From Publishers Weekly
Selected paintings and sculptures from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Art are on view in a nationally touring exhibition, and this attractive catalogue shows what a rich, varied and relevant colleciton it is. Alvin Fisher's spellbinding 1820 oil of Niagara Falls arched by a rainbow holds out the visionary promise of the American dream. But Albert Ryder's violent, stormy Flying Dutchman (1887) seems to mirror a national psyche in profound turmoil. In Ivan Albright's cynical The Farmer's Kitchen, painted in 1933, the morbid portrayal of a wrinkled old woman with her manic cat bespeaks the chaos of the Depression. Pictures by Kline and Rauschenberg put us in touch with modern dislocations and anguish. Among the 81 works reproduced here in full-page color plates are Frederic E. Church's spectacular Aurora Borealis, Whistler's semi-abstract meditation on a Chilean harbor and Baziotes's biomorphic squiggles. The album is a good place to make the acquaintance of such neglected artists as social caricaturist Paul Cadmus, Surrealist Helen Ludeberg and Impressionist Julian Weir. Interleaved with their works are pictures by Cole, Copley, Homer, Prendergast, Wyeth, Cassatt.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Formerly the National Collection of Fine Arts, a department of the Smithsonian, the renamed National Museum of Fine Arts embraces the Renwick Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and the former National Collection of Fine Arts. Treasures is a catalog for a national touring exhibition, mostly of work by well-known American artists like Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper. There are almost 200 plates, half in color, of the 81 featured paintings and sculptures. The only regret is that interesting work by more obscure Americans, of which the National Museum holds many examples, was not included in the exhibition. Recommended. Raymond L. Wilson, Humanities Dept., San Francisco State Univ., Cal.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
