Art and Photography

Art and Photography

Here you will find books in the genre of of art and photography. Reviews are listed in reverse chronological order, with the most recent review appearing first in the list.

Ninth Street Women

Mary Gabriel provides a distinctive history of abstract expressionism as a distinctively American movement, focusing on 5 women and also many of the men who played major roles in their lives. The 5 women artists had men as friends, as lovers, husbands, ga

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Edvard Munch

Who was the man behind The Scream, the iconic painting that expresses the anguish of the twentieth century? Sue Prideaux raises this question in her biography Edward Munch: Behind the Scream about the Norwegian painter Edward Munch (1863–1944). The biogr

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Punk, Post Punk, New Wave

I grew up during the punk era and new wave eras, and was at least aware of the culture, though I was a long way from taking on a punk identity. I did go to a bunch of shows in the late 1980s and early 1990s, mainly at the famed City Gardens in New Jersey.

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A Lifetime of Secrets

There are several confessions websites where people can tell their secrets, such as Group Hug,…

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Optic Nerve

If you put "op art" into an image web search, you will come across many striking computer generated images that trick the eyes.  I'm e…

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The Yellow House

Vincent Van Gogh was a 'great painter desperately trying to remain sane' states Martin Gayford in this excellent book: 'He would be utterly o…

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Art After Conceptual Art

Conceptual art — traditionally understood as a period style of the late '60s-early '70s — is often regarded by critics and laymen alike as cumb…

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Art and Photography

Art and Photography describes itself as a survey of the presence of photography in artistic practice from the 1960s onwards.  It's a fa…

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Escape from “Special”

Escape from "Special" features short pieces about Melissa as she grows from a young girl to an adolescent.  Miss (her first name)…

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Evidence

Evidence is a collection of beautiful photographs of people without clothes.  There's clear development from Kuhn's earlier collect…

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Lucky

Lucky is a collection of three Lucky comic books chronicling Gabrielle Bell's life in 2003 and 2004 as she lives as a low-income ar…

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Optic Nerve #11

In issue #11 of Optic Nerve, Adrian Tomine finishes the story he started in issue #9 […

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The Travelers

These pictures were taken at a Harlem funeral home where the funeral director Isaiah Owens provides the service of a traditional burial with the deceased…

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Satellites

Jonas Bendiksen shows six regions of the former Soviet Union, and the problems they have experienced since its collapse.  His project took seven yea…

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An American Lens

In An America Lens, Jay Bochner presents the reader with eight 'scenes' or 'close-ups' (chapters) focusing on the life and work…

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Sanctum

In Sanctum, photographer Robert Stivers continues with styles he explored with success in his…

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Figure and Ground

Richard Renaldi mostly takes pictures of people in their work standing or sitting and looking at his camera, and some landscapes.  Figure and Gr…

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Playtime

Straulino creates highly produced pictures of women; his style is dramatic and striking.  In many of these pictures the models are painted with brig…

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Life’s a Bitch

This book is a retrospective of strip cartoons written by Roberta Gregory and published in the comic Naughty Bits between 1991 and 1999. The her…

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Vitamin Ph

Vitamin Ph has 352 pages, and includes 121 artists who use photography.  For each artist, the editors include a few sample works and a half…

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One Eye

Charles Burns is best known for his graphic novels, such as…

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Art Photography Now

Photography spent its first half century struggling to be accepted as an art form, typically by trying to emulate painting.  Photographers smeared t…

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Thin

Thin is a book of photographs of women and girls with eating disorders at the Renfrew Center, old snapshots of them, their journals and other wr…

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POPism

I usually wish I were younger. I think it’s the natural inclination. Reading POPISM: The Warhol Sixties, however, made me long to be older; to hav…

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Exposure

Exposure is a collection of documentary photographs from the last 40 years of Mary Ellen Mark’s work.  Mark has for her whole career been fascinat…

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