The Artist Book Foundation – serie

An engaging history of studio furniture, Speaking of Furniture: Conversations with 14 American Masters is a fresh, interesting, and in-depth examination of the modus operandi of 14 accomplished-and diverse-furniture makers. The colourful, informative study includes expository conversations with James Krenov, Wendell Castle, Jere Osgood, Judy Kensley McKie, David Ebner, Richard Scott Newman, Hank Gilpin, Alphonse Mattia, John Dunnigan, Wendy Maruyama, James Schriber, Timothy S. Philbrick, Michael Hurwitz, and Thomas Hucker. The insightful interviews illuminate how these creative and gifted craftspeople arrived professionally and what their craft means to them individually. In his interpretive and elucidatory Foreword, Edward S. Cooke, Jr. maps out and gives the background on the parameters of the studio furniture world. Author and furniture maker Roger Holmes offers an insider's perspective on the art and craft of producing exquisite contemporary furniture in his conversational Introduction and maintains, "Art or craft, this is very personal work."This elegant presentation skilfully sheds light on the thought processes and techniques of a celebrated and exceptional gathering of studio furniture makers who are as unique as they are stellar. As sculptor and furniture designer Wendell Castle remarks, 'What I admired was that...fine art and craft were the same thing.'

Realist sculptor Carole A. Feuerman's human-figure sculptures express a refreshing perspective on the mundane but intensely personal activities of modern life. Her powers of observation and versatility find unique expression through various materials that include marble, bronze, vinyl, and painted resins, while she incorporates both ancient and contemporary methods in the creation of her works. Swimmers: By Carole A. Feuerman is a shimmering glimpse at transitory, contemplative moments in time, often captured in a veil of clear resin that replicates tumbling water droplets. In this new collection of Feuerman's work, her printwork and treatment of the figure on paper is also explored for the first time. In his astute and insightful essay, John Yau describes Feuerman's exquisitely rendered subjects as being "caught in a moment of transition that radiates an intense eroticism." Her figures seem capable of thought, evoking an inward life that invites our speculation while revealing a mysterious provocative chasm between the figures and the viewer.Feuerman's sculpture and prints provide us with a fleeting glimpse into private and isolated environments - women stepping out of the shower, in the rain, or swimming - that suggest a meditative bliss. Feuerman museum retrospectives have included exhibitions at The State Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia; The Palazzo Strozzi Foundation in Florence, Italy; and the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, among others. Her work is featured in public, private, and corporate collections, including Grounds for Sculpture, Trenton, NJ; the El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, Texas; the Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, FL; and art-st-urban, Lucerne, Switzerland. Her large-scale Olympic Swimmer was featured in the Olympic Fine Arts exhibition at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.

A master furniture maker, designer, sculptor, and educator, Wendell Castle is in his sixth decade of a fruitful and creative career that began in 1958 and that parallels the emergence and growth of the American studio craft movement. The solo exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design that this book accompanies runs from October 20 2015 to February 28 2016.

For nearly forty years, John Van Alstine has created abstract sculptures forged from steel and stone. In John Van Alstine: Sculpture, 1971-2018, three notable essayists explore the sculptor's abstract landscapes that reveal the complex synergy between natural forces and man-made elements; by grappling with the challenges of balancing stone and steel, Van Alstine's indoor, outdoor, and site-specific sculptures are measured and calculated, yet simultaneously poetic; their swooping angular lines create expansive spaces beyond the limits of their steel and stone frames to unveil our collective history and imagination, illuminating a deft interplay of natural energies and the human experience.The artist weaves into his works elements of mythology, celestial navigation, implements, human figures, movement, urban forms, and found objects, while using motion, balance, and inertia to incorporate the eternal forces of gravity, tension, and erosion. In an essay on his drawings, Van Alstine details the critical role they play in the initiation and planning of his projects, offering the reader a firsthand perspective on the artist's creative process. Van Alstine's works have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions and are found in the permanent collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Art, and the Phillips Collection, to name but a few. His works are also found in numerous public and private collections.The Artist Book Foundation is gratified to announce the publication of this lavishly illustrated monograph on an esteemed and prolific contemporary artist.

