing artists, including Amalie Atkins, Aganetha Dyck, Francois Morelli, Simon Frank, and Sharon Alward, about their work, their creative process, and the place of "home": in their work.What emerges from these thoughtful conversations are fascinating and unexpected orientations to place, ranging from deep connections to a specific childhood home, to more conscious adoptions of place, to somewhat fluid approaches in which the very concept of "home" seems to dissolve.Moving from physical landscapes to the geography of memories and recorded histories, from territories of emotion to social environments that condition and contribute to the idea of home, Rubin-Kunda touches on indigenous approaches to ancestral homelands, the land as physical place and emotional territory, the historic role of women in creating and taking care of "home," ideas of home disconnected from place, and liberating concepts of "homelessness." Woven through these encounters with other artists are Rubin-Kunda’s reflections on her own artistic path.Candid, empathetic, and insightful, At Home explores the creative process and the ways that artists find and create meaning within a fragmented contemporary landscape.Trade Review"At Home is a valuable work of curating and reflecting on a thoughtful, intergenerational selection of artists, and a reminder of the value of the artist-curator and the exploratory nature of the curatorial process." -- Marie-Paule Macdonald * RACAR *

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Book SynopsisTwo wartime artists, one bustling harbour, and a city ravaged by the Halifax Explosion. Two perspectives on Halifax one year after the Explosion.A year after the city was devastated by the Halifax Explosion Harold Gilman (British, 1876–1919) and Arthur Lismer (Canadian, 1885–1969) were working in Halifax as war artists. Both commissioned by the Canadian War Memorials Fund to record the war activity on the home front, the two men struck up a friendship and worked side-by-side on occasion.Gilman seemed to wipe clean the desolation of the Explosion, ignoring the site of a human-made catastrophe in favour of a glowing landscape. In contrast, Lismer, a member of the Group of Seven, recorded the port’s activity up close, producing a series of drawings and paintings of camouflaged battleships embedded in the Maritime landscape.With more than 30 reproductions and essays by Anabelle Kienle Ponka, Lily Foster, and Sarah Fillmore, Halifax Harbour 1918 traces the artists’ meticulous approach to their mission and their role during a critical moment in the history of Canadian landscape painting.Deux artistes en temps de guerre, un port animé et une ville ravagée par l'explosion d'Halifax. Deux perspectives d’Halifax un an après l'explosion.En juin 1918, l’artiste Arthur Lismer (1885–1969) accepte une commande du Fonds de souvenirs de guerre canadiens (le Fonds) et se rend à Halifax pour documenter l’effort de guerre sur le front canadien et représenter le port de cette ville à la suite de l’explosion d’origine humaine la plus meurtrière à survenir avant l’apparition des armes nucléaires.De son côté Harold Gilman (1876–1919), grande figure du groupe londonien Camden Town Group et seul artiste de guerre britannique envoyé au Canada, est chargé par le Fonds de peindre un grand tableau du port de Halifax pendant la guerre.Avec plus de 30 reproductions et essais d’Anabelle Kienle Ponka, Lily Foster, et Sarah Fillmore, le port d’Halifax 1918 retracent l'approche méticuleuse des artistes à leur mission, les défis de travailler au lendemain de la tragédie et leur rôle au cours d'une moment dans l'histoire de la peinture de paysage canadienne.

