July is here and with that hopefully comes relaxation, and days spent lounging on the beach or by the pool! Hamptons Art Hub is here to add some great art books to your summer reading list. So get out that beach umbrella, lather on some sunblock and crack open one of these great reads.
Included in this month’s list of new book releases relating to art are: “The Trip: Andy Warhol’s Plastic Fantastic Cross-Country Adventure,” “Van Gogh and Nature,” “Sleeping Beauties: From Bonnard to Balthus,” “Night Vision: Nocturnes in American Art, 1860-1960,” “Landscape in My Mind: Landscape Photography Today: Hamish Fulton to Andreas Gursky,” “Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter's Eye,” and “Giuseppe Penone.”
“The Trip: Andy Warhol’s Plastic Fantastic Cross-Country Adventure”
“The Trip” is about a little-known road trip Andy Warhol (1928–1987) took from New York to LA in 1963, and how that journey—and the numerous artists and celebrities he encountered—profoundly influenced his life and art. In 1963, up-and-coming artist Andy Warhol took a road trip across America. What began as a madcap, drug-fueled romp became a journey that took Warhol on a kaleidoscopic adventure from New York City, across the vast American heartland, all the way to Hollywood and back.
“The Trip: Andy Warhol’s Plastic Fantastic Cross-Country Adventure” by Deborah Davis. Published by Atria Books.
“The Trip” captures Warhol’s interactions with Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Marcel Duchamp, Elizabeth Taylor, Elvis Presley, and Frank Sinatra. Along the way he also met rednecks, beach bums, underground filmmakers, artists, poets, socialites, and newly minted hippies, and they each left an indelible mark on his psyche. Through in-depth research, author Deborah Davis sheds new light on one of the most enduring figures in the art world and captures an iconic moment in 1960’s America, with Warhol at its center.
BASIC FACTS: “The Trip: Andy Warhol’s Plastic Fantastic Cross-Country Adventure” is written by Deborah Davis. Published by Atria Books. Release Date: July 28, 2015. Hardcover; 336 pages; $26.00.
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“Van Gogh and Nature”
The celebrated painter Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) had a lifelong fascination with the natural world. He spent his youth in rural Holland, and the country’s flat landscapes, trees, flowers, and birds would feature in his early art. After he moved to Paris, he encountered a new radical way of thinking about art and humanity’s changing relationship with nature. Later, in Provence and Auvers, he discovered unfamiliar terrain, flora, and fauna that further influenced his artistic ideas and subject matter.
“Van Gogh and Nature” by Richard Kendall, Sjraar van Heugten and Chris Stolwijk. Published by Clark Art Institute.
“Van Gogh and Nature” is an eye-opening new catalogue that chronicles the artist’s ongoing relationship with nature throughout his entire career. Among the featured works are Van Gogh’s drawings and paintings, along with related materials that illuminate his reading, sources, and influences. Vivid color photography and explanatory texts based on new research by the authors clarify a central theme of Van Gogh’s oeuvre.
BASIC FACTS: “Van Gogh and Nature” is written by Richard Kendall, Sjraar van Heugten and Chris Stolwijk. Published by Clark Art Institute. Release Date: June 30, 2015. Hardcover; 236 pages; $50.00.
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“Sleeping Beauties: From Bonnard to Balthus”
The sleeping model, an allegory for abandonment, has been an artist preoccupation since the Renaissance. From the poetic and secret aspect of dreams to the purely erotic dimension, artists have succeeded in expressing their innermost thoughts through this subject, which has become an archetypal theme in both painting and sculpture alike.
“Sleeping Beauties: From Bonnard to Bathus” by Jean Clair, Giles Genty, and Isabelle Monod-Fontaine. Published by Silvana Editoriale.
It has inspired prolific artists such as Bonnard, Vallotton, Vuillard, Matisse, Picasso, Brancusi, Renoir, Van Dongen and so many others. Through a selection of around fifty often major works, the catalogue shows the derivation of this subject from the end of the nineteenth century with the Symbolists and the Nabis, up until the 1950s.
BASIC FACTS: “Sleeping Beauties: From Bonnard to Bathus” is written by Jean Clair, Giles Genty, and Isabelle Monod-Fontaine. Published by Silvana Editoriale. Text in English and French. Release Date: July 28, 2015. Paperback; 160 pages, $40.00.
