Galleries Books

"Eight Bells is the story of Gallery's life in the Navy. The things that happened were enough for three careers. With his brash and breezy writing style, his rapid-fire quips and his irreverent comments, he has produced a book which will not disappoint those who have come to expect high-spirited rollicking, entertainment from him." -- Navy News

"As exciting as fiction... his book is witty, improbable and outrageous." -- St. Louis Globe Democrat

On almost every page the author induces a smile, a grin and sometimes a downright belly laugh... The reader will find this really down to earth story a real treat." -- Virginia Pilot

"DAN GALLERY IS AN ADMIRABLE ADMIRAL.." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Eight Bells is the story of Gallery's life in the Navy. The things that happened were enough for three careers. With his brash and breezy writing style, his rapid-fire quips and his irreverent comments, he has produced a book which will not disappoint those who have come to expect high-spirited rollicking, entertainment from him." -- Navy News

"As exciting as fiction... his book is witty, improbable and outrageous." -- St. Louis Globe Democrat

On almost every page the author induces a smile, a grin and sometimes a downright belly laugh... The reader will find this really down to earth story a real treat." -- Virginia Pilot

"DAN GALLERY IS AN ADMIRABLE ADMIRAL.." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer

Eight Bells (Original title: Eight Bells and All's Well)

"Eight Bells is the story of Gallery's life in the Navy. The things that happened were enough for three careers. With his brash and breezy writing style, his rapid-fire quips and his irreverent comments, he has produced a book which will not disappoint those who have come to expect high-spirited rollicking, entertainment from him." -- Navy News

"As exciting as fiction... his book is witty, improbable and outrageous." -- St. Louis Globe Democrat

On almost every page the author induces a smile, a grin and sometimes a downright belly laugh... The reader will find this really down to earth story a real treat." -- Virginia Pilot

"DAN GALLERY IS AN ADMIRABLE ADMIRAL.." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer

This book is a marvel. The full color pictures of the View of
Toledo, The Crucifixion, The Martyr of Saint Maurice and the
Baptism of Christ are worth the price paid. The text describes
how the Latin West, Eastern Orthodox-Greek and Islam coexisted
in the 16th century. This book would be perfect for historians,
artists, cultural enthusiasts and a wide constituency of
scholars in almost every area of formal academe.

It is about time that a book come out on the brillian artist that is Domenikos Theonopolis! Ever since I visited Spain in 1994 I have been an avid fan of El Greco but sadly have been unable to find any books on him until now. This is a wonderful book celebrating the prolific works of this genius. It is a beautiful collection full of amazingly colored images and information about El Greco. Whether an avid fan or just wanting to learn more about this artist, this book is an excellent resource.

"As certain as the payment I receive is inferior respect the value of my sublime work, is also that my name will take across to posterity as the one of the greatest genius of the painting."

El Greco is one of the most controversial, admired and weird figures in the story of the plastic arts. From Crete, he takes across to the Renaissance Italy; he will meet Ticiano; and eventually with Tintoretto, being in contact with Miguel Angel.
This brief but fruitful influence will constitute for him the basic training to get start his primary genius.

His particular style, consisting in the use of stylized figures to remark the spiritual tension, the use of cold colors (blue, green, metallic gray and a very clear yellow) the use of the human masses, volumes and colors to underline dramatic aspects.

To my mind, El Greco' s portentous dimension must be seen over and over again, to understand even more similar approaches in the Gothic art and with minor exuberance in the Byzantine art. The employment of lengthened figures was even more important than the same reality, because it was equivalent to a plastic language, able to express spiritual values with genuine grandness.

The text is relevant because it explores with minuteness fundamental, determining and clever aspects of this genius.

Go for it without dilation.

I first acquired this book about 30 years ago and lost it somewhere along the way. What a joy to have it back! The color photographs are beautiful and most show the intricacy of quilting designs and stitches. Some of the colors in the photographs are so vivid that the stitching is hard to see.