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Book SynopsisFinalist, Ottawa Book Award (English Non-Fiction)A Globe and Mail’s Spring Book Preview SelectionMolly Lamb and Bruno Bobak shot to prominence as war artists during the Second World War. Marrying shortly after the end of the war, they moved first to Vancouver and then, in 1960, to Fredericton, where they settled permanently. Molly’s paintings were vibrant and colourful, featuring dynamic crowd scenes and wildflowers that seem to wave on the page. In contrast, Bruno painted near-abstract cityscapes, stunning landscapes, and distorted bodies wracked with inner torment, work that is unique in Canadian art.In this book, acclaimed author Nathan M. Greenfield brings to light the private and public lives of two of the most important figures in 20th century Canadian art. Greenfield combines archival research into Molly’s diaries and letters with dozens of full-colour reproductions of their work, archival photographs, interviews with friends and contemporaries, and an analysis of paintings by both artists. The result is an intimate portrait of the art and lives of Molly Lamb and Bruno Bobak: their critical acclaim, commercial success, and a turbulent marriage that lasted over fifty years.Trade Review“Greenfield’s book rises far above conventional biography. With his depth of cultural knowledge, Greenfield explores the artistic careers of Molly Lamb Bobak and Bruno Bobak, while unlocking the secrets to appreciating a wide range of visual arts.” -- Carol Bishop-Gwyn, author of Art and Rivalry: The Marriage of Mary and Christopher Pratt“This engaging biography illuminates the lives of Molly and Bruno Bobak, two of Canada’s most important artists, balancing their personal stories with their visual record. Greenfield’s account of the Bobaks’ lives — charting their artistic development as the hold of the Group of Seven slowly waned and abstraction came to dominate the art world — focuses extensively on their art, offering incredibly close readings of the Bobaks’ remarkable artistic contributions to Canadian art history.” -- Devon Smither, Assistant Professor, Art History/Museum Studies, University of Lethbridge“Greenfield offers new insight into Bruno and Molly Lamb Bobak’s complex relationship. They met and married in the aftermath of the Second World War, having served as official war artists, and continued to paint for decades. Based on new evidence, this book captures the Bobaks’ intertwined lives, their clashing relationship, and the enduring value of their art.” -- Tim Cook, author of The Fight for History“A nuanced assessment of their individual work and styles, and, through Lamb’s diaries, a portrait of a tempestuous 50-year marriage.” -- Emily Donaldson * Globe and Mail *“Relying on the frank diaries Molly kept throughout her life … [their] troubled marriage is chronicled in intimate detail.” -- Paul Gessell * Galleries West *“A rich and detailed work… Greenfield has put the deserved spotlight on these artists.” -- Alison Manley * Miramichi Reader *“Whether as a reference work or a relatively academic account of the contributions of two Canadian artists, this book could be a good choice for a wide range of readers.” -- Susan Huebert * Winnipeg Free Press *“Greenfield combines meticulously considered criticism and a careful chronology of Molly’s and Bruno’s lives.” -- Kelvin Browne * Literary Review of Canada *

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Book SynopsisWinner, 2021 Melva J. Dwyer AwardItee Pootoogook belonged to a new generation of Inuit artists who are transforming and reshaping the creative traditions that were successfully pioneered by their parents and grandparents in the second half of the 20th century.A meticulous draughtsman who worked with graphite and coloured pencil, Itee depicted buildings in Kinngait that incorporated a perspectival view, a relatively recent practice influenced by his training as a carpenter and his interest in photography. His portraits of acquaintances and family members similarly bear witness to the contemporary North. Whether he depicts them at work or resting, his subjects are engaged in a range of activities from preparing carcasses brought in from hunting to playing music or contemplating the landscape of the North.Itee was also an inventive landscapist. Many of his finest Arctic scenes emphasize the open horizon that separates land from sky and the ever-shifting colours of the Arctic. Rendering the variable light of the landscape with precision, he brought a level of attention that contributed, over time, to his style.Featuring more than 100 images and essays by curators, art historians, and contemporary artists, Itee Pootoogook: Hymns to Silence celebrates the creative spirit of an innovative artist. It is the first publication devoted exclusively to his art.

