Galleries Books

GREAT PHOTOS AND LOTS OF HISTORICAL TIDBITS. WELL ORGANIZED WITH A WEALTH OF INFO. IT SEEMS LIKE SOME OF THE INFO ON POPULATIONS WAS OFF BUT A GREAT READ FOR THOSE OF YOU INTO COLONIAL MEXICO.

This is a great book on the "silver cities' of mexico. Reads like a novel, not a tour guide. very informative and entertaining. I've been to a few of the cities mentioned and now I feel I have to go back to see some of the things I missed!! A wonderful guide to parts of Mexico well worth exploring.

I think this is an excellent book. I was delighted to find a guidebook that focuses on such an under appreciated topic. It is well researched and well writen. It describes many of the major colonial towns in central and southern Mexico. It provides a brief history for each town, describes the significant buildings, as well as near bye attractions. The maps are accurate and easy to read. It will be one of the few guide books that I bring on my next trip to Mexico.

Ok, go and buy this book. I am saying this because it is indeed a good read on Mexico and its historic towns and not just because this author devotes 16 pages to my adopted town of Guanajuato!

Doug Bower
Author: THE PLAIN TRUTH ABOUT LIVING IN MEXICO

When I read this book I came to my cents. Yes I did. And you will too. It covers the history of low-self esteem that has plagued the penny ever since inflation made it worthless.

This book is just what I wanted. I went to my local Borders and compared the price to Amazon. Amazon is always cheaper, and I was lucky enough to get free shipping. The book does a great job but the last coin reviewed is the 1995. It states that there has not been any varieties found, however, there has. So This is a great book to help you go through your penny collection and I recommend reading up on how to prevent buying a counterfit; especially when going for the keys and semi-keys in the series. Overall, great book for your library, however, I am looking for a newer book that would cover the entire series. The series may end in 2009, but "buy the book before you buy the coin."

This book has letters between Brenner, Barber, Leach (Director) and others and the details about Brenner and how the Lincoln cent came about. And Brenner is not his real name. It also has letters from President Roosevelt and letters from Brenner to his mother.

Very interesting reading and it goes into some details of each cent minted up to 1995. Plus error cents, counterfeit and altered coins, grading, design changes, pattern and experimental coins, etc.

The book is quite large in size too. It measures 8.5" w x 11" t x almost an inch thick. And it is 364 pages long. The book was published in 2005, so it is a shame it doesn't go into cents past 1995, but overall a nice and interesting read. The only reason why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is that they didn't go into Lincoln cents past 1995 and they should have.

This is a wonderful guide to the history, production, and collecting of Lincoln cents. The date/mintmark analysis is particularly useful for consultation everytime I purchase one of these coins. I found no faults whatsoever with this book.

This was the first time I had ever ordered anything from the web and I found Amazon's service to be very good, the item arrived within 10 days, well packaged. The item itself is of the best quality and I am very pleased with the service I received. Indeed I ordered another book recently which arrived within 48 hours. Full marks!

If you have any space left on your coffee-table, this is the perfect art book for you! Rarely do you ever find a more complete presentation of Dali's works, both popular and private, in a single volume. This collection presents both the whimsy and the nightmares that are characteristic of his work, giving an accurate depiction of his range. If you thought Dali was just another haunted artist, the paintings in this book will reveal his gift for humor as well. Filled with insightful comments by Lubar, this book is a great compilation for anyone interested in Dali.

i bought this book at the amazing salvador dali museum in st.petersburgh florida which i strongly recommend in itself.this the book of some of salvador dali's works on display at the museum is a detailed look into the life of the man and the myth. with each work is a detailed explanation describing their meanings and what dali was up to during the time of their production.i am grateful for having read this book as dali is my all-time favorite artist.with this book i've learned more about him and his works' meanings,in which i'm sure all of us have taken for granted.i knew that alot of dali's work is based upon sexuality but never knew before how freudian it all really is.the book explains dali's deep fascination with sigmund freud's writings and beliefs and they come out within his work.if you've never experienced THE man before and appreciate art than this is a good source.if you have the chance visit the salvador dali museum in st.pete,fl.with any look they will be showing the brilliant short film that dali made with another brilliant mind luis bunuel called,"Un Chien Andalou."

