Singer Sargent, David Hockney, Cezanne & Tom Thomson

John Singer Sargent and Italy

This extravagantly illustrated catalogue - published in association with a major transatlantic exhibition - evokes the romantic fascination with Italy that shines in the work of John Singer Sargent. Sargent, heralded on both sides of the Atlantic, was one of the most creative American artists of the late nineteenth century. Born in Florence to American parents living abroad, he retained a deep and lifelong connection to the country famed for its ability to get "ineradicably in one's blood." Sargent vacationed frequently in Italy, and most of the works he created there were painted not for commission but out of his artistic passion for Italy's people, land, and culture. Often hauntingly powerful, they range from dramatically painted genre scenes of Italian peasants and saturated landscapes that celebrate the beauty of the Italian countryside to portraits of other Anglo-American expatriates and tourists, including Henry James and Vernon Lee.
The majority of works are of Italian sites, including well-known tourist spots but also the quieter, more isolated locales that Sargent sought out. His subjects include magnificent Italian gardens with their classical statuary, Rome's Renaissance and Baroque buildings, urban street scenes, the Italian Alps, and, of course, Venetian canals. Sargent found Venice particularly alluring, and the city well suited the water-color medium in which he worked most often in Italy. His use of vivid colors, brushwork that varied from soft and fluid to bold and dashing, and an overwhelming sense of light and air characterize his Italian scenes - and rank Sargent as one of the finest watercolorists of all time. His later Italian works, some in watercolor and others in oil, reveal an artist who relished his materials and made art purely for art's sake. Both beautiful and informative, this lavish volume includes eighty-five color and fifty black-and-white images. It adds a new dimension to our appreciation of Sargent's art and will delight anyone who loves Italy, as Sargent so passionately did.
Sargent and Italy by Bruce Robertson, Ilene Susan Fort and Jane Dini
ISBN: 0691113289

David Hockney by Peter Clothier

For a contemporary artist of serious aesthetic purpose, David Hockney enjoys immense public visibility. His personality, ideas about art, and inventiveness both of imagery and of techniques ranging from oil painting to photography to faxes are captured by Peter Clothier in this concise but comprehensive overview.
From his theatrical early canvases to his more recent photographic collages and operatic set designs, David Hockney has tackled the challenge of space on a grand scale. At the same time, much of his work has been devoted to the things most dear to him - friends, family, home, and studio. Invention, the driving force behind Hockney's art, is in good part play.
This color-rich volume conveys David Hockney's serious delight in making art that gives pleasure to both its creator and its audience.
David Hockney by Peter Clothier
Abbeville Press, 1995

Paul Cezanne: by Taschen

There is no longer any question that Paul Cézanne was one of the great artists of our age. Since his death his fame has grown apace. The torn and controversial recluse from Aix-en-Provence has found his place in the history of art.
When we now look at his work we may well sense little or nothing of the struggles and suffering that produced it; few artist have created an oeuvre so filled with peace and harmony. Paul Cézanne painted still-life's, landscapes, portraits, and a few large figural compositions, motifs which seem entirely usual components of the classical repertoire Paul Cézanne was so attached to. The critics have been busy on Paul Cézanne; countless studies have dwelt on particular aspects of his art; the art historians have diligently classified and pigeonholed.
Yet we know little about the man himself. And an overall approach to the man and his times, his art and his traditions, all taken together, is conspicuous by its absence. The work of his early years has always been an obstacle, those dark and daunting pictures full of violence and unbridled longing. People have preferred Paul Cézanne the great landscape artist, Cézanne the sensitive portrait painter, Paul Cézanne the genius with color. Of course that is Paul Cézanne too; but the early works are equally a part of his life and the great art it produced.
Cezanne: by Taschen
Taschen America, 2003

Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven

At a critical time in Canada's history, the Group of Seven revolutionized the nation's appreciation of art by celebrating the country as a wild and eminently beautiful land. Their paintings of the wilderness are unmistakable and evoke the same response in viewers today as they did when first exhibited 80 years ago.
The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson, which includes many never-before-reproduced paintings, presents the most complete and extensive collection of their works ever published. Containing 400 paintings and drawings, it reveals the talent and genius of all eleven painters who, at one time or another, were part of the movement: Frank Carmichael, Frank Johnston, A.J. Casson, Arthur Lismer, LeMoine FitzGerald, J.E.H. MacDonald, Lawren Harris, Tom Thomson, Edwin Holgate, F.H. Varley and A.Y. Jackson.
The artwork is organized by the various regions of Canada and also includes sections on the war years and still life which demonstrate the versatility of the artists. Introductory essays explain the works and provide a context for greater understanding and appreciation.
The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson by by David P. Silcox
ISBN: 155297605X

Francisco Goya y Lucientes, 1746-1828 by Janis A. Tomlinson

Francisco Goya (1746-1828) has been called the last of the Old Masters and the first of the Moderns. For most of his career he was court painter to the Spanish kings, yet he also produced some of the most compelling images of social unrest ever painted. Among his works are formal royal portraits and the so-called 'black paintings', intensely private images of loneliness and despair. In this beautifully illustrated and up-to-date account of all aspects of Goya's career, Janis Tomlinson attempts to explain such contradictions and to place the artist and his work in the social and political context of Spain and Europe during the period of the French Revolution and its reactionary aftermath.
Francisco Goya y Lucientes, 1746-1828 by Janis A. Tomlinson
Phaidon Press, 1999

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Old Masters
Francisco Goya: Black Paintings
Francisco Goya: Old Man