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“Night Vision: Nocturnes in American Art, 1860-1960”
Spanning a century from the introduction of electric light to the dawn of the Space Age, this first major survey of American night scenes by artists such as Winslow Homer, Georgia O'Keeffe, Andrew Wyeth, and Joseph Cornell proposes the central importance of nocturnal images in the development of modern art. This illustrated book investigates how leading American artists of diverse aesthetic convictions responded in a range of media—including paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs—to the unique challenges of picturing the night.
“Night Vision: Nocturnes in American Art, 1860-1960” by Joachim Homann. Published by Prestel.
Retooling their palette and reconsidering their techniques, artists cherished the night as a time of heightened alertness and active imagination. Mysterious and provocative, the darkness was experienced as liberating, both on an aesthetic and personal level—allowing artists to become invisible, turn inward, and express personal truths in unique and poetic ways. “Night Vision” expands the conversation on American art and the rise of modernism, as it demonstrates how the theme of the night inspired artists who sought to leave behind established styles and traditions.
BASIC FACTS: “Night Vision: Nocturnes in American Art, 1860-1960” is written by Joachim Homann. Published by Prestel. Release Date: June 17, 2015. Hardcover, 176 pages, $60.00.
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“Landscape in My Mind: Landscape Photography Today: Hamish Fulton to Andreas Gursky”
The exhibition catalogue “Landscape in My Mind” is a pictorial journey through the landscapes of international contemporary photography. From British photographer Hamish Fulton to German architectural and landscape photographer Andreas Gursky, Swiss large-format specialist Balthasar Burkhard, and more. Examined in the book are the theory and practice of this art form.
“Landscape in My Mind: Landscape Photography Today: Hamish Fulton to Andreas Gursky” by Ingried Brugger and Florian Steininger. Published by Moderne Kunst Nürnberg.
Always a network of connections between man and nature, landscape presents itself as a mental projection level of the perception of our surroundings, both close and distant. Landscape photography is a painterly construction of reality.Photographs included in the catalogue are 'pictures painted with the camera' in large format, which exude the self-confidence of New Photography.
BASIC FACTS: “Landscape in My Mind: Landscape Photography Today: Hamish Fulton to Andreas Gursky” is written by Ingried Brugger and Florian Steininger. Published by Moderne Kunst Nürnberg; Bilingual Edition. Release Date: June 23, 2015. Hardcover; 160 pages, $48.00.
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“Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter's Eye”
Though largely out of the public eye for more than a century, Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894) has come to be recognized as one of the most dynamic artists of the Impressionist movement in Paris. His paintings are favorites of many museumgoers, and recent restoration of his work has revealed more color, texture, and detail than was visible before. This companion volume to the National Gallery of Art’s major new exhibition, co-organized with the Kimbell Art Museum, explores the power of his oeuvre.
“Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter’s Eye” by Mary Morton and George Shackelford. Published by University of Chicago Press.
The book features fifty of Caillebotte’s paintings, including post-conservation images of “Paris Street; Rainy Day,” along with “The Floorscrapers” and “Pont de l’Europe.” The artist was criticized at the time for being too realistic and not impressionistic enough, but he was a pioneer in adopting the angled perspective of a modern camera to compose his scenes. Caillebotte’s skill and originality are on display in the book’s reproductions, and the essays offer critical insights into his inspiration and subjects.
BASIC FACTS: “Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter’s Eye” is written by Mary Morton and George Shackelford. Published by University of Chicago Press. Release Date: June 22, 2015. Hardcover; 271 pages, $60.00.
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“Giuseppe Penone”
This volume presents a broad range of works by Arte Povera sculptor and installation artist Giuseppe Penone, including his most recent pieces that continue his explorations of the relationship between nature and humanity. The volume accompanies his retrospective at the Musée de Grenoble.
“Giuseppe Penone” by Guy Tosatto and Giuseppe Penone. Published by Actes Sud/Grenoble Museum.
Giuseppe Penone was born in 1947 in Italy and grew up on a farm between the Ligurian Alps and the Po Valley. His first solo exhibition was held in 1968 in Turin; recent shows have been mounted at The Drawing Center in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and Marian Goodman Gallery. Hamptons Art Hub reviewed the Marian Goodman Gallery exhibition.
BASIC FACTS: “Giuseppe Penone” is written by Guy Tosatto and Giuseppe Penone. Published by Actes Sud/Grenoble Museum. Release Date: July 28, 2015. Hardcover; 192 pages; $25.00.
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