Thirty-five Years at Crown Point Press


Book Description

Crown Point Press in San Francisco, founded in 1962 by Kathan Brown, is a world-renowned center of contemporary printmaking. It has published work by such major figures as Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler, Sol LeWitt, and Wayne Thiebaud, while bringing to attention prints by many younger artists, including April Gornik, Anish Kapoor, Eric Fischl, and Francesco Clemente. Crown Point Press is known for presenting social and political issues in a range of printmaking media, from hard- and soft-ground etching to drypoint, aquatint, and mezzotint. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco acquired the Crown Point Press archive in 1991. This collection of nearly 800 works contains one impression of every print the Press has ever produced. Also included are over 2000 working proofs and preparatory sketches. Now, in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco has organized an exhibition of these distinctive prints. Chronicling Crown Point Press's dedication to artistic quality and commitment to innovation in printmaking technique and subject matter, this book also presents Kathan Brown's notable contributions in transforming the printmaking landscape of the twentieth century. Published in association with The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco




Magical Secrets about Thinking Creatively


Book Description

Cultural Writing. Art. Essays. MAGICAL SECRETS ABOUT THINKING CREATIVELY: THE ART OF ETCHING AND THE TRUTH OF LIFE by Kathan Brown is a new volume in the Magical Secrets series published by Crown Point Press in San Francisco. What are Magical Secrets? They are ways of setting yourself up for thinking creatively, for a sudden understanding, something like a miracle. Kathan Brown learned the Magical Secrets in this book by helping artists of extraordinary acclaim make etchings. She founded Crown Point Press, now probably the world's most influential etching publisher, in 1962. In this book, you'll meet sixteen artists who will be remembered by future generations. Kathan Brown knows them well, and with pictures and graceful, inviting prose she shares with you their ways of working, thinking, and being.




Yes, No, Maybe


Book Description

"Exhibition dates, National Gallery of Art, September 1, 2013-January 5, 2014, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, January 28 through May 17, 2015."




Magical Secrets about Aquatint


Book Description

"Magical secrets are quickly grasped. They open doors to fresh ways of seeing and understanding. Artists use aquatint, a form of etching, to create delicate washes, velvety blacks, and intricate layers of color impossible in other art media. In this book, the third in a series about etchings, Emily York discusses 46 aquatints by 32 artists, with special attention to fascinating sequential works by Richard Diebenkorn and Al Held. Emily York is a master painter at Crown Point Press, a publishing workshop where artists have been creating etchings since 1962. She ties processes directly to art, and with clear writing and abundant illustrations explains the aquatint processes of spit bite, sugar lift, soap ground, and water bite. She also details steel-facing and multiple-plate printing, and gives step-by-step instructions for making your own aquatints. Anyone who cares about art will enjoy this book, and anyone who makes etchings will find it indefensible. The included DVD demonstrates the processes, and the accompanying website provides ongoing information about printmaking."--Publisher's description.




Five Days at Memorial


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The award-winning book that inspired an Apple Original series from Apple TV+ • A landmark investigation of patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina—and the suspenseful portrayal of the quest for truth and justice—from a Pulitzer Prize–winning physician and reporter “An amazing tale, as inexorable as a Greek tragedy and as gripping as a whodunit.”—Dallas Morning News After Hurricane Katrina struck and power failed, amid rising floodwaters and heat, exhausted staff at Memorial Medical Center designated certain patients last for rescue. Months later, a doctor and two nurses were arrested and accused of injecting some of those patients with life-ending drugs. Five Days at Memorial, the culmination of six years of reporting by Pulitzer Prize winner Sheri Fink, unspools the mystery, bringing us inside a hospital fighting for its life and into the most charged questions in health care: which patients should be prioritized, and can health care professionals ever be excused for hastening death? Transforming our understanding of human nature in crisis, Five Days at Memorial exposes the hidden dilemmas of end-of-life care and reveals how ill-prepared we are for large-scale disasters—and how we can do better. ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, Entertainment Weekly, Christian Science Monitor, Kansas City Star WINNER: National Book Critics Circle Award, J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Ridenhour Book Prize, American Medical Writers Association Medical Book Award, National Association of Science Writers Science in Society Award