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Book SynopsisA CBC New Brunswick Book List Selection"I start with an original object, break it, and transform parts of the piece into other materials. These pieces gather meaning and explanation as I work with them."Peter Powning is simultaneously referred to as a sculptor and a ceramist, but his art does not fit easy categorization, incorporating and combining elements from one medium into another. His work challenges the viewer to reconsider the object, its form, and its function. This inventiveness has resulted in numerous exhibitions, awards, and commissions for public art sculptures throughout Canada.Featuring 175 full-colour images of Powning’s work along with essays by curators and critics, Peter Powning celebrates the career of one of Canada’s finest visual artists and accompanies a major retrospective exhibition organized by the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.Trade Review"A pleasure to read, and the perfect coffee table book to showcase inventive New Brunswick art." * [EDIT] *"The book is much more than a usual exhibition catalogue: its bilingual text and images of the work, most photographed by Powning himself, offer a rare, intimate glimpse into a life devoted to the pursuit of a multi-disciplined practice." -- Carol Brueau * Billie *

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Book SynopsisWalter Ostrom has been described as an "innovative traditionalist," a disruptive force shaking up ceramic conventions while simultaneously enriching them. Hired to teach studio and Asian art history at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1969, Ostrom was one of many American artists who moved north to Canada in the fallout from the Vietnam War.Ostrom’s work, from his embrace of conceptual art in the 1970s to his current exploration of the vast history, hybridization, and social foundation of ceramics, marks him as a major force in the development of contemporary ceramics. As Ray Cronin writes, Ostrom’s works "declare themselves to be art and craft at once, tradition and innovation merged, beauty and function reconciled, thought and action combined. What more could one ask from any work of art?"Accompanying a major retrospective exhibition at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia opening in May 2020, Good Earth features essays by leading scholars and curators along with full-colour reproductions of over fifty examples of Ostrom’s works.Trade Review“This mercurial and brilliant man is difficult to sum up, but Good Earth serves as a worthy introduction to his world.” -- Amy Gogarty * Galleries West magazine *

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Book SynopsisBen Woolfitt begins each day by drawing. Using graphite, silver and metal leaf and selected objects for frottage, Woolfitt plumbs the depths of his unconscious as he draws on each page of his books. Although best known for his large-format paintings, Woolfitt has completed hundreds of drawings which showcase his signature process: taking a pre-existing sign -- a piece of bamboo, for example -- and imbuing it with subjective energies through the act of recording and accentuating its impression on the page. The drawings in Ben Woolfitt: Rhythms & Series are charged with rich psychological meaning; they speak where language fails. Distributed randomly in his drawing books, Woolfitt's work transforms the linear structure of the bound volume into a nonlinear repository of his sensations and feelings, offering a special glimpse into his psyche. Ben Woolfitt: Rhythms & Series contains more than 65 reproductions of Woolfitt's distinctive drawings along with an interview with the artist by AGO curators Kenneth Brummel and Alexa Greist.

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Book SynopsisExclusive Memory: A Perceptual History of the Future is a compendium of descriptive, speculative prose and text-images by the Governor General’s Award-winning artist, Tom Sherman. Its contents sweep across five decades, describing radically different periods and environments — from Sherman’s early experiments in Toronto in the 1970s to his recent explorations of text and image in Nova Scotia’s South Shore. At the core of this volume is “The Faraday Cage,” a text that delivers a vivid cascade of images of the art scene in Toronto at the onset of the video era in the early 1970s. This opening chapter expands into a series of essays in which Sherman pictures a vast horizon of contexts: urban, rural, social, political, economic, and in some cases, simply a beach along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. His ongoing and rigorous investigation into the intersections of art, technology, and life itself is grounded in the converging terrains of mediaspheres and landscapes. And then, in a quick shift of perspective enter Peggy Gale and Caroline Seck Langill, who charge the book with wide-sweeping conversations about Sherman’s practice: his use of written language and dynamic, critically engaged “pictures,” the expansive reach of his text-based visual works, and the distinctive character of his voice. The result is a provocative retrospective in book form that both demonstrates and expands upon Tom Sherman’s clear, forward-looking vision.

