Art / Art History
Grant Wood's Memorial Masterpiece
Barbara Feller
759.13 /Wood
Nonfiction, Art / Art History
Two years before Grant Wood painted American Gothic, he began working on what the author believes to be his most important work of art: a stained-glass window honoring Iowa's veterans for the newly built Veteran's Memorial Building in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A fitting tribute to the memory of veterans of the six wars Americans had fought to its date, the window is one of our nation's finest war memorials. With its fifty-eight sections stretching twenty feet wide and twenty-four feet high, it is also one of the largest in the world. Grant Wood's Memorial Masterpiece traces the compelling story of his struggle to produce this breathtaking work and how it led him to develop the unique Regionalist style for which he is recognized around the world.
Moon bear
Clare Helen Welsh
jE Welsh
Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Picture Books, Animals, Art / Art History
"In this enchantingly illustrated, almost wordless picture book, a story of courage and creativity unfolds when a girl who is afraid of the dark meets a magical moon bear who is afraid of the light."
This ursa is majorly gorgeous! Carolina T. Godina's picture book illustrator debut is a stunner. -Casey
Family romance : John Singer Sargent and the Wertheimers
Jean Strouse
759.13 /Sargent
Nonfiction, Art / Art History, Biographies
"Jean Strouse captures the dramas, mysteries, intrigues, and tragedies surrounding John Singer Sargent's portraits of the Wertheimer family"--
I really enjoy John Singer Sargent portraits--there is a great one at the Des Moines Art Center! Strouse's Family Romance tells the story of Sargent's portraits of the Wertheimer family giving context to the culture and politics of early 20th century England, the art scene, and this period of Sargent's life. -Anne M
Stalking Shakespeare : a memoir of madness, murder, and my search for the poet beneath the paint
Lee Durkee
704.942 /Durkee
Nonfiction, History, Art / Art History, Biographies
"Following his divorce, down-and-out writer and Mississippi exile Lee Durkee holed himself up in a Vermont fishing shack and fell prey to a decades-long obsession with Shakespearian portraiture. It began with a simple premise: despite the prevalence of popular portraits, no one really knows what Shakespeare looked like. That the Bard of Avon has gotten progressively handsomer in modern depictions seems only to reinforce this point. Stalking Shakespeare is Durkee's fascinating memoir about an obsession gone awry, the 400-year-old myriad portraits attached to the famous playwright, and Durkee's own unrelenting search-via X-ray and infrared technologies-for a lost picture of the Bard painted from real life. As Durkee becomes better at beguiling curators into testing their paintings with spectral technologies, we get a front-row seat to the captivating mysteries plaguing the various portraits rumored to depict Shakespeare. Whisking us backward in time through layers of paint and into the pages of obscure books on the Elizabethans, Durkee takes us from Vermont to Tokyo to Mississippi to DC and ultimately to London to confront the stuffy curators forever protecting the image of the Bard. For his part, Durkee is the adversary they didn't know they had-a writer from Mississippi with nothing to lose-the "Dan Brown of English portraiture." A lively, bizarre, and surprisingly moving blend of biography, art history, and madness, Stalking Shakespeare is as entertaining as it is rigorous and sheds new light on one of history's greatest cultural and literary icons"--
A fun little escapade through the major theories of who wrote Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, via the various portraits that are purportedly of him. There's a lot of very interesting stuff here, not just literary but also in the art history sense of who created the portraits, how they've been altered, and why they look the way they do. Lee Durkee is also a strong presence in this book, and tbh I veered between thinking of him as someone I felt sympathetic and appreciative towards, for his candor about his own mental health and personal issues, and then thinking that he'd be an absolute tour guide from hell. All in all, a very (VERY) well-researched and entertaining read. -Candice
The art thief : a true story of love, crime, and a dangerous obsession
Finkel, Michael, author.
364.16287 /Finkel
Nonfiction, True Crime, Art / Art History
"For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than two hundred heists over nearly ten years-in museums and cathedrals all over Europe-Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than three hundred objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion. In The Art Thief, Michael Finkel brings us into Breitwieser's strange and fascinating world. Unlike most thieves, he never stole for money, keeping all his treasures in a single room where he could admire them to his heart's content. Possessed of a remarkable athleticism and an innate ability to assess practically any security system, Breitwieser managed to pull off a breathtakingly number of audacious thefts. Yet these strange talents bred a growing disregard for risk and an addict's need to score, leading Breitwieser to ignore his girlfriend's pleas to stop-until one final act of hubris brought everything crashing down"--
This book got rave reviews and has been very popular, but I had to give it mention...You'll be left wondering just what kind of person steals pieces of art on a weekly basis, from churches and small museums, in order to basically create their own collection of hundreds of priceless items. That they then store in their room. In their mother's house. For real. -Candice
Zodiac : a graphic memoir
Weiwei Ai
BIOGRAPHY Ai, Weiwei
Art / Art History, Memoir
"As a child living in exile during the Cultural Revolution, Ai Weiwei often found himself with nothing to read but government-approved comic books. Although they were restricted by the confines of political propaganda, Ai Weiwei was struck by the artists' ability to express their thoughts on art and humanity through graphic storytelling. Now, decades later, Ai Weiwei and Italian comic artist Gianluca Costantini present Zodiac, Ai Weiwei's first graphic memoir. Inspired by the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac and their associated human characteristics, Ai Weiwei masterfully interweaves ancient Chinese folklore with stories of his life, family, and career. The narrative shifts back and forth through the years--at once in the past, present, and future--mirroring memory and our relationship to time. As readers delve deeper into the beautifully illustrated pages of Zodiac, they will find not only a personal history of Ai Weiwei and an examination of the sociopolitical climate in which he makes his art, but a philosophical exploration of what it means to find oneself through art and freedom of expression."--Amazon.
