Several years ago I noticed one of those ubiquitous quizzes on Facebook, this one asking people how many female visual artists they could name. A number of comments were left by quiz-takers, and their responses were, sadly, predictable. Most people …
Tag: artists
seeing, saying, showing…six beautiful bios of artists
Last month I posted a number of enticing books covering art history and appreciation for children. Those were broad titles, whetting our appetites for art and introducing the expanse of art- making around the world and through time. Today I’ve got a …
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tantalizing, electrifying, art history and appreciation
If Art History and Art Appreciation sound like dense, musty subjects full of incomprehensible notions and frame after frame of flowers in vases… …well, prepare to be astonished and inspired! There are some stylish, captivating, imaginative, exciting, vastly-informative titles out there …
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fiction favorites…Charlotte in London
Charlotte in London, by Joan MacPhail Knight, illustrations by Melissa Sweet Charlotte Glidden is a (fictional) American girl, living in France in 1895. Her father moved the family there in order to study plein air painting under the great master, …
nonfiction nuggets…the colorful art of Horace Pippin
A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin, by Jen Bryant, illustrated by Melissa Sweet Horace Pippin, of Pennsylvania, completed his first oil painting in 1930 when he was more than 40 years old. By that time, …
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nonfiction nuggets…water, sunlight, and Monsieur Monet
Monet Paints a Day, by Julie Danneberg, illustrated by Caitlin Heimerl It’s a sunlit morning in Étretat, France, and Claude Monet is on his way to the beach. He has packed paints and palette, brushes and canvases, easel and stool, and …
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a list of…five inventive artists who inspire and delight us
Chuck Close: Face Book, based on an interview by Chuck Close, created by Joan Sommers and Amanda Freymann, with Ascha Drake Chuck Close is an incredibly influential contemporary artist who works on just one subject: the human face. Whether he’s …
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nonfiction nuggets…art on a grand scale
Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Through the Gates and Beyond, by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan If you lived in New York City in 2005, you could have gone to see the largest work of art ever created. Wending their way through …
nonfiction nuggets…looking at paintings through story
The Story of the World’s Greatest Paintings, by Charlie Ayres This is a big, gorgeous, well-conceived book which wonderfully introduces us to twenty masterpieces, dating from the 15th to 19th century, by telling us the stories behind their creation. Artists …
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non-fiction nuggets…art + books = awesomeness
Artful Reading, by Bob Raczka Here is a very simple recipe for a great little book: Take about two dozen great paintings. Choose paintings which all have one thing in common — someone reading. Add a very few words that …