"Because he works in the vernacular of realism, viewers look for verisimilitude in Daniel Sprick's work, as if his paintings were a mirror of reality. The more we dwell on his paintings, however, the more we become aware that they are anything but a part of our world, and are, instead, poetic renditions of his own making"--Timothy J. Standring
This book, the first devoted entirely to Daniel Sprick's work, accompanies a solo exhibition of recent work at the Denver Art Museum. In addition to full-page plates of nearly fifty paintings, mostly portraits, the publication features an essay by Timothy J. Standring that describes Sprick's painting process in detail.

Daniel Sprick's Fictions: Recent Works

Arts & Photography

Individual Artists

SF Design, llc / FrescoBooks

Rosie Sandifer documents the evolution of the artist's career as both painter and sculptor, from painting portraits, genre, and landscape to sculpting tabletop and public monuments. The painting collection includes pastels, watercolors, acrylics, and oils, and depicts her ventures throughout the American West as well as international travels. Her sculptures have narrative qualities and can be viewed at installations nationally. 
Rather than a catalog of Sandifer's figures, this book includes the stories behind the sculptures--why they were created and their unique installations. Sandifer's life-size and monumental clay originals and the works in progress in her studio and at the foundry are displayed, and the clay-to-bronze process is described step-by-step.
Robin Salmon observes that Sandifer sculpts the mundane, elevating it to a special level in her slice-of-life depictions. Tuck Langland sums up her work as, "portraying the joy of life, revealing a perspective which is in stark contrast to those artists who see only misery, pain, and suffering." He acknowledges her unusual life as a hybrid artist. "While most sculptors draw, few are serious about painting. This straddling the world of two and three dimensions is rare." It is her language of art.

Rosie Sandifer: Language of Art

Sandifer, Rosie

History & Criticism

"To view from where Sam Scott stands is to see the spiritual in all things. In every touch of his brush on the canvas . . . Scott has serious intent. Each day as an artist is felt and considered; every new work containing the attention to each moment lived there. Sam Scott is and always has been a painter in pursuit of beauty."--Jennifer Doran
 In Encounters with Beauty, Sam Scott's writings, excerpted from his journals, come from an artist's contemplative perspective. His thoughts offer insights and wisdom that he has gleaned over the last thirty years in Santa Fe. As a pursuer of beauty, he offers the reader a unique opportunity to look inside the artist's struggle in the pursuit of beauty and art, and its importance in our personal lives.
 "We seem to need art now, more than ever before, to do what it always has done, which is to get our singular, internal, and imaginative responses to our world out into the world. . . . During the forty-plus years of his life as a painter, while so much of the art world has turned to the cold severities of the conceptual and the analytic, Sam Scott has remained committed to an art that is sensual and synthesizing. Now, as art seems increasingly determined to become what Peter Plagens calls 'the putatively transgressive arm of the fashion and entertainment industry,' Sam Scott makes his case for the primal place of art. He wants to remind us of the delicate balance that must be maintained in the relationship of art and life."--from William Peterson's Introduction

Encounters with Beauty: Excerpts from an Artist's Journal, 1963-2006

Scott, Sam

Humanlandscapes is a special fusion of talent by physician and photographer P. Miller and poet Peter Crane, producing a lyrical and unabashed tribute to the human body, beauty, the feminine, and the natural world. The core of the book is comprised of images of the body in many different Southwestern settings as well as in the studio, and in both color and black-and-white. The oversized book allows the images to be presented elegantly and each to be paired with a poem specifically written for it, setting the tone and expanding the mood. Humanlandscapes is divided into four sections, each addressing a different aspect of the human experience.The images come from an awareness of the human body to the spiritual and natural forces surrounding it. What is the character of the feminine, and what does it mean to be human? The images and poetry lead us through a journey of discovery to celebrate both the physical and spiritual parts of the self. This unique book brings together rich images and text in a tapestry of visual and emotional rewards.

Humanlandscapes: Interpreting the Human Form

Cane, Peter

Photography & Video

Landscapes of Colorado features the efforts of artists who have used the state's natural beauty as inspirations for their paintings and photographs. Art curator Ann Daley selected the artists. Some lived in Colorado only briefly, while others have spent their entire careers in the state. Daley also provides an essay linking each artist to the impressive history of Colorado, where for over a century painters and photographers have been attracted to its magnificent views and its crisp, clear light. 
Art critic Michael Paglia provides a profile of each of the artists. In writing about them, he takes into account key experiences in their development, as well as analyzing their varying styles, the techniques they embrace, and places them in the broader context of landscape art. The artists found in Landscapes of Colorado display a wide range of aesthetic approaches from neotraditional to contemporary realist.
Landscapes of Colorado is an overview of the rich vein of contemporary art in Colorado.