Don Gummer's career as a sculptor began in New York City in the late 1970s with his wall reliefs of painted wood, carefully layered geometric works exhibiting a strong architectural influence. Moving beyond wood to stone, bronze, stainless steel, aluminium, and glass as his primary materials, his artworks have evolved into subtly inventive, often monumental, freestanding sculptures that demonstrate his unfailing attention to craftsmanship and detail. This new monograph is the first survey on the artist and his highly acclaimed body of work.Gummer has described his interest in sculpture as "the recontextualization of natural phenomena, of unaltered things brought into aesthetic balance by choosing and placing." Using balance, proportion, and his unique sense of harmony, the artist makes durable materials seem almost buoyant. Negative space is an intrinsic element in his work, imparting a sense that his exquisite, seemingly permanent forms are ultimately as fleeting as any of nature's creations would be.The artist's works can be found in many public collections including the Butler Institute of American Art; the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art; and the Chase Manhattan. He has received awards from prestigious organisations such as the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he was Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome.

Glass as an art form has an ancient tradition; the archaeological record suggests that artisans in Egypt and Mesopotamia were fabricating glass vessels and ornaments during the fourth millennium BCE. Its durable nature, range of colours, malleability, and most of all, its optical transparency are qualities that have made glass a premiere art medium. Over a lifetime, Frederick Birkhill has explored the unique qualities of glass and the numerous techniques and intricacies of working with it. The result of these decades of study is a body of work that is extraordinary in scope, technical expertise, and sheer virtuosity. This book, from The Artist Book Foundation honours this gifted artist.From his time in England at Burleighfield House, the studio of stained-glass artist Patrick Reyntiens, to his unprecedented visit to Lauscha, the village in East Germany famous for both its art and scientific glass production, and his subsequent career as an explorer, teacher, and master of the glass arts, Birkhill has devoted himself to furthering the appreciation of the medium and sharing his vast experience with colleagues, collectors, and students. His works appear in numerous museum collections, including those of The Corning Museum of Glass, the Museum of Arts and Design, the Mint Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the Smithsonian.Complementing the scholarly contributions by authors with significant backgrounds in the glass arts, the book features in its extensive plate section the lavish photography of Henry Leutwyler which offers readers an opportunity to examine the complex details and artistic mastery of Birkhill's oeuvre. In addition, the monograph offers a glossary of glass-art terms, a detailed chronology of the artist's life, his extensive exhibition history, and a list of the numerous awards he has received. For those who are passionate about the glass arts, this monograph will be a feast for the eyes.

This publication accompanies the Figuration Never Died: New York Painterly Painting, 1950-1970 exhibition at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center. By about 1950, forward-looking New York painting was seen as synonymous with abstraction- especially charged, gestural Abstract Expressionism. But there was also a strong group of dissenters; artists, all born in the 1920s and many of them students of Hans Hofmann, who never lost their enthusiasm for the seductive qualities of thick, malleable oil paint. They remained, for the most part, 'painterly' painters. These rebellious artists include Lois Dodd, Jane Freilicher, Paul Georges, Grace Hartigan, Wolf Kahn, Alex Katz, Albert Kresch, Robert de Niro Sr., Paul Resika, and Anne Tabachnick. The compelling figurative work they made between about 1950 and 1970, in contrast to the prevailing Abstract Expressionism of the time, constitutes a significant chapter in the history of recent American Modernism.

Rod Penner infuses his photorealistic paintings of the American southwest with a cinematic quality in the first major monograph on this contemporary realist artist.The abandoned and forgotten landscapes of rural southwestern towns are the favored subjects of Rod Penner's paintings. His deft use of contrasts in his images—despondency and hope, isolation and nostalgia—evokes memories of The Last Picture Show and elicits complex responses from viewers. "I'm interested in the look of things and the quality of being there," he says. "A moment that is completely frozen with all the variety of textures; rust on poles, crumbling asphalt, light hitting the grass."Penner's works are based on his photographs, digital video stills, and his experience of the rural landscapes of Texas and New Mexico. He depicts desolate, often deserted locations, the character of old houses and abandoned buildings, weather, and unique geography. His chosen scenes are infused with a cinematic quality that is the result of the exquisite light that he captures with his meticulous process. "The finished paintings should evoke contrasting responses of melancholy and warmth, desolation and serenity," he says.Penner's hyperrealistic technique meticulously records both the iconic imagery and the beauty in the ashes of these once-prosperous streets and nighborhoods that still endure. The incredible poignant scenes evoke a universalism, a collective experience seen through the lens of Americana. "You won't find any hidden or overt socio-political meaning in my work and at the same time I hope that by utilizing what I find in the American landscape I'm able to connect to viewers on a deeper psychological level."

