Visual Perspectives: 14 Years of the Virginia A. Groot Awards
70s Versus 80s: Furniture Glass Ceramics
20th Century Ceramic Designers in Britain
The Elements of Design: Rediscovering Colors, Textures, Forms and Shapes
1000 Symbols: What Shapes Mean in Art & Myth
The Tiffany Chapel at the Morse Museum
Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing
The
Artful Teapot
by Garth Clark, 2001, Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, NY, 800-278-8477.
256 pages, special photography by Tony Cunha. $50.
The inexhaustible variety of the contemporary teapot is on parade in Garth Clark’s latest paean to the ubiquitous form, that “most potent of domestic icons.” The works illustrated in this catalog, grouped under such categories as the influence of Yixing, trompe l’oeil, anthropomorphic examples, assemblage and mutant materials, to name a few, make up a touring exhibition of teapots from the immense collection of Sonny and Gloria Kamm that opened last year at COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts and is at the Long Beach Museum of Art, California, June 20-September 14. “Their net has been cast wide,” writes Clark of the Kamms, “from unknown folk and outsider artists to many of the 20th century’s most important designers, architects, painters, sculptors, ceramists and craftsmen.”
Visual
Perspectives: 14 Years of the Virginia A. Groot Awards
by Margaret Carney, 2002, Virginia A. Groot Foundation, Evanston,
IL. 190 pages, preface by Candice Groot, illustrated. $20
paperback.
Since 1988 the Virginia A. Groot Foundation has awarded three annual grants ranging from $1,000 to $35,000 to artists who have demonstrated exceptional ability in sculpture, particularly ceramic sculpture. Several works by each of the 36 Groot award recipients—among them Judy Moonelis, Tony Hepburn, Adrian Arleo, Akio Takamori and Arthur Gonzalez—are offered, accompanied by a brief biography and artist statement.
70s
Versus 80s: Furniture Glass Ceramics
edited by Roger Fayet, 2001, Arnoldsche Art Publishers, Stuttgart,
Germany. Antique Collectors’ Club, Wappingers Falls, NY, 800-252-5231.
177 pages, 4 contributors, text in English and German, illustrated. $60.
The essays in this catalog of an international exhibit in 2001 at the Museum Bellerive, Zurich, Switzerland, attempt to characterize the dominant aesthetic of leading-edge designs in furniture and textiles, glass and ceramics during the 1970s and 1980s. The adversarial title suggests that the objects presented, many from the Bellerive’s collection, are meant to “highlight the aesthetic break between the two decades,” writes Roger Fayet, director of the museum. “Around the year 1980, a paradigmatic change in aesthetics takes place on a broad front, a re-evaluation that emphasizes multiplicity instead of unity, image instead of function, witty or even aggressive message instead of good-natured self-reference -- in short, that something happens which can be read as the final end of Modernism and the definite establishment of Postmodernism.” Among the included artists are Magdalena Abakanowicz, Sheila Hicks, Claire Zeisler and Jagoda Buic (textiles); Gaetano Pesce and Frank O. Gehry (furniture); Erwin Eisch, Harvey Littleton, Dale Chihuly, Marvin Lipofsky, Joel Philip Myers, Toots Zynsky and Mary Shaffer (glass); and Wayne Higby, Elisabeth Fritsch and Ettore Sottsass (ceramics).
Tiles
and Tilework of Europe
by Alun Graves, 2002, V & A Publications, 2002, London, England.
Harry N. Abrams, New York, NY, 800-345-1359. 160 pages, illustrated. $45.
The use of decorative ceramic tiles in architecture, gardens and interiors in Europe from the Middle Ages to the present is surveyed in this splendidly illustrated book drawing on the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Alun Graves, a curator in the museum’s department of sculpture, metalwork, ceramics and glass, touches on northern and southern medieval traditions, lavish Renaissance tilework from Italy, France and Spain, the influence of the Netherlands through Delftware, and industries and revivals, including the 19th-century tiles designed by A.W.N. Pugin for the Minton company in Britain. Other topics include Islamic influences (the Moorish style), Art Nouveau, Art Deco and the Omega Workshops associated with the Bloomsbury group.
20th
Century Ceramic Designers in Britain
by Andrew Casey, 2001, Antique Collectors’ Club,
Wappingers Falls, NY, 800-252-5231. 391 pages, illustrated. $79.50.
This study by a specialist in the decorative arts focuses on the designers in the British pottery industry who moved away from traditional styles to produce innovative contemporary wares that were popular in their time and are now sought after by collectors. Among those featured are Clarice Cliff, Charlotte Rhead, Susie Cooper, Eric Ravilious, Keith Murray, John Clappison, Jessie Tait and Eve Midwinter. Each chapter gives a fully illustrated account of a designer’s contribution and discusses his or her background, influences and career path.
The
Elements of Design: Rediscovering Colors, Textures, Forms and Shapes
by Loan Oei and Cecile De Kegel, 2002, Thames & Hudson, New York,
NY. W.W. Norton, New York, NY, 800-233-4830. 208 pages, illustrated. $24.95
paperback.
A stone wall in Thebes, Egypt, and a hemp pojagi wrapping cloth from Korea, a detail of parched soil from Yosemite and a raku ceramic pot, a wooden bracelet from the Ivory Coast and a detail of double ikat cotton from India -- these are among the 177 images juxtaposed in this visual sourcebook for artists and designers. The universality and recurrence of design elements across a spectrum of natural and man-made environments is richly presented in photographs grouped in the categories of colors, textures, dots, dot and line, lines, crossing (intersecting lines), and planes and circles.