The Thirty Years War


Book Description

Europe in 1618 was riven between Protestants and Catholics, Bourbon and Hapsburg--as well as empires, kingdoms, and countless principalities. After angry Protestants tossed three representatives of the Holy Roman Empire out the window of the royal castle in Prague, world war spread from Bohemia with relentless abandon, drawing powers from Spain to Sweden into a nightmarish world of famine, disease, and seemingly unstoppable destruction.




Ed Ruscha and the Great American West


Book Description

The renowned artist Ed Ruscha was born in Nebraska, grew up in Oklahoma, and has lived and worked in Southern California since the late 1950s. Beginning in 1956, road trips across the American Southwest furnished a conceptual trove of themes and motifs that he mined throughout his career. The everyday landscapes of the West, especially as experienced from the automobileÑgas stations, billboards, building facades, parking lots, and long stretches of roadwayÑare the primary motifs of his often deadpan and instantly recognizable paintings and works on paper, as well as his influential artist books such as Twentysix Gasoline Stations and All the Buildings on the Sunset Strip. His iconic word imagesÑdeclaring Adios, Rodeo, Wheels over Indian Trails, and Honey . . . I Twisted through More Damn Traffic to Get HereÑfurther underscore a contemporary Western sensibility. RuschaÕs interest in what the real West has becomeÑand HollywoodÕs version of itÑplays out across his oeuvre. The cinematic sources of his subject matter can be seen in his silhouette pictures, which often appear to be grainy stills from old Hollywood movies. They feature images of the contemporary West, such as parking lots and swimming pools, but also of its historical past: covered wagons, buffalo, teepees, and howling coyotes. Featuring essays by Karin Breuer and D.J. Waldie, plus a fascinating interview with the artist conducted by Kerry Brougher, this stunning catalogue, produced in close collaboration with the Ruscha studio, offers the first full exploration of the painterÕs lifelong fascination with the romantic concept and modern reality of the evolving American West. Published in association with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Exhibition dates: de Young, San Francisco: July 16ÐOctober 9, 2016




Locating Sol LeWitt


Book Description

A revelatory consideration of the wide-ranging practice of one of the most influential American artists of the 20th century A pioneer of minimalism and conceptual art, Sol LeWitt (1928–2007) is best known for his monumental wall drawings. LeWitt’s broad artistic practice, however, also included sculpture, printmaking, photography, artist’s books, drawings, gouaches, and folded and ripped paper works. From the familiar to the underappreciated aspects of LeWitt’s oeuvre, this book examines the ways that his art was multidisciplinary, humorous, philosophical, and even religious. Locating Sol LeWitt contains nine new essays that explore the artist’s work across media and address topics such as LeWitt’s formative friendships with colleagues at the Museum of Modern Art in the early 1960s; his photographs of Manhattan’s Lower East Side; his 1979 collaboration with Lucinda Childs and Philip Glass and its impact on his printmaking; and his commissions linked to Jewish history and the Holocaust. The essays offer insights into the role of parody, experimentation, and uncertainty in the artist’s practice, and investigate issues of site, space, and movement. Together, these studies reveal the full scope of LeWitt’s creativity and offer a multifaceted reassessment of this singular and influential artist.




Artists & Prints


Book Description

Volume covers the Collection of Prints and Illustrated Books, not the collection of artists' books.




Haunted Crown Point, Indiana


Book Description

From the jail cell that once held John Dillinger to quaint shops with dark beginnings, the restless spirits of Crown Point purportedly result from a century-old hex. Legend had it that a caravan of gypsies found themselves unfairly exiled from town. Forced to leave their beloved dead behind in unmarked graves, they invoked a venomous curse on the townspeople and vowed that no ancestor would be allowed eternal peace. Paranormal researcher Judith Tometczak exposes evidence of this deceptively quiet town's dark side.




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