On a recent family visit I had the great fortune to visit the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. This excellent book cataloguing the museum's collection then makes for a very nice souvenir, of course--but it easily stands outside of this immediate context as a fine art book in its own right.

The main feature of the book is definitely the 94 large, carefully reproduced color illustrations of Dali's paintings held by the museum. These range from some of his earliest works in the late 1910's to his large scale masterpiece "The Hallucinogenic Toreador" of 1969. I had never seen the earlier works before, and these show some of his first halting steps and experiments as an aspiring artist and the gradual evolution of his distinctive style. Among all 94 illustrations there is a good mix of famous classics you've seen a million times and lesser known gems that are equally intriguing. And each illustration comes with a commentary by Robert Lubar that clarifies the painting, its significance and symbolism, and its context and place within Dali's artistic development over the years with great eloquence without explaining the picture away.

Lubar's Introduction (with 9 interesting black & white illustrations) makes for a nice, brief overview of the artist's life and career, and the Biographical Chronology in the back includes several photographs of Dali through the years (including him with the founders of the museum). There are other useful tidbits too for the serious art historian and Dali specialist.

In short, even if you haven't been to the Dali Museum, this is an excellent coffee-table book of weird, whimsical, and wondrous surreal art by one of the twentieth century's greatest and most eccentric artists.

This book is so well written and enjoyable I couldn't put it down! It's a must have for anyone seeking a good bang for their buck! Young and old alike will find reading Mr. Coppen's work a refreshing treat!! I'm a serious fan of Mr. Robert Coppen and "The Diary of Justin Hunter"! Pick it up today, you'll be glad you did!!
Also recommended, "Strange Highways" by Jerry D.Coleman

This book is so well written and enjoyable I couldn't put it down! It's a must have for anyone seeking a good bang for their buck! Young and old alike will find reading Mr. Coppen's work a refreshing treat!! Says, Jerry D. Coleman author of "Strange Highways" (Cryptozoology / Paranormal buff), I'm a serious fan of Mr. Robert Coppen and "The Diary of Justin Hunter"! Pick it up today, you'll be glad you did!!

This book is extremely appealing to young adults and older. The characters are teenagers who come of age, when their plane crashes in the Amazon jungle. This is a positive read and very exciting. Sprinkled with lots of interesting nature facts, as well. I highly recommend this book.

The author informed me that this book is targeted at teenagers. I must say that is not at all the case. Anybody of any age who enjoys an extremely well-written, well-paced, very well-researched adventure is going to like this book.

It's not just a tale of survival, but an exciting thriller with a very menacing creature that is not supposed to exist-- but does!

I understand a sequel is soon to follow. I am waiting for it to hit the stands!

I've already ordered my calendar for next year. The pictures in this calendar are high quality and beautifully taken. If you love dogs this calendar is a must have. I still get other daily dog calendars but this is the most beautiful one around.

This dog calendar is on my Christmas list every year. It has beautiful pictures of all breeds of dogs, and little quirps in the corner relating to the picture for the day. It comes in a plastic stand that works great on my office desk. I look forward to turning the page daily to see the next dog. Great for dog lovers.

There are alot of great calendars out there, but this one is wonderful, every year. I am always amazed at the unique photos and array of featured dogs. Love it!

I just love it. Beautiful photographs of high quality. Fantastic colours and many different breeds. This calendar is must for any dog lover.

Edward Weston, more than any other photographer that I admire and have studied, succeeded in creating photography as art. His abstract and voluptuous landscapes of the human form, his photographic sculptures of organic matter, his special vision that captured unnoticed works of art in nature, bring extraordinary passion and life to black and white photography. His exploration of "the universality of basic form" has provided us with masterpieces of photographic art. Much of Weston's best work is featured in this large and exquisite book. Published in London in association with the Huntington Library, printed and bound in Italy, and issued on fine paper approaching photographic print quality, this book is certainly a wonderful legacy of Edward Weston and his work.

