Every day we are inundated with faces. Images of celebrities, acquaintances, and friends--in the news, on social networking sites, on the street--are constantly changing. Portraits, on the other hand, slow us down. They capture the artist's carefully conceived approach to the subject, whether a friend, a loved one, or a self-portrait. For this book and exhibition, the second in an ongoing series, the National Portrait Gallery held an open competition, asking artists throughout the United States to submit likenesses of people close to them. From more than 3,300 entries from every state, a jury of experts chose forty-nine works of art in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, drawing, video and new media, and photography. They are as diverse as America and represent many stylistic approaches. The grand prize winner received a $25,000 award and will be given a commission to create a portrait of a notable living American for the Portrait Gallery's permanent collection. The artists shown here use portraiture or self-portraiture to explore complex issues of identity, while they also test the boundaries of figurative art. These faces compel our curiosity and document the dynamic relationship between artist and subject. Ranging from quietly pensive to wildly expressive, these creative approaches to the art of portraiture assert the power of human connections.

The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, 2009

Arts & Photography

Fairbrother, Trevor

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institute

An insightful and beautiful look at how New England’s summers have inspired American artists for decades With its stunning coastlines, mountains, lakes, forests, and scenic villages, New England has been an inspiration for American artists since the 19th century. This lively book considers the ways in which painters have responded to the region’s summer beauty as well as to its social and cultural preoccupations and characteristics. Works by such artists as Fitz Henry Lane, John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, Maurice Prendergast, Marsden Hartley, Edward Hopper, Hans Hofmann, Andrew Wyeth, Alex Katz, and Yvonne Jacquette depict subjects as wide ranging as the bucolic delights of farms and fields to the atmospheric light of New England’s rugged coasts to the ethnic and social diversity of urban street life. Painting Summer in New England highlights the various styles and influences revealed in these works, including photographic realism, Impressionism, Expressionism, and abstraction. In addition, Trevor Fairbrother discusses the tremendous array of works covered by the concept of “painting” and the remarkable richness of thematic imagery that can be seen and understood as “New England.” This engaging book is a delightful and invaluable resource for those who live in or are admirers of New England and American art.

Painting Summer in New England

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

Born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, Arthur Wesley Dow (1857–1922) is renowned for his paintings and prints that take their subject matter from nature and reflect the orderly design and fine handcrafting championed by the Arts and Crafts movement. This charming bookpresents an important discovery―a previously undocumented photograph album titled Ipswich Days comprising forty-one cyanotypes that Dow produced in 1899. Dedicated to his poet-friend Everett Stanley Hubbard, Ipswich Days offers a fresh new look at Dow’s attention to the abstract aspects of form, color, and cropping in the creation of his designs while documenting his deep personal attachment to his rural and historic hometown.
Ipswich Days analyzes this album and its significance in the artist’s career. Each of the images––which depict Ipswich’s clam shanties, marshes, farms, people, trees, flowers, and boats alike––is handsomely reproduced and reflects the beauty that Dow saw and interpreted in this quintessentially New England town.

Ipswich Days: Arthur Wesley Dow and His Hometown (Addison Gallery of American Art)

History

Addison

Boston photographer Fred Holland Day (1864–1933) first distinguished himself in literary circles—as a critic, bibliophile, and co-founder of the progressive publishing firm Copeland and Day—before turning to photography in the 1880s. By the turn of the century, he had established an international reputation as a leader in the Pictorialist movement, striving to gain acceptance for photography as a fine art.
Day's work ranged from intimate portraits of friends and fellow artists, to elaborate, costume-driven self-portraiture, including his Jesus Christ series, photographed in rural settings near his home in Norwood, Massachusetts. Especially illuminating of Day's dual role as artist and advocate are the 50 plus images, reprised here, from a 1902 exhibition, in which Day posed for "leaders in the newer photographic methods" to demonstrate that the camera could be as expressive and sensitive an artistic tool as the brush or the etcher's needle.
Making a Presence offers a dynamic composite portrait of an iconoclastic, independent artist, and of a man exquisitely expressive of his fin-de-siècle milieu.

Making a Presence: F. Holland Day in Artistic Photography

Photography & Video

A biography of the painter, examining his personality and sensibility, and analyzing his painting style

John Singer Sargent (Library of American Art)

Individual Artists

Harry N. Abrams

Robert Wilson's Vision

Harry N.Abrams, Inc.

This richly produced volume celebrates the distinctive works created by Boston artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The first major reexamination of Boston art during its richest and most complex period, The Bostonians presents noted paintings by Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Childe Hassam, Edmund Tarbell, William Morris Hunt, Joseph DeCamp, Lilian Hale, Charles Hopkinson, Frank W. Benson, Maurice Prendergast, William Paxton, and many others whose contributions were vital to the cultural climate of the city in the dawn of the last century. Featuring 100 illustrations by 40 artists, The Bostonians is a crucial document for understanding Boston's astounding cultural heritage, and the remarkable legacy it has left behind.

The Bostonians: Painters of an Elegant Age, 1870-1930

Northeastern Univ Pr

9 x 9 x 0.6 " paperback. Published in Boston, MA by Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Harry N. Abrams, Inc.; First Edition edition.

Robert Wilson's Vision - An exhibition of works by Robert Wilson with a sound environment by Hans Peter Kuhn

BURROUGHS, WILLIAM S.

Serra, Richard and Sontag, Susan

Boston, MA; NY: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

Brice Marden: Boston

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

In and Out of Place examines the predicament of diverse individuals, classes, and populations in America today. Focusing on recent work by John Ahearn, Tina Barney, David Bates, and others – works ranging from photographic likenesses to conceptual statements – the book explores representations of people and the real or emblematic places they inhabit.

In and Out of Place: Contemporary Art and the American Social Landscape

Museum Of Fine Arts, Boston

Potts, Kathryn

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Fairbrother, Trevor. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Fairbrother, Trevor