USDesign:
1975-2000
by Craig Miller, 2001, Prestel Verlag, New York, NY, 888-463-6110,
in association with the Denver Art Museum, CO. 256 pages, contributions
by Thomas Hine, Rosemarie Haag Bletter, David G. De Long, Philip Meggs,
illustrated. $65.
Developments during the last quarter century in architecture, decorative and industrial design, and graphic design are surveyed in this companion book to a touring exhibition organized by the Denver Art Museum and at the Museum of Arts & Design, New York City (June 19 - September 28). Bearing out the premise that the defining characteristic of American design in this period has been its pluralism —the lack of any dominant theoretical or stylistic approach—the book presents an eclectic array of objects, from furniture, textiles and tea services by such architects as Frank O. Gehry and Michael Graves to decorative and industrial items by artists of the 80s, including Dan Friedman and David Gresham, and by emerging designers like Karim Rashid and Christopher Deam. Addressing the absence of craft, Craig Miller writes, “Functional craft has to some extent been included, but only when it moves beyond the ‘one-off’ objects to serial production.” And in a footnote he explains that the “American Studio Movement was specifically not included because it has in many respects left the design arts for the fine arts. Its theoretical and conceptual basis -- not the media involved -- was the determining factor here.”
What
Is Design Today?
by George H. Marcus, 2002, Harry N. Abrams, New York, NY, 800-345-1359.
144 pages, illustrated. $27.50 paperback.
“Every object we see around us has been designed,” asserts George H. Marcus, an art historian, as he begins to answer the question posed by the title, making it clear that by design he does not mean the “good design” enshrined in mid-20th-century pronouncements from the Museum of Modern Art. He succinctly explores seven issues that help us realize the overwhelming impact of design today— understanding process (we follow the evolution of an ice cream scoop), setting style, using technology, being responsible, serving individuals, conveying messages and making choices. Conventional distinctions between craft and design are losing their meaning, he says, pointing as an example to the computer-aided jewelry designs of Stanley Lechtzin. The book is companion to a touring exhibition organized by the Design Center at Philadelphia University, premiering there October 3-March 2, 2003.
1000
Symbols: What Shapes Mean in Art & Myth
by Rowena and Rupert Shepherd, 2002, Thames & Hudson, New York,
NY. W.W. Norton, New York, NY, 800-233-4830. 352 pages, illustrated. $24.95
paperback.
With more than 1,000 drawings rendered in blue in the style of computer icons, this book by two British art historians offers a guide to symbols throughout the world. The symbols, with an explanation of their meanings in different cultures, are presented in related groupings such as flowers, plants and trees, the body and actions, mythical beasts, heaven and earth, characters and people, and abstracts.
The
Tiffany Chapel at the Morse Museum
edited by Nancy Long, 2002, the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American
Art, Winter Park, FL, 407-645-5316. 112 pages, 8 contributors, illustrated.
$24.95 paperback.
When the restored Louis Comfort Tiffany Chapel installed at the Morse Museum opened to the public in 1999 after three years of conservation, it was the culmination of a project to save the masterwork from destruction begun in the 1950s by Jeannette G. McKean (1909-89), founder of the Morse, and her husband, Hugh F. McKean (1908-95), director of the museum until his death. Created by Tiffany for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the chapel was notable for its stained glass windows, glass and marble mosaics and an elaborate altar. Along with other Tiffany exhibits at the fair, it helped to establish him internationally and set the stage for more than a decade of commercial and artistic success. The McKeans rescued the chapel in 1959 from Tiffany’s burned estate in Oyster Bay, New York, and also assembled chapel windows and furnishings that had been previously dispersed. The seven essays by decorative arts and conservation specialists in this catalog detail the chapel’s significance and history and its conservation by the Morse.
Vision
and Art: The Biology of Seeing
by Margaret S. Livingstone, 2002, Harry N. Abrams, New York, NY, 800-345-1359.
208 pages, foreword by David H. Hubel. $45.
Why does the Mona Lisa’s smile seem to change before our eyes? How do painters create the illusion of depth, dimension and motion? These are among the questions posed and answered in this book by a Harvard professor of neurobiology whose special interest lies in how the eye and brain use color and luminance (perceived lightness) as information. In addition to providing, with the help of diagrams and other visual aids, a lucid account of the biology of vision, the author includes simple experiments that the reader is invited to duplicate. She writes: “Recent advances in our understanding of the human visual system allow us to look at art and the way we see the world—in a new way. We now know that color and luminance are processed by different parts of our brains, and they carry different kinds of visual information.”
Weavers
of the Southern Highlands
by Philis Alvic, 2003, University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, 859-257-8442.
234 pages, illustrated. $35.
Weaving was a cornerstone in the craft revival of Southern Appalachia that began more than 100 years ago with the arrival of settlement workers to help the rural poor. The twofold mission of many reformers was to save the art of weaving (which persisted in this region as part of subsistence living after it had been abandoned in more urban settings) and provide employment for women by finding markets for their handwork. This study of the role of weaving in Appalachian life and culture focuses on four centers that directed the economic development of the area—Berea College and Fireside Industries in Kentucky, the Pi Beta Phi Settlement School and Arrowcraft in Tennessee, the Appalachian School and Penland Weavers and Potters in North Carolina, and the Weavers of Rabun in Georgia—though other mountain weaving centers are touched on as well. Profiles of such major figures as Lucy Morgan at Penland and Mary Hambidge at Rabun lend human interest, as do the vintage photographs. A textile artist and writer on weaving, the author draws on primary sources, including extensive oral history interviews, to explain the significance of this craft for the Appalachian community as a whole and in the lives of mountain women.
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