Sophie Calle, Impressionism, Calder, Hockney & Matisse

Sophie Calle Appointment

Sophie Calle: "I was invited to create an exhibition entitled Appointment in the house at 20 Maresfield Gardens, London, where Dr. Freud lived, and died. After having a vision of my wedding dress laid across Freud's couch, I immediately accepted. I chose to display relics of my own life amongst the interior of Sigmund's home."
Appointment A unique assembly of Calle's own texts and personal objects juxtaposed with objects from Sigmund Freud's personal collection, still kept in the house where he lived, Appointment features fragments from the artist's own fascinating life story, characteristic texts that reveal intimate secrets and unravel some of Calle's childhood memories as well as her adult relationships.
The artist's references to certain mementos and the emotionally charged events with which they are associated parallel Freud's own psychoanalytic theories and his passion for collecting. Afterword by James Putnam.
Appointment by Sophie Calle
ISBN: 1900828227

Pennsylvania Impressionism

American impressionism was a movement that was largely rooted in the American soil. Artists often spurned the cities, living and working in the numerous art colonies that sprang up in rural areas throughout the country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One of the best known of these colonies was born in 1898 on the banks of the Delaware River north of Philadelphia, centered in the picturesque village of New Hope, Bucks County. Known as the Pennsylvania impressionists, this group of artists played a dominant role in the American art world of the teens and twenties. Their work was celebrated for its freedom from European influence, and was praised by the noted painter and critic Guy Pene du Bois as "our first truly national expression.
Pennsylvania impressionist paintings are now widely collected, and numerous works in private hands are shown here, as are selections from the holdings of the James A. Michener Art Museum, which has the most extensive public collection. The book is lavishly illustrated with 369 color reproductions, and includes biographies of eighty-four artists, many never before published. The history of the Bucks County art colony is explored by Brian H. Peterson, who also suggests new ways of understanding the art and artists who made their home in the area. Sylvia Yount eloquently weaves together the historic foundations of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and its impact on the Pennsylvania impressionists. Noted art historian William H. Gerdts provides a comprehensive study of the art colony movement and its roots, and includes a comprehensive bibliography on that bygone era.
Pennsylvania Impressionism by Brian H. Peterson
ISBN: 0812237005

The Essential Alexander Calder

The American sculptor Alexander Calder (1898-1976) was one of the most inventive and beloved artists of his time. He was best known for his mobiles - hanging, dangling, perfectly balanced innovative sculptures that twist and orbit in the breeze - and for his stabiles, stationary sculptures, often enormous, that grace and enliven public spaces around the world.
The Essential Alexander Calder by Howard Greenfeld
ISBN: 0810958341

David Hockney in Egypt

David Hockney: Egyptian Journeys accompanies the first exhibition ever to bring together a substantial selection of the drawings made by the leading British artist during visits to Egypt in 1963 and 1978, along with other drawings and prints relating to his interest in Egyptian themes. Already a celebrated painter at the age of 26, David Hockney was commissioned by a leading London newspaper, The Sunday Times, to travel to Egypt in order to create a kind of visual diary of his experience there.
Hockney saw Cairo and its environs, Alexandria and finally Luxor. He responded to his first experience of the country and its monuments with some of the liveliest and most inventive drawings he had yet made directly from life. His contact with one of the world's major civilizations left a permanent mark on his subsequent work, encouraging him towards a greater naturalism through direct observation. Just over two years later, in preparation for a set of etchings illustrating the poetry of C. P. Cavafy, David Hockney revisited the Middle East, this time travelling to Beirut in search of inspiration for imagery suggestive of early 20th-century Alexandria. In April 1978, after nearly a year's concentrated work on the designs for a production of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, David Hockney made his second visit to Egypt, this time in the company of two American friends. On this occasion, he traveled to Cairo, Aswan and Luxor, producing sumptuous large-scale views in colored crayon.
Hockney's Egyptian drawings have been long admired and are recognized as among the masterpieces of one of the greatest draughtsmen active today. This publication, the first to concentrate on this group of works, illustrates and documents an extraordinary journey of the imagination.
David Hockney: Egyptian Journeys by Marco Livingstone
American University in Cairo Press, 2002

Henri Matisse was drawing with scissors

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was born in Picardy, France and studied art in Paris. He was the principal artist of the Fauve group and one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. His work is characterized by brilliant colors, stylized shapes, flowered backgrounds and flat patterns with arabesques.
Henri Matisse: Drawing With Scissors: Masterpieces from the Late Years by Max Hollein
Prestel USA, 2003, ISBN: 3791327992