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Book SynopsisThe art of Gerard Collins resists categorisation. Over a 50-year career, Collins’s conceptual imagination and dizzying array of influences has produced a body of work as eclectic as it is stimulating. His oeuvre, ranging from still lifes to landscapes, from realism to neo-conceptualism, remains undeniably embedded in Saint John, while partaking in — and pushing against — national and international conversations about art and theory. Featuring over 75 reproductions of Collins’s work, including examples from his famous Women in Hats, 100 Portraits, and Harlequin series, Gerard Collins: Fifty Years of Painting is the first book to encompass Collins’s entire career, from his early training at St. Martin’s School of Art and under the “NSCAD school,” to his return to Saint John and pandemic-era experiments with online pop-up galleries. Robert Barriault, a contemporary of Collins at NSCAD, develops a fresh critical methodology to analyze Collins’s enigmatic vocabulary, drawing connections and identifying distinctive features of Collins’s massive body of work.

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Book SynopsisWilliam Kurelek (1927–1977) is a beloved figure in Canadian art, a revered Ukrainian-Canadian painter whose works express his deeply felt immigrant experience and his compassionate vision of humanity. In 1975, he created a suite of 16 jewel-toned paintings titled Jewish Life in Canada in homage to his Jewish art dealer and friend Avrom Isaacs and as a gesture across the cultural divide. Relying on archival documents and photographs from communities across the country, Kurelek foregrounded the role of tradition, community, and family at the core of the Jewish experience in mid-twentieth century Canada. He portrayed Prairie farm colonies; businesses and schools in Montreal, Toronto, and Winnipeg; and celebrations of festivals and community events at home and in the synagogue. William Kurelek: Jewish Life in Canada includes essays by McMichael Chief Curator Sarah Milroy considering Kurelek’s articulation of the Canadian ideal of multiculturalism and by Executive Director Ian A.C. Dejardin exploring Kurelek’s distinctive framing strategies. The book also includes pieces by David S. Koffman on Jewish life in 1970s Canada and John Geoghegan on Kurelek’s use of photographic sources, as well as an artistic response by Ukrainian Canadian artist Natalka Husar. The volume features more than 50 images, including reproductions of the full suite of Kurelek paintings as well as previously unpublished archival source material, offering a complete record of Kurelek’s working process.

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Book SynopsisLaurie Swim is an artist of extraordinary range and vision. For more than forty years, she has been among the most capable and passionate practitioners of textile art. In her chosen art form, Swim captures the essence of the seacoast. For the ocean, she works with silk, pulling stitches until they pucker to create gentle ripples. For vegetation and seaweed, she combines quilting, embroidery, painting, dyeing, and other seemingly opposing techniques. As award-winning writer Carol Bruneau suggests in No Ordinary Magic, it’s not only Swim’s unconventional use of materials that is distinctive, it’s her gift for narrative that makes her art both resonant and endlessly intriguing. In this retrospective volume, Bruneau explores Swim’s history, her defiance of convention, and her reinvention of quilts as paintings-made-of-fabric. The result is a profound exploration of Swim’s sometimes monumental yet astonishingly intimate work. Trade Review“Impressively informative and a pure pleasure to simply browse through in full appreciation of a truly gifted textile media artist.” -- James A. Cox * Midwest Book Review *

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Book SynopsisThe art of Donald Andrus defies categorization. Although principally known for his abstract paintings, Andrus has, throughout his career, combined his first love — drawing — with a deep engagement with colour, a desire for experimentation, a keen interest in the physical qualities of his materials, and the sensory experience of the viewer. Donald Andrus: The Shape of Desire brings together four major essays, including one by the artist, and more than eighty full-colour reproductions to assess a body of work that extends from abstract paintings to portraits. Roslyn Rosenfeld writes about Andrus’s early abstract work, Ihor Holubizky considers Andrus’s portraits, and Pan Wendt revisits Andrus’s contemporary abstract paintings. Taken together, the essays and images take full measure of the entirety of Andrus’s career and influences — from the landscapes of Greece and the poetry of George Seferis to the cinematic works of Andrei Tarkovsky and the pioneering work of contemporary German artists Gerhard Richter and Anselm Kiefer. Donald Andrus has been painting for over thirty-five years. His work has been exhibited at galleries and museums throughout Canada and may be found in both private and public collections. He has previously worked as a curator at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, as a lecturer at the University of New Brunswick, and as a professor of art history at Concordia University. Andrus now lives and works in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

