As I was cleaning out the art section the other day I decided to rearrange all our essays on art. In this section we have a variety of biographies on artists, books on art and architecture, and books on the contemporary art world. There are also books that tell the stories of stolen art and reproductions. Some of my favorite books in this section that I already blogged on are Loot by Sharon Waxman, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark by Don Thompson, and The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr. Here are some more books that I thought looked very interesting!
Tom and Jack: The Intertwined Lives of Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollock by Henry Adams.
“The drip paintings of Jackson Pollock-pulsing clouds of color dribbled or flung on canvas-appear to be the polar opposites of Thomas Hart Benton’s murals-rollicking American landscapes peopled by cowboys and steelworkers. Yet the two artists had a close and intense relationship dating from Pollock’s earliest days in New York. When Benton, then one of the most famous artists in America, took the young man under his wing. Benton gave Pollock the only formal training he ever had, and became a mentor and a surrogate father to him” (flap).
The Secret Lives of Buildings: From the Ruins of the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories by Edward Hollis.
“Altered layer by layer with each generation, buildings become eloquent chronicles of the civilizations they have witnessed. Their stories, as buildings and captivating as folk tales, span the gulf of history” (flap).
Each building is discussed based on the contemporary style and methods of the time in which they were built. The Basilica of San Marco in Italy, Gloucester Cathedral in England, and the Notre Dame in Paris, France are among the thirteen historic buildings mentioned.
Art Lover: A Biography of Peggy Guggenheim by Anton Gill.
“Peggy Guggenheim was one of the greatest and most notorious art patrons of the twentieth century. After her father, Benjamin Guggenheim, went down with the Titanic, the young heiress came into a small fortune and left for Europe. She married a writer Laurence Vail and joined the American expatriate bohemian set. Though her many lovers included such lions of art and literature as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst (whom she later married), Yves Tanguy, and Roland Penrose, real love always seemed to elude her.
In the late 1930s, Peggy set up one of the first galleries of modern art in London, quickly acquiring a magnificent selection of works, buying great numbers of paintings from artists fleeing to America after the Nazi invasion of France. Escaping from Vichy she moved back to New York, where se was a vital part of the new American abstract expressionist movement.
Meticulously researched and filled with colorful incident and boasting a distinguished cast, Anton Gill’s biography reveals the inner drives of a remarkable woman and indefatigable patron of the arts” (flap).
-Sarah Clinton
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