American Radiance


Book Description

"Combining new research, never-before-published color photographs, and detailed entries on each artwork, American Radiance is indispensable for students and collectors, yet broadly appealing to the folk art market. The book celebrates the opening of the Museum's new building, where the Esmerian Collection is the widely publicized inaugural exhibition."--BOOK JACKET.




The Gift


Book Description

Starting with the premise that the work of art is a gift and not a commodity, this revolutionary book ranges across anthropology, literature, economics, and psychology to show how the 'commerce of the creative spirit' functions in the lives of artists and in culture as a whole.




The Gift


Book Description

Examines the concept of gifts in anthropological terms and uses this approach to analyze the situation of creative artists and their gifts to society.




American Art: History and Culture, Revised First Edition


Book Description

[This book is] for American art survey courses. [It] provides a thorough ... chronology of American art, including painting, sculpture, architecture, decorative arts, photography, and folk art. [The author] presents art and artists within the context of their times, including insights into the intellectual, spiritual, and political environment. [He] charts the growth of a distinctly American art culture.-Back cover.




Gifts from the Fire


Book Description

From the 1880s to the 1950s, pioneering American artists drew upon the rich traditions and recent innovations of European and Asian ceramics to develop new designs, decorations, and techniques. The extraordinary range and inventiveness of these American interpretations of international trends—from the Arts and Crafts and Art Deco movements to the modernism of Matisse and the Wiener Werkstätte to abstracted, minimalist styles—are exemplified in this book by more than 180 works from the outstanding collection of Martin Eidelberg. Splendid new photography and engaging essays by two of the foremost experts on American art pottery trace the period’s decorative developments, from sculptural and painted ornament to adornment with deeply colored glazes and textures. Featured makers include the renowned Rookwood, Grueby, and Van Briggle Potteries, as well as leading artists such as Maija Grotell, George E. Ohr, Frederick Hurten Rhead, Louis C. Tiffany, Rockwell Kent, Adelaide Alsop Robineau, and Leza McVey. A vivid and accessible overview of American ceramics and ceramists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Gifts from the Fire reveals how artists working in the United States drew upon diverse, global influences to produce works of astonishing variety and ingenuity.




Souvenirs of America


Book Description

The Token and The Atlantic Souvenir, two of the most popular and successful American gift books between 1825 and 1840, balance claims about the merit and possibility of American literature and art while exploring Americans' relationship with European behavior, settings, and history. The Token and The Atlantic Souvenir offered buyers and owners a way to support American creativity while they displayed gentility inspired by European behavior. The enormous popularity of American gift books suggests that this balance became a way for Americans to approach their own conflicting desires. While many of the writers who contributed to The Token and The Atlantic Souvenir achieved popular success beyond their gift book contributions, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Nathaniel Parker Willis are particularly notable because of their later popularity and associations with Americans' perceptions of Europe. Hawthorne's stories, many of which he revised only slightly for his later collections of stories, have received significant scholarly attention, but the stories' first appearance in gift books is often trivialized in a way that ignores the important relationship between the claims and meaning of the gift book form and the contents of the stories. For both Hawthorne and Willis, the context of their gift book contributions illuminates each individual story or poem, contributing to the understanding of their work and of the audience that received their writings.




The Art of Description


Book Description

"It sounds like a simple thing, to say what you see," Mark Doty begins. "But try to find words for the shades of a mottled sassafras leaf, or the reflectivity of a bay on an August morning, or the very beginnings of desire stirring in the gaze of someone looking right into your eyes . . ." Doty finds refuge in the sensory experience found in poems by Blake, Whitman, Bishop, and others. The Art of Description is an invaluable book by one of America's most revered writers and teachers.




Clark Little


Book Description

Instagram sensation Clark Little shares his most remarkable photographs from inside the breaking wave, with a foreword by world surfing champion Kelly Slater. “One of the world’s most amazing water photographers . . . Now we get to experience up-close these moments of bliss.”—Jack Johnson, musician and environmentalist Surfer and photographer Clark Little creates deceptively peaceful pictures of waves by placing himself under the deadly lip as it is about to hit the sand. "Clark's view" is a rare and dangerous perspective of waves from the inside out. Thanks to his uncanny ability to get the perfect shot--and live to share it--Little has garnered a devout audience, been the subject of award-winning documentaries, and become one of the world's most recognizable wave photographers. Clark Little: The Art of Waves compiles over 150 of his images, including crystalline breaking waves, the diverse marine life of Hawaii, and mind-blowing aerial photography. This collection features his most beloved pictures, as well as work that has never been published in book form, with Little's stories and insights throughout. Journalist Jamie Brisick contributes essays on how Clark gets the shot, how waves are created, swimming with sharks, and more. With a foreword by eleven-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater and an afterword by the author on his photographic practice and technique, Clark Little: The Art of Waves offers a rare view of the wave for us to enjoy from the safety of land.




The Art of the Native American Flute


Book Description

A comprehensive instruction manual for learning to play the Native American flute, including information on tunings, fingerings, performance technique, tablature, style, history, standard notation, traditional ornaments, and a section on the care and maintenance of the flute. Also features sixteen transcriptions of songs from Nakai's recordings, and an analysis of his career as a recording artist and performer by the ethnomusicologist David P. McAllester.