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Book SynopsisAt the height of his career, J.E.H. MacDonald’s paintings and oil sketches reveal a mastery of colour mixing, a sureness of brushstroke, and a deep understanding of compositional design. His striking landscapes and views of nature are an important artistic legacy and confirm his essential place among the Group of Seven painters. J.E.H. MacDonald Up Close provides a fresh interpretation of MacDonald’s artistic development and sheds new light on questions of authenticity and dating surrounding MacDonald’s paintings. Here art conservation experts Kate Helwig and Alison Douglas combine rigorous scientific analysis with a close visual examination of MacDonald’s work to focus on his materials and techniques. Exploring the interface between art history and science, Helwig and Douglas use excerpts from MacDonald’s diaries, letters, and lectures to provide socio-historical context to their in-depth reading of the paintings as physical objects.Helwig and Douglas’s fascinating text is accompanied not only by reproductions of key artworks, but also by never-before-seen photographs taken through a microscope. These unique, close-up views of MacDonald’s working methods reveal the texture of his brushstrokes and the characteristic ways he layered and mixed his paint.

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Book SynopsisMinnie Riperton and Maya Rudolph. Judy Garland and Liza Minelli. Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher, and Billie Lourd. These dynasties of powerful women not only inspire us as individuals, but also embody the complex and special connections between generations. Mothers often imagine their daughters will follow in their footsteps. But if your mom is a beloved star of stage or screen, how do you live up to her spectacular example? And when your daughters are major icons in music or sports, how do you cultivate your own dreams? The women in this book have lived exceptional lives, but their joys and struggles as families ring true for all of us. Whether supporting each other through rough patches, pursuing greatness hand in hand, or breaking free to forge their own destinies, these women show us the manifold ways a mom-daughter relationship can bloom. This keepsake volume features collaged portraits of the iconic women by contemporary artist Natasha Cunningham. It will be a touchstone for anyone navigating motherhood or daughterhood.

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Book SynopsisThe Making of George Wyllie has been co-written by his elder daughter, Louise Wyllie, and arts journalist Jan Patience. Containing never-beforeseen images and fresh insight into his influences and early life, this book seeks to answer questions about the forces which shaped Wyllie's unique worldview.The voyage begins with Wyllie's Glasgow childhood - a period 'disadvantaged by happiness' - and moves on to time spent serving in the Pacific with the Royal Navy during WWII, where he witnessed first-hand the devastation caused by the world's first atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima. After the war, like Robert Burns and Adam Smith before him, Wyllie became an Excisemen. He made 'time for art' in his forties, going on to create memorable public art works such as the life-sized Straw Locomotive, which hung from the Finnieston Crane in Glasgow, and the giant seaworthy Paper Boat, with the letters QM (Question Mark) on her side.By the time of his death at the age of ninety in 2012, this idiosyncratic self-taught artist had laid out his vision of himself as the artist-shaman, arrow in hand, making a last Cosmic Voyage.Trade Review'George Wyllie is a credit to the artistic brilliance of Scottish people' - Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs; 'A fascinating insight into the great, quixotic life of George Wylie, and how he came to leave his indelible mark on the Scottish arts landscape' - Alan Cumming

