A rich compendium of Estes’ virtuosic photorealist paintings, which capture light and reflections in brilliant detail Richard Estes (b. 1932) is one of the most celebrated adopters of Photorealism; his paintings are characterized by painstaking detail that mimics the clarity and accuracy of photographs. Estes’ most famous canvases from the 1970s depict New York’s urban landscape, and his manner of painting reflections in a multitude of metal and glass surfaces displays astounding technical skill. In his subsequent career, Estes has continued to demonstrate his superlative ability to show complex plays of light and shadow in Maine seascapes, views of Venetian lagoons, and nighttime street scenes. Accompanying Estes’ first solo exhibition of paintings in the United States in over two decades, Richard Estes’ Realism surveys fifty years of his work and places him within the historical narrative of realist painting. The authors explore the ongoing modernist dialogue between camera and canvas, and discuss the situation of Estes’ work at the crossroads of painting and photography. Fifty full-page plates showcase the amazing precision of Estes’ paintings, and a thorough chronology and bibliography provide an enlightening account of his life. This handsome book offers a lavish presentation of Estes’ spellbinding body of work that attests to his enduring artistic impact.

Richard Estes' Realism

Arts & Photography

Sims, Patterson

May, Jessica

Ferrulli, Helen

History & Criticism

Portland Museum of Art

A fresh and surprising overview of N. C. Wyeth’s career that considers the full range of the multifaceted artist’s oeuvre N. C. Wyeth (1882–1945) was widely renowned for his iconic images of characters such as King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Robinson Crusoe that were reproduced as illustrations for books and magazines. The patriarch of the Wyeth family, father of Andrew Wyeth and grandfather of Jamie, he was also an artist with a broad purview whose work includes impressionist views of the Pennsylvania countryside and 1930s modernist interpretations of Maine coastal scenes. The book’s essays look at topics such as Wyeth’s contributions to the visual mythology of the American West, the darker nuances found in his Treasure Island illustrations, and correlations between his illustrations and cinema. Also explored is the way in which Wyeth’s own Chadds Ford properties reflect his conception of home and the role of the artist in American society. Complete with a detailed chronology, this carefully researched study of Wyeth’s life and work provides a long overdue assessment of the remarkable breadth of this complex yet often misunderstood artist.

N. C. Wyeth: New Perspectives

Podmaniczky, Christine

Yale University Press

American Modern, the beautifully illustrated companion volume to the exhibit of the same name, explores the reinvention of documentary photography in the 1930s, focusing on the work of three iconic figures: Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, and Margaret Bourke-White. More broadly, the book maps the formation of what we now identify as “documentary style,” showing how a marginalized genre associated with Progressive reform politics was transformed into a major component of modern art and public culture in America. The essays by Sharon Corwin, Jessica May, and Terri Weissman describe how each of these three photographers developed a different model of photography--as well as a particular understanding of modernism and modernity--which each believed would set the standard for future generations of artists. American Modern identifies the points where Abbott, Evans, and Bourke-White connected, diverged, and competed, and demonstrates how commercial and governmental commissions, the influence of mass media, the establishment of public institutions of modern art, and international theories of photography all intersected to establish the now-dominant documentary style.

American Modern: Documentary Photography by Abbott, Evans, and Bourke-White

Weissman, Terri

Corwin, Sharon

University of California Press

The first book to explore the extraordinary musical life and remarkable paintings of one of America's greatest ever songwriters. Best known for having written and produced some of the seminal records of American popular culture--from 'Big Girls Don't Cry' for the Four Seasons to 'Silence is Golden' for the Tremeloes and 'Lady Marmalade' for LaBelle--Bob Crewe was a multifaceted artist for whom a passion for painting and the visual arts provided a lifelong counterbalance to music. Collected here are more than 80 of Bob Crewe's artworks, stretching from his first forays into abstract expressionism in the 1950s and 1960s to more complex, tactile compositions made on his full-time return to painting in the 1990s--accompanied by archival images and ephemera that reflect Crewe's simultaneous contribution to popular music. Essays by Jessica May and Peter Plagens explore the development of an artist whose influences ranged from Rauschenberg and Johns to Warhol and Bacon; legendary record producer Andrew Loog Oldham captures the period of radical experimentalism in which Crewe wrote many of the most memorable songs in the canon of modern pop; and Donald Albrecht's introduction ties together the many complementary aspects of Crewe's personal and creative lives.

Bob Crewe: Sight and Sound: Compositions in Art and Music

ALBRECHT, Donald

Oldham, Andrew Loog

Plagens, Peter

Rizzoli Electa

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Books by May, Jessica