Charles Krafft's one-of-a-kind artwork moves in provocative directions, combining the highbrow with the gruesome in such works as his Disasterware (Delft-style painted plates featuring catastrophes) and Sponeware ("the human bone china"). Krafft's work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Artforum, and Juxtapoz. With 60 color photographs, the full range of his plates, paintings, and other creations is sampled in this book, which also includes biographical information on this remarkable self-taught painter.

Charles Krafft's Villa Delirium

McGee, Mike

Reid, Larry

Arts & Photography

Last Gasp of San Francisco

Kerciu rose to prominence in the art world in 1963 after a solo exhibition at the University of Mississippi. On exhibit was a series of paintings that depicted the Confederate flag surrounded by segregationist slogans that were being echoed around him. These works were a response to the unrest that ensued as the institution attempted to desegregate. Kerciu was arrested and charged with desecration of the Confederate flag. This ushered in a brief period of intense media attention, and Kerciu was featured in publications such as Artnews and Time magazine. The following year Kerciu was to head the printmaking department at what is now California State University, Fullerton where he taught until his retirement in 2002. During that time he was featured as a guest artist in prestigious print houses such as Tamarind Lithography in Los Angeles and the Stanley William Hayter Atelier 17 in Paris. He later became interested in working with stained glass and for a time worked almost exclusively with that art form.More than fifty years after his whirlwind introduction into the art world Kerciu remains committed to his art. His latest, The Tower series, is a body of work that defines three-dimensional forms through the exclusive use of line. It has evolved from paintings featuring the pyramid, which later progressed into sculptural exploration of the pyramid and obelisk, and eventually into his most recent architectural towers. This latest endeavor stems from Kerciuâ€™s aim to continually artistically challenge himself. His tireless pursuit of innovation in material, from and subject can be witnessed in this celebration of the artistâ€™s long and diverse artistic career. The exhibition will feature more than fifty works including paintings, prints, glasswork and sculpture from all phases of the artistâ€™s development.

G. Ray Kerciu: Radical Retrospective

Individual Artists

Grand Central Press

For more than fifty years, Roland Reiss has been a prominent presence in the Southern California art scene. His sculpture and painting have been exhibited internationally and written about extensively in art publications in the United States and Europe. During his career, he has been an influential educator. This 260-page book is published in conjunction with the exhibition Roland Reiss: Sculpture and Painting presented at the Cal State Fullerton, University Lee and Nicolas Begovich Gallery. (November 8-December 11, 2014) The exhibition is the first survey of Reissâ€™ work to include works from all the periods of his career, and this publication represents the most extensive examination of his work to date. It includes essays by Orange County Museum of Art chief curator, Dan Cameron; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, curator emeritus, Howard Fox; New Zealand art writer, Lita Barrie; and Begovich Gallery director and curator of this exhibition, Mike McGee. Reiss began his career in the 1950s creating abstract paintings. In the1960s he was one of the first artists to experiment with resins and other plastic media. He is best known for his tableaus, which feature dollhouse-scale environments that address sophisticated issues about the human condition and social conventions. In the past two decades he has returned to painting. Initially these paintings were abstract. Since 2008, however, he has been painting a series of floral painting. Reiss showed his work at Cirrus Gallery in the 1977 before he joined Ace Gallery in 1980. At Ace Gallery he had numerous one-person shows over the period of fourteen years, during which time that gallery represented him exclusively. In the course of his career, he has shown at Documenta (1982) in Kassel Germany and at the Whitney Biennial Exhibition (1975). Earlier, his work was traveled around the world by the United States Information Agency. He has exhibited in a one-person shows at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1977) and in an extensive retrospective exhibition at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (1991). In 2012, the Pasadena Museum of California Art mounted a large one-person show of his work from the 1970s and 1980s. Additional exhibitions include shows in Great Britain, South Korea, Belarus, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Brazil, Mexico, China, Canada, Italy, Germany, Japan, and Taiwan. He is the recipient of four N.E.A. grants and of more than forty prizes and awards. His work is included in many public, corporate, and private collections, such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Reiss studied at the American Academy of Art and at UCLA. He taught at UCLA, the University of Colorado, and Claremont Graduate University. In 2009 he received the College Art Association Award for the Distinguished Teaching of Art.

Roland Reiss: Painting & Sculpture

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Every artists intent is to lead a full life of image-making, leaving a legacy of inspirational work. A prolific teacher, collage artist, painter, sculptor, and documentarian, Janice Lowry (1957-2009) succeeded at both goals. Her vibrant body of work continues to resonate with friends, family, students, and admirers all over the world. Former student and friend Mark Ryden contributes a heartfelt preface. Lowrys diary in 126 volumes, which she kept from age eleven, is in the Smithsonian Institutions Archives of American Art with pages featured here incorporating Lowrys own voice into the text. Her sculptures and assemblages, drawing from Joseph Cornells shadow boxes, are surreal 3-d worlds made of a variety of materials - from worn paint, imperfect wood, and plastic doll parts to string, table legs, playing cards and deer antlers. Mixed-media paintings reinterpret 19th century cabinet cards, and dada-esque collages superimpose old and new elements, from 1950s domestic advertisements to celestial imagery. The Curiosities of Janice Lowry is both an epitaph and an insightful look into the life and influences that shaped this intensely creative individual and is published as a celebration of Lowrys career retrospective at the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, California.