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Book SynopsisThis book presents a comprehensive view of the work of American painter Philip Taaffe (b.1955), who has expanded the parameters of painting through his use of silkscreen, linocuts, collage, stencils, gouache, chine-collé, marbling, acrylic, enamel, watercolour and gold leaf. Possessing many technical skills, Taaffe has moved decisively between unique pictorial inventions and appropriations, as well as overlaying divergent modes of representation, through cultural patterns found in ornament, and biomorphic abstraction. John Yau's insightful text is the first to look at every part of Taaffe's artistic development, from the works he made at Cooper Union while a student of Hans Haacke, to the present. It pays special attention to Taaffe's acquisition of different techniques, as well as investigating his various sources of inspiration, which include the work of experimental filmmakers Stan Brakhage, Bruce Conner and Harry Smith, the Natural History illustrations of Ernst Haeckel, and the ancient art of paper marbling.Trade Review'Philip Taaffe's paintings build their own autonomous structure out of a voice and a tone which is deeply personal and uncompromising, but are filled too with strange echoes from the history of art. There is a fearless sense of beauty, a sort of restrained wildness, a willingness to see both ordered pattern and chaotic yearning for possibility and transcendence. His unceasing task for four decades has been to activate space, to test the boundaries to see how much a picture can take.' -- Colm Toibin'Philip Taaffe's paintings spring from the twin root of art history and the natural world. Through a wide range of work, and a self-critical practice, he has pushed abstraction into new realms, holding icons and calligraphy in the same regard as plants, snakes and shells. His work is both expansive and necessary.' -- Brice MardenTable of ContentsForeword, Barry Schwabsky; Introduction; The Rise of Conceptual Art, 1972–1977; 2 Early Works, 1977–1985; 3 In Naples, Across from Vesuvius, 1986–1991; 4 An Alternative Worldview, 1990s; 5 A New Century, 2000 to the Present; Notes; Selected Bibliography; Biography; Selected Solo Exhibitions; Selected Group Exhibitions; Selected Public Collections; Acknowledgments; Image Credits; Index

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Book SynopsisA Kenyan upbringing is the ticket to this voyage into a remarkably real created world entered via carved, integrating frames. Twice TVs pick of the show at the Royal Academies and with crowds and fan mail at a third RA Summer Exhibition, James remains a virtual unknown in his own country. A production rate averaging just one painting a year may account for this, but in an Art World where price is all, his output is sufficient to net him a viable living selling internationally. Also introducing the remarkable paintings of his artist son Alexander James. Together their art is akin to a vigorous breath of fresh air in a stuffy room.Trade ReviewEveryone remembers their first sighting of a Gary James...an artist without precedence -- Mark Read of the Everard Read Galleries of South Africa & CIRCA Gallery, London

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Book SynopsisA fascinating exploration of the role of music in the art of Vermeer and many of his contemporaries Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) is one of the world’s most captivating artists. Renowned for his sublimely beautiful depictions of everyday Dutch life, Vermeer created exquisite paintings that are sought out by any art lover. Music was a key facet of 17th-century Dutch life, in both public and private. Of Vermeer’s thirty-six surviving paintings, twelve depict musical themes or a musical instrument. These include the magnificent Young Woman Standing at a Virginal, Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, The Music Lesson, and The Guitar Player, all featured in this book.The book also includes paintings by Vermeer’s contemporaries, such as Gerard ter Borch (1617–1681), Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667), and Jan Steen (c. 1626–1679). Vermeer and Music provides new insight into the cultural significance of these images. A historical overview of musical instruments and entertainment in the Dutch Republic, including the abundant publication of songbooks filled with love songs and poems, some richly illustrated, contextualizes the fascinating relationship between music and the visual arts.Published by National Gallery Company/Distributed by Yale University PressExhibition Schedule:The National Gallery, London(06/26/13–09/08/13)