Landscapes of Colorado: Mountains and Plains

Daley, Ann Scarlett

Paglia, Michael

Abstract art has a stunning presence in New Mexico. As a premier international art hub, the state is renowned for its artistic diversity, creative excitement, and cosmopolitan ambiance. The most sophisticated art lovers and collectors come from all over the world to experience the galleries and museums that exhibit abstract art. 
Today's creativity is built on centuries of Pueblo Indian design and Territorial Spanish elegance. More than a hundred years ago, prominent artists from the East Coast discovered the area and brought their energies to the task of founding the storied art colonies of Taos and Santa Fe. The light and the striking landscape proved fertile ground for innovative ideas and bold experimentation, then and now. Abstract Art presents a thoughtful sampling of the range and sheer variety of abstract art being produced in New Mexico today. Over 200 full color images reflect the vigor and originality of artists whose work compares favorably with that being produced in major metropolitan art centers. Stuart Ashman's essay covers the development of modern art in the state. He also selected the artists to appear, such as Eugene Newmann, Janet Lippincott, Kevin Tolman, Sally Anderson, Richard Hogan, Alan Paine Radebaugh, and Pascal. These artists are presented individually in profiles by Suzanne Deats.

Abstract Art

Ashman, Stuart

Deats, Suzanne

Indian artists from all over the nation have deep ties to New Mexico. A great many live and work in the state. Countless others have attended and/or taught at the renowned Institute of American Indian Arts (AIA) in Santa Fe, NM. All have exhibited their work at Pueblo and Indian art exhibitions, in major galleries, or at the annual Indian market hosted by the Southwestern Association of Indian Arts (SWAIA) in Santa Fe.
Almost without exception, Native artists draw upon their heritage for inspiration, and usually for form and content as well. Some create their art using traditional mediums and designs; others explore modern, sometimes unorthodox subjects, styles, and mediums. The visions expressed in their art mirror the diverse experiences of indigenous peoples living in America today.
Ndn presents examples drawn from the panorama of Native American art. Charleen Touchette's lively essay brings a contemporary perspective to Indian art. She also selected the artists to be included in Ndn, some of whom are Allan Houser, R. C. Gorman, Arlo Namingha, Margarete Bagshaw-Tindel, Kevin Red Star, Anita Fields, and Joel McHorse. Each artist is presented individually in profiles by Suzanne Deats.

NDN Art: Contemporary Native American Art

Suzanne Deats

Charleen Touchette

Western Traditions is a new book on the art of the American West, an art that attracts not only great artists but passionate collectors, not only nostalgia buffs who revel in the history of the frontier but pragmatists who know that the life of the working cowboy is a solid reality in today's ranching industry. Featuring more than fifty celebrated painters and sculptors, Western Traditions paints a broad picture of this fine art category, showing where it has been, where it is now, and where it is going. Featuring such prominent artists as Glenna Goodacre, Gordon Snidow, Dave McGary, William Acheff, and Gary Niblett, this book belongs in every private and public art library, for it is an important reference as well as a rip-roaring good read.

Western Traditions: Contemporary Artists of the American West

Duty, Michael

The fourth title in the innovative New Mexico Artist Series, 3-D art/techné spotlights once again the extraordinary art and artistic life in New Mexico today. 3-D art/techné explores the work of more than thirty artists based in New Mexico who use traditional skills in non-traditional ways or who use non-traditional materials in traditional ways. Recognizing that many people who work this way produce three-dimensional work, the book will focus on those who produce free-standing objects and those who may work on the wall but project out from it as well. Ranging from metal, wood, stone, clay and fiber to assemblage and glass, these works of art pose post-modern questions about modernist considerations of form and function. Among those featured are Tom Waldron, Barbara Zusman, Gail Rieke, and Tracy Krumm.

3-D art/techné: Glass, Fiber, Wood, Clay, Metal, Stone, Assemblage (New Mexico Artist Series)

Brandauer, Aline

Carver, Jon

Poetry, art, and art history mingle in the crucible of James E. Dammann's new book, The Opaque Decanter: Words to the Music of Painting. The resulting alchemy creates an intensely evocative, you-are-there experience that transports the reader straight into the world portrayed in each of the paintings in the book, most of which are instantly recognizable masterpieces by such artists as Van Gogh, Picasso, Goya, and Manet.
Dammann's poetry is robust and masculine, yet is presented with subtlety and wit. Here is a brand new structure that is fine poetry, classic prose, succinct and witty art history, and a wise, unique viewpoint, all rolled up together and integrated and streamlined into its own form. Standing in the Musée d'Orsay or making sketches in a sidewalk café on the streets of Montmartre, Dammann is a regular guy with a thoroughly contemporary mind who uses art and poetry as a means of inhabiting the imaginative world of the artists who made those environs great.

The Opaque Decanter: Words to the Music of Painting

Dammann, James E.

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