Art History Textbooks ReviewsArt History Textbooks Reviews

Smithsonian teaser
How do you highlight 200 years of Latino art in the United States and Puerto Rico in a book from a world renowned collection? Well you don't do it in a 108 page book from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Having visited the said museum it is a pity that this small book is an offering they produced to represent the vast collection. The book uses the term "highlights" but it is just not enough. It is like a variety of crackers offered in a fine restaurant; it'll hold you over but not satisfy your hunger. The collected pictures are beautifully presented accompanied by very short analysis of the piece and usually a paragraph about the artist. If you like looking at a few nice pieces than this book will do.This book is like fast food for the art aficionado. Since the represented art is in various media it results in a disjointed but varied whole. Most of the featured artists in the book are contemporary but there is the occasional misplaced unknown colonial artist or noted 19th century santero Felipe de la Espada that just doesn't fit or do justice to the subject. There is a lack of continuity and thematic cohesion with the book. When the book is thread together it is when the art of New Mexico artists are featured , most notably the works of santeros and wood carvers, George Lopez, Gloria Lopez Cordova, Luis Tapia, Horacio Valdez, Jose Benito Ortega, Ramon lopez, George Lopez, Felix Lopez(yes, it a long family line of Lopez santeros) and Patrocino Barela. Again the problem here is that they are placed between other media like oils, acrylics, fiberglass, woven cotten rug, colored pencil, granite and silver prints for a resulting weird representaion. The book has no chapters and unfortunately it could have used them. This book just scratches the surface and falls short. This book is for someone just beginning on their quest for knowledge about Latino art. Possbly from this point you can depart to finding out more about some of these artists but this book is only a starting point. If you are looking for a Latino art appetizer than this book is for you, otherwise look elsewhere to satisfy your appetite.

Contemporary Latinos Productions
This is a great source book of contemporary art productions which includes contemporary Latino artists. The selection of art represented is varied and the text gives readers sufficient background for understanding the works. Very colorful and clear photographs of the works are each full-page sized with a full page of text next to each to help capture the image and short biographies and artistic interpretations of the artists at the turn of each page.

A Sargent Treasury
First... some disclosure. I am a "card-carrying" admirer of John Singer Sargent and of all of his work. I have more than fifty books on Sargent. And I am an obsessive amateur watercolorist; half of our home is filled with paintings, paintings in progress and painting supplies. But, a little rational mitigation... I am not monomaniacal. I also deeply appreciate the work of other greats such as John Whorf and Winslow Homer. And today's Trevor Chamberlain, John Yardley, David Curtis, etc. So, if you like this kind of work, then you'll love this book.

Love it even without any fancy academic theory, art history or the like. Like me, you can just look at a reproduction of an alpine brook in watercolor by Sargent and simply say, "Wow!" And pass your eyes over every millimeter. "Look how he suggests those rocks and ferns!" But then I also greatly enjoy reading the textual background. Where it was done. In what context. Sargent's visits and vacations. The work's provenance. This last can be facinating as in the case of Sargent's recently surfaced, fabulous and obviously originally "mis-acquired" by a maid, "Spanish Dancer". Why, if my own work was any good and further if I did employ a maid then I'd be very careful to... :)
Well, obviously I can speak only as a naive Sargent enthusiast, but I can't recommend this book more. I read it over and over. I'd have paid twice the price.

Approximately 11 & 1/2 by 9 inches and 426 pages. Published by the Metropolitan in 2000. An excellent physical production in the usual quality manner of Yale University Press, lately the source of excellent series on artists. (Here, Sargent but also the likes of William Merritt Chase. Yale was a physical partner in this particular Sargent enterprise.) This book is organized roughly chronologically, from Sargent's youth onwards. However, there's much more; an Essay on Materials and Techniques, a Sargent Chronology, an Exhibition History, a Record of Travel and Other Studies, and an appendix, Works of Questionable Attribution.

Finally, for some, the category "drawing" can be confusing, as is evident here it also includes watercolors. Go figure. But, I don't mind the nomenclature as long as the academics provide me with pretty decent reproductions and an interesting history.