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Book SynopsisOur mother's clouds and insects fly to embrace your clouds and insects. Her architecture, roads, bridges and infrastructure rush to greet yours. Her molecules on their upward trajectory entwine with yours, the colour of her eyes, hair and skin. Her language, with its past participles, figures of speech, the sounds and tremors which are its flesh and bones these words go out to greet your words and to greet you - these words which will never leave her. House & Contents is a moving meditation on earthquakes and uncertainties, parents and hats, through Gregory O'Brien's remarkable poetry and paintings.Trade Review'Since I taught Greg O'Brien almost forty years ago, his writing has matured and developed in cunning and wisdom; but it is still the work of the writer as I first encountered him. His combination of visual and verbal art was and is extraordinary. Greg loves beautiful things, and creates them of words and in paint. He has established his identity as poet, craftsman, painter, a sort of impresario of aesthetic order-in-disorder. Admired both at home and abroad, he is unique among New Zealand poets in the way he combines his two arts and makes them one, each enhancing the other. Bright, fresh and surprising, bordering on the surreal yet peculiar in its literalness, House & Contents is a challenge to the reader - one of rare quality and true originality.' - C. K. Stead

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Book SynopsisIn 2006, the award-winning Eagle's Complete Trees and Shrubs of New Zealand was published to widespread acclaim and quickly became a modern classic for New Zealand botanists, gardeners and art-lovers. By popular demand, this accessible, affordable new edition presents a beautiful selection of 163 full-colour, full-page reproductions of Audrey Eagle's botanical paintings for new readers to discover and existing fans to savour. Every plant is depicted in full colour, including Eagle's many detailed enlargements which show the flowers, leaves and seeds of each plant in technically superb detail, while an appendix containing comprehensive notes, drafted in consultation with expert botanists, gives information on every plant. A fresh introduction gives new insights into Audrey Eagle and her life's work, and sets her place in the prestigious history of the botanical illustration of New Zealand's unique native flora.Trade ReviewMeticulous and detailed a work of art' The Dominion.'An outstanding contribution to the literature of New Zealand Botany' New Zealand Journal of Botany.'Each colour plate [is] a work of art and a labour of love' Evening Post.'A book such as this comes only once or twice in a lifetime. Audrey Eagle's achievement is magnificent' Christchurch Star.'Audrey Eagle's meticulous and beautiful renditions of our native flora are acclaimed, but it is her insistence on accuracy that makes her works on native trees and shrubs such respected reference books' The Press."

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Book SynopsisDunedin-born artist Grace Joel (1865--1924) exhibited to acclaim in London and Paris, yet she and her art are relatively unknown today. Joel excelled at portraiture and mother and child studies and was skilled in portraying the nude. She received her artistic training in Melbourne and lived for the mature years of her career in London, where her work appeared at the prestigious Royal Academy, as well as the Paris Salon and the Royal Scottish Academy. One possible reason why Joel''s work has not remained visible is that few details of her personal life survive; only three letters have been found, and they reveal little of the person who wrote them. Undaunted, author Joel Schiff has pulled together from the words of her contemporaries, various newspaper accounts, scraps in other historical archives, and close study of her extant paintings a portrayal of this talented woman that is as intimate and engaging as her work.

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Book SynopsisOne of Canada''s most evocative modern painters, Cree artist Dale Auger was a gifted interpreter of First Nations culture, using the cross-cultural medium of art to portray scenes from the everyday to the sacred and dissemble stereotypes about Indigenous peoples. Medicine Paint is a collection of Auger''s best work, reproduced in glorious full colour and reflecting the evolution of the artist''s distinctive style. Including a revealing look back at his life and professional development, the book is a stunning tribute to the master Aboriginal artist. Auger uses bold, bright colours in his oil paintings to explore the intricate links between spirituality and the natural laws of the land. Birds, beasts and human forms are carried from the dreamworld onto canvas, their spirits channeled through his paintbrush and presented in brilliant yellows, mystic blues, vibrant reds and swirls of black. Infusing his subjects with energy, life and colour, Dale Auger masterfully presents scenes that are powerful, spiritual and inspiring. A bald eagle is majestic in flight against a bright blue sky. An elder makes a solemn offering to the Sky Being. Horses dance playfully in the frame for a sweat lodge. A warrior draws his bow and points it skyward. "Dale Auger''s artwork is stunningly beautiful." --Globe and Mail "To show expression through your brush that comes directly from the Creator''s creative source is powerful. I truly feel blessed." --Dale Auger

