THE UNCERTAINTY OF EXPERIENCE—AN ARTIST'S JOURNEY
March 2010
Stan Brodsky
978-1-877675-77-5; color & B/W illust.; paper; $24.00
Brodsky showed an unusual skill as a child in making penciled copies of illustrations in newspapers and of existing artist's drawings. His family acknowledged this skill , but didn't recognize it as an innate talent for making art. As a young soldier in WW II, he saw a barracks mate making drawings of his surroundings and realized he too could do that. He then started each letter home to family and friends with a drawing of the countryside or an interior. A chance discovery of a small watercolor box in an abandoned farmhouse in France permitted him to add color to his work and thus started his artist's journey.
At war's end he returned home to enroll in college although still not convinced that art could be a career choice, but a random art history course changed his mind and he chose art on through graduate school.
He is now a recognized major artist having journeyed through a long academic career, along with recognition with many awards and honors and exhibitions at major museums and prestigious galleries.
CLUB WITHOUT WALLS: Selections from the Journals of Philip Pavia
Edited by Natalie Edgar
ISBN 978 1 877675 64, Illust., $25.00
First fully documented story of the historic Artists Club, created in 1948, which soon became the center of culture in 1950s New York Ñ the most important place for artists of all disciplines, from around the world, to meet, and listen, and talk. The original founding group of 18 charter members grew to a Club with a membership of more than 200. Its Friday night panels, (seven on Abstract Expressionism are included in the book) featuring leading contemporary artists, writers, poets, musicians, philosophers and geniuses of all descriptions attracted a standing-room-only crowd.
THE JOURNALS OF MYRON STOUT, 2005
Edited by Tina Dickey; Introduction by Robert Storr
ISBN 1-877675-52-0 paper; 352 pp.; color & B/W illust.; $28.00
ISBN 1-877675-53-9 cloth; 352 pp.; color & B/W illust.; $35.00
The Journals are the most articulate writings recorded by an artist since
those of Delacroix. They reflect an artist's evolution and reflect aspects
of the inner worlds of all artists: investigations into philosophy,
politics, literature, the interrelationships of art forms; the history of
aesthetics; the visual expression of balance, torque and tension; the
relationship of abstract art to the natural world.
"The Journals appear here in their most complete form to date. . . the first
entries date from 1950, three years after he enrolled in the art school run
by Hans Hofmann, whose teaching so profoundly affected Stout's thinking and
practice. . . . He used his writings to define his aesthetic ideas. The last
entries are from 1966, by which time all the fundamental elements of the
artist's approach had come sharply into focus, and many of his most
important works were behind him."
Hilton Kramer in a recent review said this "is a book that every art student
should read [and that many artists would profit from reading. . . . the
surprise is not so much biographical] Stout has long been known to have lived
a solitary life [as it is intellectual] the revelation that he devoted such
close critical attention to the work of his contemporaries, keeping a
detailed written record of his responses to their accomplishments and what
he regarded as their failures. In one respect, the Journals resemble his
paintings: "they are at their best when they are most concrete."
Myron Stout (1908-1987) studied intermittently with Hans Hofmann for several
years in New York and Provincetown and was mentored and befriended by him.
He started exhibiting in the early 1950s at the height of the Abstract
Expressionist movement pursuing his own style of small scale, geometric,
purist (although deeply colored), unemotional paintings, following in the
tradition of Mondrian and Hofmann.
By 1954 his focus changed to black and white abstract iconic shapes which
established his place in American art. He had a retrospective in 1980 at the
Whitney Museum of American Art and his works have been widely exhibited in
the U.S. and Europe since.
The book is filled with color plates and black and white reproductions and
photographs of his contemporaries.
THE FIRST WIFE'S TALE: A MEMOIR BY LOUISE STRAUS-ERNST, September 2003
ISBN 1-877675-43-1, Illust., $22.00
The diary is a deeply affecting story of the life of an extraordinary woman
of the early 20th century. It is also a Holocaust memoir unique in its
immediacy as well as its candor and writing. Louise was a professional art
historian and critic, a prominent journalist known throughout Europe. Louise
Strass, born in Cologne, Germany in 1893 to a solidly middle-class Jewish
family, married artist Max Ernst in 1918. Their son Jimmy was born in 1920,
but Max and Louise separated soon after: Max had become infatuated with Gala
Eluard (later Gala Dali). After the divorce, Louise's career continued to
blossom as did her social life. Then in 1933, with the Nazis newly in power,
Louise was a marked woman. She fled to Paris and remained in exile in
France, but in 1940, when France fell to the Nazis and the roundup of Jews
began, it became clear that her comfortable life in that country was doomed
and she tried with increasing desperation to emigrate to America, where her
son had lived since 1938. The diary, written from 1941-1942, recalls her
childhood, her family's comfortable (but rigid) lifestyle, and relics of
that time which she cherished, some of them still carried with her. She also
tells the tale of her love match with Max and her friendships with Europe's
most avant-garde artists. In 1943, after 2 years of moving from Paris and
the South of France to Drancy, under increasing threat and aware that she
was watched, Louise Strauss-Ernst as finally captured. In June 1944 she was
deported on the next-to-last train to Auschwitz.
HOWARDENA PINDELL: THE HEART OF THE QUESTION
THE WRITINGS AND PAINTINGS OF HOWARDENA PINDELL
Introduction by Lowery S. Sims
ISBN 1-877675-25-3 paper, Illust., $14.00
Pindell discusses aspects of her life including her work, travel, and her identity as an African-American woman and addresses aspects of censorship, patriarchy, racism, religion, African-American influences, art criticism, and the halo effect.
A HOLOCAUST PORTFOLIO: DRAWINGS AND PAINTINGS BY JEANIE NEYER
Introduction by Frederick S. Plotkin
ISBN 1 877675-32-6 cloth, Color & b/w Illust, $22.00
"Neyer's paintings and drawings provide us with compelling images that force us to recall the most unique aspect of the Holocaust, the mass murder of more than a million and a half children, and the power that art can provide for understanding at least a small part of this incomprehensible event." — Dr. Stephen Feinstein, Director, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Univ. of Minnesota
MICHELANGELO AND ME: SIX YEARS IN MY CARRARA HAVEN
Hanna M. Eshel
ISBN 1-877675-19-9 paper, Illust., $14.00
An enchanting memoir by an Israeli-American artist chronicling her years in Carrara, Italy, where she fell in love with marble — and with a local Carrarese man. An artist's modern romance with a place, its people, and Michelangelo's marble mountains.