This is an excellent book for anyone who wants to know the history and development of Amish quilts. The 25 page introduction gives us historic background on the Amish community and explains how the Amish faith is incorporated into all facets of daily life. A subsection of text, "Geographical and Chronological Evolutions of the Amish Quilts," describes why specific communities use, or don't use, certain colors and quilt designs.

The remaining 70 pages are devoted to color photographs, usually with a minimum of two and up to five quilts over a two page spread. In writing the captions, the authors occasionally refer back to information from the introductory text to remind the reader of what is being seen - why the embroidery, why the use of different tones of color, how the quilting pattern was designed, etc. The captions also describe the fabric used and name of quilt design style, as well as an approximate date the quilt was made. This is a beautiful book.

This book provides the reader with what I feel is an indepth look at the designs used by the Amish. The spritual origins of not only the quilting but the piecing is fasinating. For any one interested in the history of Amish quilting and the influence their relgion has played in developing their quilts this is a must have book.

The fascination with American quilts continues. Of special interest to many collectors today are the boldly colored, handsomeely quilted bedcovers made by the Amish women in Pennsylvania - particularyly Lancaster County - and in the Amish communities of Ohio and Indiana.

These old Amish quilts have a dual appeal - their visual impact and their superior craftsmanship. Some students of modern art are drawn to them because their abstract geometric designs are strikingly parallel to the paintings of several contemporary artists. Other collectors treasure these quilts for their intricate, refined handiwork and their minute stitches. What is amazing, and worth exploring in this handsome book, is how the Amish women, with a limited range of materials and with limited exposure to the tastes and patterns of the "outside" world, have created enduring works of art that are visually exciting and sophisticated.

A Gallery of Amish Quilts presents for the study and enjoyment of all 150 Amish quilts in color, together with splendid balack and white photographs of the Amish people and countryside. Also, a comprehensive introduction gives the cultural and aesthetic background for the fuller enjoyment of these beautiful quilts.

This is a wonderful book! It accompanies an exhibit of hundreds of Catlin's paintings held in Washington DC in 2002, and scheduled to travel to several other cities. The reproductions are superb (the best I've ever seen) - the colors are true, and the sizes are often full-page and sometimes double-page. A brief commentary accompanies each painting, and there are also lengthy essays describing Catlin's life, his time in Europe, and his connection with the Smithsonian.
I bought Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, etc at the same time that I bought this book, and I read the two of them together. The paintings are immeasurably enhanced by Catlin's comments and stories (he is a great story-teller). He explains what's happening in the crowd scenes (and it is sometimes hair-raising!), and he gives interesting background on the people shown in the portraits. Looked at in this way, the paintings really come alive. Very highly recommended.

This book has a nice variety of the collection of George Catlin paintings, along with a few of the artifacts from his collection. Most of these are reproduced in color in this book. The text is also well written and tells the story of Catlin, his paintings, and the view point of the era.

This is a gorgeous book, filled with magnificent reproductions of Catlin's seminal portraits and augmented by a trenchant and insightful commentary.

This catalogue to the current Dou exhibition in Washington (NGA - 4/16-10/6,2000) is as splendid and intimate as the show itself - 35 small, exquisitely crafted paintings by the Leiden master who was Rembrandt's pupil while that master was himself still a teenager. Wheelock reviews the critical history around Dou's work - the minutely detailed paintings, with their startlingly accurate and refined light effects were highly valued and admired until Thore-Burger and the early modern critics heralded the taste for broad, expressive brushwork. They labelled his work as superficial and heartless, but more recent work has rediscovered sophisiticated and thoughtful themes in such works as the Quack (included) and the Braamcamp triptych (two closely related works are included). Baer's essay outlines the career, working method and subject matter of Dou, exploring some aspects of his extraordinary "reality effect" as well, while Boersema explores his extraordinary, painstaking technique, reviewing such technical evidence as paint samples and reflectograms from the Lady at her Toilet and the Young Mother, both part of the show. There's not a lot of new work on Dou, so this catalogue is especially welcome to those of us who love Dutch Art of the Golden Age. This NGA cabinet gallery show moves to the London National Gallery for Sept and Nov, and the Hague's Mauritshuis from Dec to next Feb. This catalogue's gorgeous reproductions and substantial bibliography make it a solid, up-to-date reference on Dou too.

