A vivid self-portrait in words of one of the great American artists of the twentieth century. Designed to appeal to Gorey lovers as well as those seeking an introduction to his work, Ascending Peculiarity includes reproductions of previously unpublished drawings and photographs. Edited by Karen Wilkin. Edward Gorey's extraordinary and disconcerting books are avidly sought and treasured throughout the world, but until now little has been known about the man himself. While he was notoriously protective of his privacy, Gorey did grant dozens of interviews over the course of his life. And as the conversations collected in this book demonstrate, he proved to be unfailingly charming, gracious, and fascinating. Here is Gorey in his own words, ruminating on everything from French symbolist poetry to soap operas, from George Balanchine and the unique beauty of ballet to Victorian photographs of dead children. We meet the artist in his ramshackle book-lined studio in Manhattan and his equally bizarre house on Cape Cod. We listen as he describes his legendary upbringing and vast range of influences, as well as how he managed to work amid all his cats.

Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

Arts & Photography

Wilkin, Karen

GOREY, Edward

Individual Artists

Harcourt Brace Academic Pub.

Color field painting, which emerged in the United States in the 1950s, is based on radiant, uninflected hues. Exemplified by the work of Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Larry Poons, and Frank Stella, among others, these stunningly beautiful and impressively scaled paintings constitute one of the crowning achievements of postwar American abstract art. Color as Field offers a long-overdue reevaluation of this important aspect of American abstract painting.
The authors examine how color field painting rejects the gestural, layered, and hyper-emotional approach typical of Willem de Kooning and his followers, yet at the same time develops and expands ideas about all-overness and the primacy of color posited by the work of other members of the abstract expressionist generation, such as Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. 
From the fresh historical standpoint of the 21st century, this fascinating reassessment ranges across the artists’ individual approaches and their commonalities, concluding with insights into the ongoing legacy of post-1970s color field painting among present-day artists.

Color as Field: American Painting, 1950-1975 (American Federation of Arts)

Belz, Carl

History & Criticism

American Federation of Arts/Yale University Press

A new examination of the art and influence of artist John Graham and his circle, whose works and ideas contributed to the advancement of American modernism in the interwar period The enigmatic and charismatic John Graham (1886–1961) was an important influence on his fellow New York artists in the 1920s through 1940s. Graham and his circle, which included Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, and Willem de Kooning, helped redefine ideas of what painting and sculpture could be. They, along with others in Graham's orbit, such as Jackson Pollock and David Smith, played a critical role in developing and defining American modernism. American Vanguards showcases about eighty-seven works of art from this vital period that demonstrate the interconnections, common sources, and shared stimuli among the members of Graham's circle.
Three essays by notable scholars investigate the complex relationships among Graham and his New York artist-colleagues during this formative period. William C. Agee positions Graham and his circle within the movement of New Classicism, which drew upon classical and Renaissance examples in an attempt to overcome the devastation of World War I. Irving Sandler focuses on the social, political, and intellectual dynamics among Davis, Gorky, Graham, and de Kooning in the mid-1930s. Karen Wilkin discusses the circumstances that brought these artists together, their common commitment to modernism, and the fascinating artistic cross-fertilization evident in their work. This critical reconsideration sheds new light on the New York School, Abstract Expressionism, and the vitality of American modernism between the two world wars.

American Vanguards: Graham, Davis, Gorky, de Kooning, and Their Circle, 1927-1942 (Addison Gallery of American Art)

SANDLER, Irving

Agee, William C.

Yale University Press

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) was an acclaimed Abstract Expressionist and one of the most influential art teachers of the 20th century. While his paintings have been the subject of many exhibitions and publications, his works on paper are comparatively little known, despite how central they were to his artistic practice and to the evolution of his style and technique. This is the first full-length book devoted to Hofmann’s works on paper, presenting a valuable new perspective from which to appreciate the achievements of this giant of postwar art. More than fifty examples from across his long career and from many genres—including self-portraits, figural studies, interiors, landscapes, and abstractions—are all attractively illustrated in color. In addition, works in different stages of finish, from rough sketches to polished pieces, offer an intimate glimpse into Hofmann’s methods and creative process. 

Hans Hofmann: Works on Paper

Polednik, Marcelle

Greenwold, Diana

Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville

After the death of Martin Luther King Jr., Alabama produced an impressive number of African American self-taught artists whose work particularly focused on the Civil Rights Movement and on aspects of history that led to it. This happened, in part, because the action was right on their doorsteps: Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Selma March, the murder of four little girls in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. It was a spontaneous response to an emerging opportunity, and it occurred all over the South. History Refused to Die documents this phenomenon by highlighting the men and women whose artistic accomplishments deserve to be recognized by American art history, identifying six various themes that run through the works of almost all of these Alabama artists: Slavery, Agricultural and Industrial Alabama, The African-American Woman, The Civil Rights Era, Surviving Modern Times, and Autobiography and Commemoration. Featuring the work of fourteen African American artists from Alabama, including Thornton Dial, Lonnie Holley, Joe Minter, Ronald Lockett, Mose Tolliver, and several quilters from Gee's Bend, Alabama, this volume provides insight into black Alabama and African American visual expression through the presentation and analysis of more than 100 works of art.