In 1937 and 1938, the Guggenheim Foundation paid Weston to take a two-year photographic trip though California and the West - he was the first photographer to be awarded a Guggenheim fellowship - the images he made during that trip - more than 500, were presented to the Huntington Library. "What it all comes to is this," Weston wrote the Guggenheim Foundation in 1939, "I want very much to have a collection in the Huntington Library and will do anything I can to make it possible." "Edward Weston: A Legacy" organizes much of this material - extensive commentary, notes, biographical information and career-long examples of Weston's photographs. It is a truly stunning compilation.

Weston's work evokes warmth, sensuality, the erotic. There is passion behind his photographs of animals, like the fleet fox, his portraits, and in his strange visions of antique statuary. His nudes, especially the extraordinary work he does with Charis Wilson, take the viewer beyond the erotic to a discovery of eternal forms.

This is a magnificent book containing a master's work - a real treasure!
JANA

If you don't have any photography book with Weston's pictures, get this one... You will get perfect selection of pictures well printed. It's almost fundamental book for everyone interested in photography.

Edward Weston gave more that 500 of his favorite works to the Huntington Library. Note books and other written material complete a major collection. This book is a major attempt to organize and say something meaningful about a prolific, private genius. I haven't read it all but I've already learned a lot and I've studied Weston for 40 years. The reproductions and their display as 8X10 contact prints is one of the most astonishing feats of printing I've ever seen, especially the nudes of Charis Wilson and the incredible sand dunes at Oceano. There are many photos that I have never seen, many I have seen and some I've held in my hand. This gives me the perspective to say that this book is worth buying just for the prints. You'll think as I have that you missed something until now, especially if all you've seen is book prints. This is as close you'll come to the real thing in print. I've sat buried in this book for half an hour, afraid to breath.

Being very fond of Mr. Weston's photography, I have seen several books of his work. This is the best to date that I have had the pleasure to review. His landscapes constitute the preponderance of this collection, and they are shown at a size large enough to enable the many fine details in them to stand out. This man had the eye for natural design that sets apart inspiration from the rest.

In addition to his wonderful landscapes, there are nudes; a number of portraits; some shells and other artifacts of nature; industrial designs; and some unusual subjects, such as that of a dead man on the ground, clothed and in apparent repose. I found the shots Weston took of Death Valley at distance to be especially compelling, and his Point Lobos photographs also superb.

If you love Weston's work, you will adore this book.

[ [ASIN: 0300093616 Emmet Gowin: Changing the Earth] ]
I had seen the show of Emmet Gowin's photographs at the Corcoran and was moved by the haunting beauty of the images. After being reintroduced to the work I decided to buy the book for myself and I am glad I did. It allows me to spend more time with Gowin's images and contemplate the many layers of realization and feeling locked into the photographs. Even if we didn't know or recognize the source the work we would still be haunted by the natural and human made melancholic patterns of line, space and color of the photographs themselves.
David Carlson

`Changing the Earth' is a collection of beautiful and compelling aerial photographs that were taken over 14 years. Where Adams has shown us the beauty of the land before man has stepped upon it, Gowin shows us what the land looks like after man has used it. Gowin is one of the best printers (photographic) in the world and quality of his work is very obvious in this book.