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Book SynopsisThis book is a history of my life in art. It also includes my gratitude to the many friends and other influences that have shaped and enriched my days. About three years ago my wife and I were forced, because of declining health, to sell the early sixteenth-century Hall House in which we had lived for forty-five years. From my studio window I had a clear view across our paddock, with grazing sheep, towards a gently rising hill covered with woodland providing splendid habitat for wildlife. Behind the house, on the North Downs lived the fox, badger, the sloping meadows, then unploughed, and many wild flowers, including orchids. My pictures of this period were mostly large watercolours which are not by any means conventional topographical ''views''. They were not painted on location but were designed from relevant drawings. It was the loss of this motivating environment which unexpectedly influenced my creative energy for new paintings. However, age and circumstances have robbed me of my ability to paint and so, after a few attempts at combating this inactivity, I began jotting down notes about our past lives, which eventually needed to be put down in chronological order. It was then that I saw the possibility, by concentrating on the idea of a book, of compensating; for painting with writing. My life in the arts has occupied my time, energy and thoughts for almost ninety years. From about the age of eight my often expressed wish was to be an artist. long before I knew the meaning of the word but, by the age of fourteen, my interests had broadened to include poetry, music, history and philosophy. I grew hungry for books, started to collect and read into the early hours, as is recorded in these memoirs. These interests coupled with a love of nature, have not only enriched my days, but have had a subconscious influence upon my paintings, with a secret relationship with the Haywain!

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Book SynopsisThe writings which comprise my memoirs were-started over twenty years .ago when I was still painting. Verse can express, emotions of love, joy and sadness in a manner divorced from most painters'' subject matter. This, I find, is especially so nowadays in the prevalence of the abstract -- with most practitioners'' work having many human verities absent -- not only in Europe but world-wide. This change in thinking has been enormous and is -one that is seen most clearly in the visual arts. Now that circumstances make painting impossible for me, writing has moved into first place. Even so, as with painting, progress has been slow. But writing is so very different from painting -- so many thoughts and imaginative images, often distantly or subtly related, can imbue a poem with a lasting mystery, or a glimpse into a lovely insubstantial world. This volume completes my Trilogy -- My Life, My Painting and finally My Writing. Although they have emerged as separate books, the writing of Part III was essential to complete the narrative as I conceived it -- there has been a great deal to think about, much to ponder over. It is my intention that readers should see my work and life as constituting one narrative even though Part I and Part II are published in two separate volumes. Bringing these memoirs to a satisfactory conclusion has been difficult, yet I think it is in this final Part II that the reader will at last find a brief summary of my work, my life and my thinking.

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Book SynopsisThe writings which comprise my memoirs were-started over twenty years .ago when I was still painting. Verse can express, emotions of love, joy and sadness in a manner divorced from most painters'' subject matter. This, I find, is especially so nowadays in the prevalence of the abstract -- with most practitioners'' work having many human verities absent -- not only in Europe but world-wide. This change in thinking has been enormous and is -one that is seen most clearly in the visual arts. Now that circumstances make painting impossible for me, writing has moved into first place. Even so, as with painting, progress has been slow. But writing is so very different from painting -- so many thoughts and imaginative images, often distantly or subtly related, can imbue a poem with a lasting mystery, or a glimpse into a lovely insubstantial world. This volume completes my Trilogy My Life, My Painting and finally My Writing. Although they have emerged as separate books, the writing of Part III was essential to complete the narrative as I conceived it -- there has been a great deal to think about, much to ponder over.

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