by Ruth E. Iskin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 28, 2025
An authoritative, beautifully illustrated study.
The forces that shaped an eminent artist.
Art historian Iskin offers a close, perceptive examination of the life and work of Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) in the context of American and European art, culture, and political change, particularly the women’s suffrage movement. Although Pittsburgh-born, Cassatt returned to the U.S. only three times after she settled in Paris in 1874; she considered herself culturally an American, while as an artist she identified with French Impressionists. Except for Degas—a beloved friend and “like-minded colleague”—her closest friends were well-educated upper-class Americans, including banker James J. Stillman, art curator Sara T. Hallowell, and architect Theodate Pope. These and others visited her often at her country chateau and the Paris apartment that, for many years, she shared with her mother and sister. Her “longest, and most important friendship” was with Louisine Havemeyer, a noted collector whose acquisitions were advised by Cassatt. They met in Paris when Cassatt was 30 and Louisine 19, and their friendship, characterized by “emotional, intellectual, and cognitive intimacy” continued into Cassatt’s old age. Although Cassatt came to deride Louisine’s consuming involvement in the suffrage campaign, she was a sympathetic supporter. Iskin sees the impact of feminism in her depictions of women, both within and beyond the nuclear family, which echoed prevalent discourse that emphasized “the value of women’s role within the home, as a way of buttressing the argument for their access to the public sphere and in particular to equal political rights.” In April 1915, Cassatt, Degas, and a selection of old masters were featured in a prominent New York exhibition to raise funds for women’s suffrage. Iskin explores Cassatt’s posthumous reputation as well, reflecting on assumptions about nationhood and gender that continue to redefine her legacy.
An authoritative, beautifully illustrated study.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780520355453
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Univ. of California
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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by Steve Martin illustrated by Harry Bliss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 17, 2020
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
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The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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by Christina Sharpe ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 25, 2023
An exquisitely original celebration of American Blackness.
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A potent series of “notes” paints a multidimensional picture of Blackness in America.
Throughout the book, which mixes memoir, history, literary theory, and art, Sharpe—the chair of Black studies at York University in Toronto and author of the acclaimed book In the Wake: On Blackness and Being—writes about everything from her family history to the everyday trauma of American racism. Although most of the notes feature the author’s original writing, she also includes materials like photographs, copies of letters she received, responses to a Twitter-based crowdsourcing request, and definitions of terms collected from colleagues and friends (“preliminary entries toward a dictionary of untranslatable blackness”). These diverse pieces coalesce into a multifaceted examination of the ways in which the White gaze distorts Blackness and perpetuates racist violence. Sharpe’s critique is not limited to White individuals, however. She includes, for example, a disappointing encounter with a fellow Black female scholar as well as critical analysis of Barack Obama’s choice to sing “Amazing Grace” at the funeral of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was killed in a hate crime at the Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. With distinct lyricism and a firm but tender tone, Sharpe executes every element of this book flawlessly. Most impressive is the collagelike structure, which seamlessly moves among an extraordinary variety of forms and topics. For example, a photograph of the author’s mother in a Halloween costume transitions easily into an introduction to Roland Barthes’ work Camera Lucida, which then connects just as smoothly to a memory of watching a White visitor struggle with the reality presented by the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. “Something about this encounter, something about seeing her struggle…feels appropriate to the weight of this history,” writes the author. It is a testament to Sharpe’s artistry that this incredibly complex text flows so naturally.
An exquisitely original celebration of American Blackness.Pub Date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 9780374604486
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
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