Like a great deal of aerial photography (Bradford Washburn's naturalistic mountain work immediately comes to mind in this connection), Emmet Gowin's meticulously detailed portfolio depicting man's ambition writ large upon the surface of our planet can often be 'read' as much as abstract art as documentary record. As art, this series of images of a wounded planet is so deceptively compelling it is easy to become lost in the sensuousness of the aesthetic moment Gowin repeatedly creates and forget that the subject matter being systematically explored is intrinsically disturbing and of concern. Indeed, the experience of finding so much beauty in landscapes of man-made desolation and ruin is unnerving. Yet it is undeniable that from a distance the patterns on the Earth made by irrigation pivots, toxic chemical ponds, missile burial trenches, mining pits, and numerous other manifestations of human 'development' without limits are endlessly unique and dramatic. Paradoxically, it is precisely this nexus of visually stimulating, geometrically intricate imagery generated in the context of wanton exploitation and destruction of the land that sustains the narrative and aesthetic power of Changing The Earth. One is absorbed in the beauty of the photography just long enough to catch sight and become painfully aware of the pervasive, intensely consequential, problem that demands attention and thought. Thus lessons for the future abound in the pages of this volume! One day our way of taking the Earth for granted by first depleting its resources for immediate gain and then dumping what is no longer wanted or useful wherever is convenient, will be seen as the opulent conceit and obscene luxury that it surely is. Until that day, studies like Changing The Earth bare witness to our collective folly, greed and irresponsibility.

This book despite it's somewhat horrific subject matter has a beauty so deep and profound it restores my faith and interest in Black and White image making. Beautifully printed it is a book that any budding black and white landscape photographer should own.

I've read the complete collection in the french translation.
Among other searches on the subject i found D.T.Suzuki who writes the real thing just quietly in a serious and serene way, no explanations no propaganda .
It helped me deffinetly entering through Zen into Awereness simply feeling one together.
The way is not fast it takes the time it takes .

Ana Ribeiro Santos

More than any other known source, this series of essays (including the other two companion volumes) have probably done the most to put Zen 'on the map' - in the Western world. In some quarters - at least, it has become fashionable to regard D.T. Suzuki as 'passe' - a bridge builder, whose work has now reached its 'sell-by' date. While I can see why some people might feel that way - if training with a Roshi, or tired of 'reading too much' - Suzuki's 'essays' continue to have relevance for people making their first dip into the world of Zen.

In one sense, you could say that Suzuki wants to say too much, and the 'purists' may fault him for it. But he was good at his job - and knew exactly how to write about such things for a Western audience, saying enough to entice them and whet their appetite, then drop them in at the deep end! His way of doing this was lively and engaging. Suzuki was a good communicator (he had an American wife, which certainly helped. Beatrice Lane Suzuki was an accomplished student of Buddhism in her own right) - and, in some respects, Suzuki was more successful than some of the roshis teaching in the West. He wasn't trying to sell you an institution, but pointing to the 'treasure house' we must all find, for ourselves.

One thing is worth noting about Suzuki's 'essays.' For the most part, the anecdotes he has presented were taken from the T'ang masters in the Dentoroku (Chuan Teng Lu). You get a pretty fair spread of teaching-examples, and they are not all from masters in the Rinzai (Lin-chi) lineage. In the T'ang, there was no such sharp division between the Zen schools and in that sense, Suzuki's account has a freshness about it.

Suzuki will not bog you down with laboured academic digressions. He was rather slap-dash about footnotes - and as such, you get the very 'marrow' of Zen teaching. Suzuki had his foibles - but, he remains the 'grand old man of Zen' who whetted our appetite. These essays have life in them yet! Digest Suzuki. You wont regret it!

Suzuki's works offer a clear insight look at the often misunderstood world of zen. Suzuki gives the reader the ability to understand zen, rather than dictating what zen is. This work would be of benefit to any one wishing to see if zen is 'right' for them

Ok I don't know what en is but I love this book! You can't talk about Zen without talking about Suzuki. The man was responsible for bringing East to West. In all my many spins I have never been able to find someone who can describe an undescribable thing like Zen better than Suzuki. In terms of quality this book is definatly three pounds of flax.

This book is on the shelf with the favorites. I was ecstatic to hear a complete survey of Uglow's work was being published and I am not disappointed. Some of the images feel dark and maybe kind of small. But there are several hundred in one book. Many of the paintings have descriptions and anecdotes revealing the process or life of the piece. If you're a fan of Uglow, like British figuration, and love painting, it's worth purchasing this.