The Curiosities of Janice Lowry

Ryden, Mark

Gothold, Jon

Manuel Pardo: Universo SoÃ±ado in Technicolor (a universe dreamed in Technicolor) is a two-hundred-and-thirty-page full-color book published on the occasion of the exhibition Manuel Pardo-Stardust: at the Cal State University Fullerton, Begovich Gallery, April 9-May 12, 2011. Drawing from his life experiences, pop culture and fine art references, Pardo has developed a distinctly unique style: His comic strip and cartoon influenced figures and imagery are constructed of pert flat local color, ornate handcrafted lines and decorative patterns. He routinely works in series of repeated like images with slight variations. Just beyond the sensual appeal of Pardo's drawings and paintings are pointed references to gender, mortality, ethnicity and other issues regarding the human condition-not the least of which is his struggle with sexual identity and acceptance as a gay male Cuban American.

Manuel Pardo: Universo Soñado in Technicolor

History & Criticism

A distinctive and incomparable collection from "Mighty" Mike McGee, the class clown of spoken word and poetry slam's geek champion. This debut includes his most notable performance poems, stories, humorous anecdotes and how-to's. This handbook moves between serious love tomes, like "Open Letter to Neil Armstrong" and "Every Day," to his most irreverent and requested works, like "Puddin'" and "Like." A true road-dog, McGee travels with words and camera, many results of which are captured in this collection. The humor contained in these pages are a campfire on a lonely winter night, the poetry - a reason to shout about love.

In Search of Midnight: The Mike McGee Handbook of Awesome

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Write Bloody Publishing

Aztec vampires gorge themselves on a small Mexican village. A masked hero of the 1940s stumbles onto a town that time forgot. A gunslinging exorcist works to save a boy from demonic possession. These are the stories of the American West your history teacher never told you about... because she was scared! Includes nine original tales of the weird, wild west, by Barry Reese, Derrick Ferguson, Josh Reynolds, and more.

How the West Was Weird: 9 Tales from the Weird, Wild West

Literature & Fiction

Reese, Barry

Ferguson, Derrick

Reynolds, Joshua

Taylor, Ian

Jenkins, Joel

Munn, Chris

Anderson Jr., Russ

Kte'pi, Bill

Mileham, Ian

Short Stories & Anthologies

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Throughout his 40 year career F Scott Hess has painted against the grain of the contemporary art world. In this comprehensive monograph, we witness Hess steadfastly going his own way. In the 80s, a period in which conceptual art was favored, he emphasized figurative work with narrative themes. His rebellious nature is further exposed as his career progresses and he confronts and explores societal taboos. Although much of Hess' subject matter is challenging, he also employs humor to great end, leavening work that is sometimes very dark. His stylistic influences are many, reflecting both his formal studies and his extensive travels. During his time studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, he received the Theodor K rner award. In the 1990s, he spent a year in residency in Iran on a J. Paul Getty Fellowship. More recently Hess painting was chosen as the cover art for the book Realismus in Der Bildenden Kunst (Realism in the Visual Arts Europe and N. America 1830 2000, Gebr. Mann

F. Scott Hess

Harvey, Doug.

Seed, Professor John

Ollman, Leah

Gingko Press

Blending themes of pop culture with techniques reminiscent of the old masters, Mark Ryden has created a singular style that blurs the traditional boundaries between high and low art. His work first garnered attention in the 1990s when he ushered in a new genre of painting, “Pop Surrealism,” dragging a host of followers in his wake. He has trumped the initial surrealist strategies by choosing subject matter loaded with cultural connotation.Ryden’s vocabulary ranges from cryptic to cute, treading a fine line between nostalgic cliché and disturbing archetype. Seduced by his infinitely detailed and meticulously glazed surfaces, the viewer is confronted with the juxtaposition of the childhood innocence and the mysterious recesses of the soul. A subtle disquiet inhabits his paintings; the work is achingly beautiful as it hints at darker psychic stuff beneath the surface of cultural kitsch. In Ryden’s world cherubic girls rub elbows with strange and mysterious figures. Ornately carved frames lend the paintings a baroque exuberance that adds gravity to their enigmatic themes. Complex in its arcane and idiosyncratic subject matter, Ryden’s work can leave no viewer unmoved.Pinxit, whose title refers to the Latin term meaning “painted by,” is organized by the themes of Ryden’s major exhibitions―The Meat Show, Bunnies &amp; Bees, The Tree Show, and so on―and includes collected essays by Yoshitomo Nara, Carlo McCormick, and others, and a new essay by culture critic Kristine McKenna. This sweeping retrospective brings together nearly two decades’ worth of Mark Ryden’s paintings and works on paper, broadening the horizons of his uncanny universe and bringing it to the world, one page at a time.

Mark Ryden: Pinxit

McKenna, Kristine

McCormick, Carlo

Byrne, Debra J.

Taschen America, LLC

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

Books by McGee, Mike