At a time when beauty is much out of favor in the art world, Joseph Raffael has taken what some would consider the highly radical step of daring to paint beautiful pictures. Long one of contemporary art's most highly regarded painters, Raffael transforms intense observations of nature into color-drenched, deeply felt works of art. He often works on a very large scale, using either watercolor, oil, or acrylic to achieve the painstaking detail of his dazzling images. Amei Wallach's warmly perceptive introduction, inspired by a visit to the artist's home and studio in the south of France, explores Raffael's life history, his sources, and his ideas about art. Her individual chapter openers address the predominant subjects within the artist's work, including water and shore scenes, flowers, animals, fish and lilies, sacred symbols, and Raffael's wife, Lannis. A thought-provoking essay by Donald Kuspit places Raffael's painting within the larger context of twentieth-century art, psychology, and philosophy. Complementing these texts are the paintings themselves-sun-dappled carp, luminous iris, tumultuous rivers, and other wonders of nature captured in radiant visual meditations. The artist has also contributed two engaging written pieces, both of which illuminate the pleasures and occasional terrors of the creative process. His "Diary of a Painting" traces the evolution of one major work over several months, from the original slide to the finished wall-size watercolor, providing insight into the emotional and technical demands of creating a work of art. His informative and revealing "Autobiographical Chronology" provides a personal look back, from his Brooklyn childhood to his art-making career in New York, California, and the south of France, where Joseph Raffael lives and works today.

Reflections of Nature: Paintings by Joseph Raffael

Arts & Photography

Wallach, Amei

Kuspit, Donald B.

Raffael, Joseph

Individual Artists

Abbeville Press

This is the first comprehensive monograph on an important contemporary artist, one who has come to represent the Russian avant-garde in the post-Stalinist era much in the way that Joseph Beuys was a stimulus for European art after World War II. In her fascinating text, Amei Wallach draws on extensive research and interviews with Kabakov and his circle over the past eight years, and puts the work in the context of the artist's life and the social, historical, cultural, and political forces that have shaped it - from his boyhood during Stalin's regime, to his obligatory career as a children's book illustrator in the official Artists' Union, to his involvement in Moscow's furtive and fertile underground avant-garde of artists and writers, to his more recent travels in the international art circuit. This groundbreaking volume also includes an introduction by Robert Storr, a curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and commentaries by the artist himself that accompany the 290 illustrations, including paintings, drawings, albums, and sketches and photographs of installations.

Ilya Kabakov: The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away

Kabakov, Ilya

Storr, Robert (Int)

Kabakov, Ilya (Art)

History & Criticism

Harry N.Abrams, Inc.

Ranging from 1969 through the early 1990s, the works in this volume have been rarely or never seen before in this country. Ilya Kabakov's installations are complex environments, which he calls "total installations," that immerse viewers in other worlds: communal Soviet apartments, the studio of an untalented artist, or an old Russian school. Humorous and often melancholy narratives in the form of texts on paintings or drawings add to the poignancy of his work.

Ilya Kabakov: 1969-1998

Edith C Blum Art Inst

Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt is a major book and museum exhibition that will premiere at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), in June 2006 before traveling to seven American museums through 2008. Organized jointly by the Tinwood Alliance and the MFAH, in conjunction with the Gee’s Bend Foundation, the exhibition will present seventy quilt masterpieces from the Alabama town of Gee’s Bend. In 2002, Gee’s Bend burst into international prominence through the success of Tinwood’s Quilts of Gee’s Bend exhibition and book, which revealed an important and previously invisible art tradition from the African American South. Critics and popular audiences alike marveled at these black-made quilts that combined the best of contemporary design with a deeply rooted ethnic heritage and compelling human stories about the women. Michael Kimmelman, chief critic for the New York Times, set the tone for the quilts’ reception when he wrote that they represent some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced.” The exhibition has subsequently received unanimously stellar praise and wide coverage in the print and broadcast media, broken attendance records at museums throughout the United States, and attracted audiences of unprecedented diversity. In 2006, Gee’s Bend quilts will be commemorated in a series of postage stamps, American Treasures,” by the United States Postal Service.The Architecture of Gee’s Bend Quilts explores the origins, aesthetics, family structures, and community roots of this crucial American cultural legacy; presents newly discovered masterworks from the second half of the twentieth century; and, by spotlighting more than a dozen quilts created in the last four years, celebrates the recent and dazzling revitalization of Gee’s Bend’s artmaking in the twenty-first century. As such, the book offers evidencs that a once-dying art form may now continue to thrive and to inspire art lovers well into the new millennium.

Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt (Hardcover Slipcase)

Gordon, Maggi

Arnett, Paul

Arnett, William

Herman, Bernard

Mott, Diane

Blum, Dilys

Whitley, Lauren

Tinwood Books

In 2002, Gee’s Bend burst into international prominence through the success of Tinwood’s Quilts of Gee’s Bend exhibition and book, which revealed an important and previously invisible art tradition from the African American South. Critics and popular audiences alike marveled at these quilts that combined the best of contemporary design with a deeply rooted ethnic heritage and compelling human stories about the women. Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt is a major book and museum exhibition that will premiere at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), in June 2006 before traveling to seven American museums through 2008. The book's 330 color illustrations and insightful text bring home the exciting experience to readers while displaying all the cultural heritage and craftsmanship that have gone into these remarkable quilts.

Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt

Cubbs, Joanne

The first monograph on the artist, the volume brings her wood, bronze,stone and alabaster works to life through the detail photographs of David Finn. Taking inspiration from ancient Greek marbles and myths, Huffington reveals the contemporary nature found in the spirit and traditions of the past.

Anita Huffington, Sculpture

Wolfe, Townsend

Huffington, Anita

UNKNO

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

Books by Wallach, Amei