Although Rembrandt and Vermeer are the two most discussed and honored of the Dutch Masters, and deservedly so, Gerrit (or Gerard) Dou had a far more dramatic influence on 17th century art in the Netherlands than either of his better known countrymen. It is Rembrandt's later work, with an individuality so far ahead of its time, and Vermeer's penetrating psychological touches that make them fascinating to us in light of modern movements in art. But the paintings of Dou, by the laborious nature of their creation if not always their actual subject matter, give a much deeper insight into the culture and times in which he lived, and the growing taste for luxury from the then newly-emerged Dutch middle class. His images were themselves like jewels, with beauty almost impossible to imagine coming from a human hand, and the artistic perfection that began with Van Eyck found a worthy successor. When such virtuosity became less appreciated in the late 19th century, however, Dou then suffered the fate that Vermeer had known all along, and his name was all but forgotten. It is to the world's benefit that recent showings at the National Gallery in Washington, as well as this flawless book, are begining to change that. As with all of the other volumes that Arthur Wheelock has compiled and edited, this book provides a thoroughly detailed examination of Dou's work, with the kind of objective insight that can re-emphasize his importance to all those just learning about this amazing painter.

This exhibition catalogue contains enlightening and thoughtful essays on seventeenth-century Dutch painter, Gerrit Dou. Dou, one of Rembrandt's students, was highly esteemed during his lifetime for his exquisite technique in painting, but as Arthur Wheelock explains in one of the catalogue essays, his work began to lose favor in the middle of the nineteenth century. This catalogue is a wonderful account of Dou's rise and fall from fame, as well as a study of his masterful painting technique. In addition to the informative text, the color illustrations are beautifully rich, and they do justice to Dou's incredible paintings.

We are used to looking at "old Master" painting as if it were just a matter of style, but the truth is that Renaissance art was in important respects the product of a revolution in the use of binding media (water and egg yolk for tempera; oils) for pigments, and in the prepared surfaces (wood panels, paper, canvas) to which these pigments were applied. This wonderfully illustrated book distills the knowledge gained by the restorers of the National Gallery in London, from decades of well-documented, cutting-edge restorations of the outstanding Italian and northern European Old Master paintings in their care. It is much, much more than a technical handbook. Historical essays cover the categories of Renaissance painting, 1300 to 1500, and their many uses, while the second half of the book is an informative catalogue (with gorgeous color reproductions) of individual paintings by many of the best-known Renaissance artists (Botticelli, Jan van Eyck, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Durer, to name the most obvious).

I'm a real art geek, and I've read a lot of books on this subject. This is one of the best. It provides a wonderful review of paintings and how they were made in Western Europe before the 16th century. This was a time of great transition in style, subject matter, and materials. This was when oil painting transitioned from an ancillary medium, believed useful for a few minor aspects of a painting, to the primary means of making visual art. This book lays it all out in ways that are accessible, yet thorough. If you are going to get one book about Renaissance painting, get this one.

This is a beautiful, sumptuous book, crammed with detail and excellent colour reproductions. Other readers mightn't go for all the technical information but I can't get enough of it. I also prefer the discussions of individual works which occupy a large part of this volume -- its companion, 'Dürer to Veronese', takes a more synoptic view, which tends to obscure the fact that these are surveys of a collection.

That's my only quibble, and it isn't really with the book, which is about as accomplished at it could be -- so good, in fact, that it's tempting to read it as a textbook of the whole period. Much of the material is of general relevance, of course; but don't forget that many of the major works from this period aren't in galleries at all: they're still in the places they were meant to be.

Michael and Betty Paraskevas have created two more hilarious characters for us to fall in love with. Watch out Laurel and Hardy--here come the Green Monkeys!

