Monday, March 23, 2009

Art books on the shelf

Glancing behind me are books I've acquired over the past decades. Some are getting dusty, pages are getting loose from continuous use, but all make valuable reading years after purchase. I'll confine my booklist to books on art. Although my collection is wide ranging and eclectic. A small neat collection of Picasso's paintings, drawings, collages, ceramics and sculpture "Treasures of the Muse'e Picasso Paris" It in a brief but interesting way shows the full sweep of Pablo Picasso's inexhaustible genius. Beside it is "Picasso's Weeping Woman. The life and Art of Dora Maar" by Mary Ann Caws. Dora Maar was a successful young photographer who met Picasso, became his lover and Muse and spent 7 years living with him. Their stormy relationship reached a painful end in 1945. She lived in religious seclusion for the rest of her life. The book is filled with an extensive collection of her photographic work including a photographic study of the making of the famous and tragic "Guernica" from its beginning to the finished painting.
Quickly glancing again there are books on Klee, Kandinsky, Basquiat, Prints of the 20th Century, Romaire Bearden's "Myth and Metaphor," Motherwell, Bissier, Millares and Sutherland. All adding to the trek towards a better understanding of modern, abstract art in its most daring and varied forms.

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