I love AI Weiwei's work and have read every book by him and written about him. I thoroughly enjoyed this graphic memoir cleverly intertwined with Chinese zodiac animals and folklore and the illustrations are gorgeous! It is always a pleasure to get a little more insight into the life of such an artistic icon! -Victoria
This book will make you an artist
Ruth Millington
j701 Millington
Art / Art History, Kids, Nonfiction
"Jam-packed with imaginative ideas for all kinds of creative crafts . . . this book will make YOU an artist! Pick up your pencils, collect your collage materials, and take inspiration from 25 of the world's best-known artists in this fact-filled book full of activities. Discover famous masterpieces through the included photographs of real works of art - from ancient cave painting to contemporary performance - and lots more in between!"-- Provided by publisher.
A brief bio/intro to a couple dozen diverse artists and instructions for making a project of your own in their style. The projects are simple but significant, the artist bios are relevant and interesting, and the whole thing is attractively, colorfully designed and packaged. A great gift book for an artist child (and all children are artists)! -Anne W
Ungrateful mammals
Dave Eggers
741.973 /Eggers
Humor, Animals, Philosophy, Art / Art History
Before he embarked on his writing career, Dave Eggers was classically trained as a draftsman and painter. He then spent many years as a professional illustrator and graphic designer before turning to writing full-time. More recently, in order to raise money for ScholarMatch, his college-access nonprofit, he returned to visual art, and the results have been exhibited in galleries and museums around the country. Usually involving the pairing of an animal with humorous or Biblical text, the results are wry, oddly anthropomorphic tableaus that create a very entertaining and eccentric body of work from one of today's leading culture makers.
A fun, amusing, and quick read! I didn't know Dave Eggers was an illustrator and graphic designer before turning to writing — it's inspiring to know that all art can fuel other forms of art. Give this flip through before seeing him in conversation at the Englert on Thursday, March 7! -Annie
A tulip in winter : a story about folk artist Maud Lewis
Kathy Stinson
j759.11 Lewis
Art / Art History, Kids, Biographies
"A celebration of a beloved folk artist, and her artistic expression of joy and beauty. Known for her vibrant and cheerful paintings of landscapes, plants, and animals, Maud Lewis' iconic folk art is celebrated around the world. Despite her beautiful art, she spent much of her life living in poverty with rheumatoid arthritis. In this stunning picture book, author Kathy Stinson and illustrator Lauren Soloy bring Maud's world to life: how she captured in her art what she loved most, while navigating the mobility issues caused by her condition. From bright paintings of the sea and countryside, to the flowers and birds she painted on the walls of the small house she shared with her husband, Maud's work continues to delight and inspire viewers young and old."--
Maud Lewis' lively, colorful paintings were inspired by the countryside around her tiny house in Nova Scotia. Disabled by severe rheumatoid arthritis, and with options further limited by poverty, Lewis lived in a tiny house she decorated by painting flowers all over the stairs, walls, and many of her belongings, along with creating landscapes on scraps of wood and cardboard from the dump. Today, her house can be seen, in its entirety, inside the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, where it was moved after her death in 1970. -Anne W
Mesozoic art : dinosaurs and other ancient animals in art
567.9 /Mesozoic
Art / Art History, Science
"Dinosaurs are endlessly fascinating to people of every age, from the youngest child who enjoys learning the tongue-twisting names to adults who grew up with Jurassic Park and Walking with Dinosaurs. As our knowledge of the prehistoric world continues to evolve and grow, so has the discipline of bringing these ancient worlds to life artistically. Paleoart puts flesh on the bones of long-extinct organisms, and illustrates they world they lived in. Mesozoic Art showcases twenty of the best artists working in this field, representing a broad spectrum of disciplines, from traditional painting to cutting-edge digital technology. Some provide the artwork for new scientific papers that demand high-end paleoart as part of their presentation to the world at large; they also work for the likes of National Geographic and provide art to museums around the world to illustrate their displays. Other artists are the new rising stars of paleoart in an ever-growing, ever-diversifying field." -- Amazon.com.
This book is full of really cool art depicting the ancient world. Also, you can leave it on your coffee table to spark a dinosaur chat with your friends. -Mykle
I learned about this book from the State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City office, which is hosting an event for the author on Saturday, June 7, 2025. I did not grow up in Cedar Rapids or Iowa City, so I didn't know much about Grant Wood until moving here. Of course I knew about American Gothic, but did I know about the "Plaid Sweater" painting at the Stanley, where a young boy poses with his pigskin? I showed that painting to my football-loving son who rolled his eyes at me. This book is all about his stained glass masterpiece, Memorial, at the Veterans Memorial Building in Cedar Rapids. Feller does extensive research on the composition of this work and argues this was the piece that set him on his way to becoming a Regionalist master artist. Local art history fans, check this book out! -Melody