The first monograph on Will Barnet in nearly 40 years, this title reflect's the artist's unique interpretation of the world's evolving genres.Will Barnet’s artistic career as a painter and printmaker spanned nearly eight decades of continuous creativity. Few artists, other than perhaps Picasso or Monet, can claim such an extended period of uninterrupted and innovative art making. From the darkness of the Great Depression to the opening decade of the twenty-first century, his oeuvre reflects his unique interpretation of the art world’s evolving genres: Social Realism, Modernism, Abstract Expressionism, and ultimately representational Minimalism with the human figure as his primary subject.This book is the first comprehensive monograph on Will Barnet in nearly 40 years. With scholarly essays by the four distinguished authors, an extensive plate section, a comprehensive chronology, lists of awards and exhibitions, and a detailed bibliography, this monograph is a thorough presentation of Barnet's iconic images and consistently evolving style while celebrating his unquenchable joie de vivre.Barnet was devoted to making art every day and worked diligently even at the very end of his life. "The Old Masters are still alive after 400 years, and that's what I want to be," he once said. "At the age of 10 or 12, I discovered that being an artist would give me an ability to create something which would live on after death." Live on it does; in addition to his acclaimed body of work, he influenced a broad spectrum of artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, James Rosenquist, Cy Twombly, and Ethel Fisher.

Daniel Hodermarsky's work embraces both the representational and the abstract, reflecting the intricate spaces of both his psyche and shared human experience.Daniel Hodermarsky was the son of Slovak immigrants who emigrated from Hačava to settle and work in the coal fields of Pennsylvania and later in the auto-manufacturing industries of Ohio. He served in World War II on the Western front and was awarded two presidential citations, two Croix de Guerre, and one combat star. He returned home with severe and persistent post-traumatic stress disorder that left an indelible mark on his life and art.Throughout his career, Hodermarsky’s work embraced both the representational and the abstract. His early works experimented with new media (such as Dayglo paint) and new styles such as Op Art and performance. In the 1970s and beyond, he engaged landscape—rural, urban, and imaginary—wherein he explored the interplay of terrain (land or water, horizon, and sky). The human figure—Slovak farmers, wounded or dismembered soldiers, and mythical and historical figures—were among his favorite subjects. He was fascinated by how age, human nature, and personality combine to create the physical form. His eclectic themes mirror his own unique complexities and experiences. Later in his career, he focused on abstract works that reflect the intricate spaces of both his psyche and shared human experience.A deeply spiritual man with a strong religious faith, Hodermarsky’s abstract paintings ask the existential questions that have challenged humankind across millennia. By showing us his own experience of these great mysteries, his art underscores life’s abiding beauty. Over his long career of interpreting the world in which he lived, Hodermarsky invites us to inhabit a realm filled with joy, reverence, and passion.

Intricate and innovative, George Sherwood's kinetic sculptures invite us to observe, experience, contemplate and engage more fully in the natural world around us.American sculptor George Sherwood, with degrees in both art and engineering, explores aesthetic systems of space and time, as well as the dynamic interplay of objects in motion. Sherwood’s kinetic sculptures invite us to observe, experience, contemplate and engage more fully in the natural world around us. His works are often made of stainless steel, a reflective material that serves to integrate the works into the unique and often transient light of their environments. The choreography of each piece is governed by a set of basic movements, facilitated by an arrangement of aerodynamic surfaces connected by rotational points.The Artist Book Foundation is pleased to present George Sherwood: Wind, Waves, and Light, the first monograph on this award-winning artist’s lustrous, subtly transformative works. Featuring 100 sculptures from Sherwood’s early whimsical explorations to his monumental commissions that have graced private and public gardens, city sites, and exhibition spaces around the world, readers will witness how changing winds, shades of light, times of day, precipitation, and the seasons’ changing colors alter the sculptures, animate their surroundings, and ignite the imagination.

Using composite digital photography, self-taught artist Bertrand Meniel incorporates more detail into each of his cityscapes than any other Photorealist to date.Photorealism is a genre of painting that developed in the United States and Europe using high-resolution photography as its primary source material. Embracing digital photography perhaps more than any other artist working in this genre, Bertrand Meniel is able to incorporate an astonishing amount of detail into his renderings of cityscapes in New York City, Miami, and Paris. Using a variety of photographs of his chosen subject, he manipulates an image to perfection, focusing simultaneously on the foreground and background by combining hundreds of shots on a computer screen.His choice to depict iconic American scenes in his paintings, particularly those associated with the “American Way of Life,” reflects not just a technical mastery of Photorealism but a deep emotional connection to the culture that captivated him during his youth. His unique perspective, influenced by French artistic traditions and shaped by exposure to American pop culture, allows him to capture in his art the essence of what may be best described as the “New York State of Mind."