Aelbert Cuyp
Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
Thames & Hudson, 320 pages, $65
The first international loan exhibition for Aelbert Cuyp, the 17th Century Dutch painter best known for pastoral scenes, is on view through Jan. 15 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The essays and reproductions included in this catalog for the show indicate Cuyp was equally a master of portraits, biblical themes and views of harbors. His command of atmosphere is especially powerful, exceeding that of many Dutch contemporaries. The most up-to-date scholarship here treats his personal and professional development.
Thomas Eakins
Edited by Darrel Sewell
Yale University Press, 446 pages, $65
Lloyd Goodrich’s two-volume update of his 1930s Thomas Eakins study is now almost 20 years old, coming from the time of the last major Eakins exhibition. So this catalog for the retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (through Jan. 6) makes the most recent claim on our attention, with 11 essayists going more deeply into aspects of the realist’s work than did William Innes Homer’s survey of 1992. Eakins’ photographs rightly receive almost as much attention as his paintings, which remain among the most soberly stirring pictures created by an American.
Cezanne: The Self-Portraits
By Steven Platzman
University of California Press, 224 pages, $50
Paul Cezanne painted and drew more than 60 self-portraits over 35 years, and they have been among the least-examined of his pieces. This first study of them goes beyond Cezanne’s pathbreaking style to discover the works’ expressive achievements in the light of what was expected of self-portraiture throughout history. Ultimately, they declare different aspects of Cezanne’s artistic persona at different times, and when taken together become an autobiography as fascinating as his formal analyses of nature.
Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South
By Douglas W. Druick and Peter Kort Zegers
Thames & Hudson, 418 pages, $65
Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin worked together in the town of Arles for only nine weeks in 1888. But their influence on each other extended over a longer period, which is the range of the exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago (through Jan. 13) and this accompanying volume. More than a catalog, it presents two full-length biographies, reproducing and discussing many works not in the show. The keenness of observation and depth of analysis are exemplary, bringing new awareness to work that has been more popular than understood.
Gustav Klimt: Modernism in the Making
Edited by Colin B. Bailey
Abrams, 239 pages, $60
Some of the paintings of late-19th Century Viennese artist Gustav Klimt are so familiar through reproduction that it may come as a surprise that his first retrospective in North America was mounted only last summer at the National Gallery of Canada. This catalog for the show presents a series of essays that help restore a measure of the pioneering wonder of Klimt’s work, as the best of it is more rigorous and daring than his current popularity suggests. Color plates are — as they must be in any first-rate treatment of the artist — superb.
Strindberg: Painter and Photographer
By Per Hedstrum, Douglas Feuk, Erik Hook, Agneta Lalander, Goran Soderstrom
Yale University Press, 192 pages, $45
Americans aware of the literary works of August Strindberg may not know his paintings, though in Europe they were acknowledged as modern masterpieces nearly 40 years ago. All are modest-size landscapes; the best darkly and tumultuously edge into abstraction. This catalog for an exhibition (through Jan. 27) at the Musee d’Orsay, Paris, is the most complete volume on Strindberg’s visual art — paintings, photographs, drawings, sculpture — in the English language, offering essays and reproductions that make for a compelling, even if belated, discovery.
Matisse Portraits
By John Klein
Yale University Press, 288 pages, $55
Portraits are collaborations between artists and sitters. The effort is, therefore, partly social. The author of this first study of Henri Matisse’s portraits examines the social contexts of works, indicating how differences there often provoked different artistic aims for the portraits. It’s not the usual approach that focuses on likeness or character, and with no diminution of observation and insight the text is often more immediately engaging.
Making Paradise: Art, Modernity and the Myth of the French Riviera
By Kenneth E. Silver
MIT Press, 192 pages, $29.95
Here’s an unexpected pleasure: an examination of the impact of the Cote d’Azur on more than a century of artists, photographers, architects and designers. The familiar figures are here-Matisse, Bonnard, Picasso, Lartigue, Le Corbusier-joined by such lesser lights as Gerald Murphy and Andre-Felix Roberty. It seems that even the dour Edvard Munch came down from the north to paint a Monte Carlo roulette table. And only in current times does the list shorten, with David Hockney and Eric Fischl making the most of their visits. Frothy and fascinating.
Anselm Kiefer
By Daniel Arasse
Abrams, 328 pages, $85
The first North American retrospective for German artist Anselm Kiefer opened at the Art Institute of Chicago 14 years ago, and its catalog has remained the most thorough in the English language until now. Daniel Arasse’s text begins seven years before the exhibition, tracing Kiefer’s ascent to worldwide fame through paintings and books as well as some lesser-known free-standing constructions. The complex, mournful art is illuminated both by the author’s analyses and detailed color images that capture Kiefer’s brooding atmosphere better than one might expect.
Women Artists in the 20th and 21st Century
Edited by Uta Grosenick
Taschen, 576 pages, $39
The serviceability of this dictionary lies in its selection of more than 90 artists (from a period of 80 years) and a six-page treatment for each, including biographical data, a critical essay and several color reproductions of work, plus artist quotations and a photo portrait. All media are considered, from painting, sculpture and photography to interactive projects, film and video. Present-day artists are emphasized, though there also is a not-always-predictable group of modernist icons. The effort bears repeating for architects and designers.