Green Monkeys brings together new and previously published episodes of this comic strip into a fun-filled, laugh-a-minute adventure of Spider and Flytrap. Those lucky enough to read Green Monkeys in their local newspaper have enjoyed years of 21st Century wit and humor as only Michael and Betty Paraskevas can create. Satrical and endearing, this book can be enjoyed by children and adults (and especially old, stuffy adults) of all ages.

Being a local, east-end Long Islander, I have been familiar with the myriad works of Mickey and Betty Paraskevas for many years. The Green Monkeys' comic strip speaks to the sublime, existential person in us all without catering to a lofty audience. The humor comes from a simple, "I know exactly what you mean", appeal peppered sometimes with an enigmatic twist that makes you stop and wonder for a bit.

This exquisite volume would make a wonderful gift for any Chicagoan or nostalgic ex-Chicagoan, and its neighborhood-by-neighborhood scheme of organization makes it an excellent take-along for visitors to the city interested in Chicago's architectural heritage. Even longtime residents of the city will find photographs and histories of artworks whose existence they never suspected; the photos are beautifully executed and printed, and the intelligent commentary is based on thorough research.

If you love Chicago, and/or went to a Chicago Public School, you will love this book.

Not only is this catalog of Chicago's murals enormously useful for the casual reader/visitor, but its style is elegant and restrained, its color illustrations clear and gorgeous, its scholarship impeccable and useful, and quite simply a pleasure to study and own. We are fortunate to have such a comprehensive book.

Melvin B. Tolson was recognized as one of the first African American poets whose poetry has been classified as being in the esoteric category. The implication of this statement means that Tolson was writing poetry in a format which would be acceptable by the greatest English and American poets. One of them who recognized Tolson was W.H. Auden, who wrote favorable reviews about Tolson's poetry. Tolson, who came after the last years of the Harlem Renissance era, knew many of the prominent writers and poets of that era, which lasted from the 1920s through the 1930s. He knew many of the well known writers and poets of that period, including Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Zora Hurston, V.F. Cavington, Ralph Ellison, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Walker, W.E.B. Dubios, James Weldon Johnson and Charles S. Johnson. While he was at Wiley College, Marshall, Texas, Tolson established his reputation by publishing his first book of poems entitled, Rendezvous with America, in 1944. For years prior to that date, Tolson taught English classes to thousands of students since his arrival there from Lincoln University, Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1923. Also he was the coach of the famous Wiley College Debate Team, which included, James Farmer, who later became the founder of the CORE Civil Rights Organization.

Perhaps one of the most powerful yet ignored American voices of his time was Melvin Tolson, whose work unashamedly demanded a level of literacy and general knowledge only to be found in the classic talented fraction of any population. Born in the late 19th century he was educated and became a college professor against the odds of racial injustice, and rose above those circumstances to inspire generations after him to achieve excellence in spite of difficult odds.

Tolson's "Dark Symphony" particularly excited this writer, who saw him read excerepts from this piece when he visited his Alma Mater(and mine), Lincoln University Penna., six months before he died in 1966. His work is so classic that in time Tolson, I believe, will become "Poet Laureate of the U.S." the country he so loved.

Raymond Nelson edits Harlem Gallery And Other Poems Of Melvin B. Tolson (1865-0), which presents works from one of the most recognized black voices in American poetry. His poems are here organized by topic and include notes for further study.

What a wonderful book. It's a series of great photos of significant covered bridges, with descriptions that include building methods and styles, dates, history and best yet... driving directions! I find myself itching to go out and visit some nearby ones. An enjoyable, easy read that I know I will refer to over and over.

This book was beautifully illistrated, and informational. Each photographed bridge holds part of our past, and an oppertunity to understand a part of our history. Once inside the pages you are transported back into a time that others have forgotten. I recommand this book to all who have been in love with the Covered Bridge for a long time, and to thoes like me who have just fallen in love with this beautiful part of our history.

Brian's book is filled with some of the most breathtaking photographs you will ever see of Covered Bridges. If a bridge had a soul, he certainly knows how to capture it with his photographs. The historical and technical information is wonderful as well. It is a magnificent book!