History Refused to Die: The Enduring Legacy of African American Art in Alabama

Williams, Horace Randall

Holland, Sharon

Tinwood Books

The delightful tales and quick-witted drawings of Edward Gorey (American, 1925 2000) reflect a special kind of genius that resides in the effect of what is left unwritten and unseen. In Gorey s vaguely Victorian world of well-tended gardens and opulent estates, smoke-belching factories and fog-shrouded streets, nothing seems certain or quite as it should be. The probability of chaos lurks just beneath life s tidy surface, occasionally erupting in surprising events with unexpected, perhaps horrific consequences. But when tragedy befalls Gorey s quirky cast of characters hapless waifs, dusty dowagers, scheming tycoons, and unhinged maidens sometimes we are permitted to laugh. Far from being morbid, Gorey simply reminds us to relax occasionally, and contemplate mortality. In Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey, more than 175 reproductions offer a rich review of his work, including samples from Gorey s books, illustrations produced for other writers, theatrical sets and costume designs, and a wealth of individual pieces, many never before published. Sketches, typewritten manuscripts, doodles, and musings join the generous selection of finished works, which include his trademark finely detailed ink drawings and watercolors. The text by Karen Wilkin, an expert on Gorey and a friend of the artist, offers an intimate review of his career, with insights that provide a fresh understanding of Gorey s life and work. Published on the occasion of the first major traveling exhibition of Edward Gorey s work, organized by the Brandywine River Museum, Elegant Enigmas is a long-overdue tribute to a master artist and writer, who with sharp intellect and devastatingly wry humor created a body of work singular in its brilliance and charm.

Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey

Pomegranate Communications

Description: 287 p. : col. Ill. ; 12 cm. Subjects: Cezanne, Paul, 1839-1906 --Criticism and interpretation. Notes: Impressively illustrated in colour.

Paul Cezanne (Tiny Folios Series)

Abbeville Pr

A celebration of a brilliant young artist's tragically short career, this revealing look at Bruno Fonseca's life, unorthodox training, and startlingly diverse paintings, drawings, and sculpture not only casts light on his own impressive work but also offers unusually acute insight into the creative process. The son of a sculptor and a painter mother, Bruno Fonseca grew up in an art-filled Manhattan household and started creating his own art early on. By the age of 18, he had started a rigorous course of study with Augusto Torres in Manhattan, where he maintained a studio until his death at age 36 in 1994. Alan Jenkins's perceptive musings about the young artist's accomplishments capture Bruno's quirky charm and summon up the complexity of his relationships with family, friends, and the history of art. Karen Wilkin investigates Fonseca's unusually traditional approach to the study of art, based on painstakingly learned ways of seeing and creating that relate more to the 19th-century Academy than to today's conceptualizing, career-chasing art schools. Isabel Fonseca's deeply touching memoir of her brother's childhood and last days brings to life his irresistible spirit and quicksilver intelligence.

Bruno Fonseca: The Secret Life of Painting

Jenkins, Alan

Fonseca, Isabel

Abbeville Press

A celebration of a brilliant young artist's tragically short career, this revealing look at Bruno Fonseca's life, unorthodox training, and startlingly diverse paintings, drawings, and sculpture not only casts light on his own impressive work but also offers unusually acute insight into the creative process. The son of a sculptor and a painter mother, Bruno Fonseca grew up in an art-filled Manhattan household and started creating his own art in early childhood. By the age of 18, he had started a rigorous course of study with Augusto Torres in Manhattan, where he maintained a studio until his death at age 36 in 1994. Alan Jenkins's perceptive musings about the young artist's accomplishments capture Bruno's quirky charm and summon up the complexity of his relationships with family, friends, and the history of art. Karen Wilkin investigates Fonseca's throwback approach to the study of art, based on painstakingly learned ways of seeing and creating that relate more to the 19th-century Academy than to today's conceptualizing, career-chasing art schools. Isabel Fonseca's deeply touching memoir of her brother's childhood and last days brings to life his irresistible spirit and quicksilver intelligence.

Fonseca, Bruno

A collection of the paintings and drawings of Helen Frankenthaler is accompanied by a discussion of her artistic techniques and style

Frankenthaler: Works on Paper 1949-1984

FRANKENTHALER, Helen

International Exhibitions Foundation

George Braziller

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

Books by Wilkin, Karen

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

Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

Color as Field: American Painting, 1950-1975 (American Federation of Arts)

American Vanguards: Graham, Davis, Gorky, de Kooning, and Their Circle, 1927-1942 (Addison Gallery of American Art)

Hans Hofmann: Works on Paper

History Refused to Die: The Enduring Legacy of African American Art in Alabama

Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey

Paul Cezanne (Tiny Folios Series)

Bruno Fonseca: The Secret Life of Painting

Bruno Fonseca: The Secret Life of Painting

Frankenthaler: Works on Paper 1949-1984