This is a very fitting tribute and long over due. Uglow is one of the great artists of our century. He does not get the press of Freud but is as good if not better. (Personal preference.) The images as reproduced are sometimes a wee bit small. Having been spoiled with so many great art books with large reproductions, there is little excuse in our day to put out anything less. It still gets 5 stars because I will take whatever I can get. The essays are top notch. The Browse and Darby book is still available from the gallery and reproduces many of his best works at a more appropriate size, but with far fewer paintings. On top of all that, get the book "Some Memories of the Painter" by Susan Campbell which is also available from Browse and DArby. Great anecdotal info on Mr. Uglow.

This handsome volume opens with two essays. The first essay looks at the young artist and his development; his time at art school, first Camberwell and then The Slade, and considers those who influenced him, especially William Coldstream. The second essay looks more particularly at the artist's main body of work, and considers again the influences.

The fully illustrated catalogue section provides much additional information about the individual pieces, many being accompanied by detailed descriptions and interesting facts about their production, often including the artist's own comments. The reproductions vary is size considerably, there are a good number of full-page or near full-page images, but at the other end of the scale a large number are very small. In total there are well over 400 of the artist's works illustrated, according to the publishers this includes every known oil painting, about 80 of which are reproduced here for the first time. In addition to the paintings there are also a number of representative drawings, designs, and a few rather personal more suggestive pieces.

The book includes a chronology, bibliography, and exhibition history for each work.

A quick glance at the content might suggest there is very little information about the man Euan Uglow, but careful reading gradually provides some insight in an almost incidental manner. We learn about the man from his work, and not about the work from the man.

Having the full body of Uglow's oeuvre to consider it becomes immediately apparent where his interests lay; the female nude predominates, still life features strongly too. There are landscapes but nothing like the quantity of the former two, mostly produced during summers away. What comes through strongly from all forms is Uglow's strongly analytical approach, his single minded interest in his subject and his striving for perfection; yet the work is never laboured.

It is a splendid book. The essays are well written and warmly appreciative of the artist and his work. It well designed and superbly illustrated in colour almost throughout, the only complaint being that some of the images are too small.

Contrary to the book description provided by Amazon this is not the first Uglow book, although it is by far the superior due to the increase in material. Uglow is relatively unknown in the US primarily due to his success in Great Britain (virtually his entire ouevre is in the hands of private collectors). He tended to work very slowly and often revisited a painting over many years. Recently, art students interested in figurative representation have been discovering his work. They (the pictures) have a kind of directness of intention and clarity of paint application that appeals to artists looking for integrity in approach. They are refreshingly devoid of post-modern myth making, avoid the hagiography and bravura that accompany so much of contemporary art (e.g. Damien Hurst, Jeff Koons, et.al.) And yet they are unquestionably dense with seriousness and meaning. This is one of the great painters of the 20th century, and this book will undoubtably gain at least five times its current price over the next ten years. Both an aesthetic and economic investment.

It sounds crazy, but Carter really did a good job of capturing these horses' feelings. What's more, is that he photographed them so well. This is a must have for horse lovers and for people that are wanting a great coffee table addition.

You'll love this.

iKnow

Whoa! No one can begin to describe Keith Carter's style and vision. You have to experience it. It's not just what he sees, it's how he renders it, making it new and timeless too. This is a book you'll want to open often.

i admit i was skeptic when i first heard about this book, and i had no intentions of buying it. i'm not that crazy about horses. but i got a look at an advanced copy, and i saw the the work was just beautiful and i had to have it. be sure to look at orange tree and nude and arabian, which are my two favorite pictures.

I appreciate a good horse as much as the next guy. Looking at horses through Keith's eyes makes me love them. I'm not going to run out and buy tight pants and a helmet because of this book, but you get the idea. The images are well made and seen. Not all of the pictures have the tilt-shift look which has been overdone so that's good. The layout is great. A square book for a square image. Keith's little ditty about Ezekiel's Horse is a warm piece of writing. If you're a Keith Carter fan, buy the book. If you like horses, buy the book. If your interested in photography, buy the book. If your name is Mr. Ed, look for your portrait on page 29, then call your lawyer.