Among the most popular and ubiquitous sculptures in nineteenth-century America were the ship's figurehead and the cigar-store Indian. The vast majority of these engaging human figures were created by shipcarvers-highly skilled artists celebrated for their masterful figureheads but who collectively made tens of thousands of shop figures as well, from fanciful representations of American Indians to firemen, baseball players, and fashionable women.
 Shaped by nineteenth-century Anglo-American values, this artwork reflects the tenor of the times, including racial and gender stereotyping, America's emerging popular culture, and the birth of modern advertising techniques.
 The Shipcarvers' Art is the first book to assess the artistry and history of these two closely related genres in a single volume. Richly illustrated and elegantly written, it reveals the intertwining of art, commerce, and shipcarving in nineteenth-century America. On March 22, 1856, for example, only four months after Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem Hiawatha was first published, the clipper Minehaha was launched at an East Boston shipyard. Its figurehead depicted a renowned English actress in her role as Hiawatha's wife, Minehaha. Central to the festivities surrounding the event were poet, actress, and shipbuilder--and a fictional image of the Native American.
 Ralph Sessions not only highlights the work of shipcarvers throughout the eastern United States and Canada but also presents new information on carving workshops in New York City, America's key shipbuilding center from around 1820 until after the Civil War.
 Just as they were vanishing from the bows of ships and city streets around the turn of the twentieth century, figureheads and shop figures began to experience renewed interest as museum pieces and collector's items. Representing a milestone in scholarship on the subject, The Shipcarvers' Art magnificently brings them alive once more for art lovers of the twenty-first century.

The Shipcarvers' Art: Figureheads and Cigar-Store Indians in Nineteenth-Century America

Arts & Photography

Sessions, Ralph

History & Criticism

Princeton University Press

This volume presents the finest collection of American folk art sculpture in private hands. At the heart of this collection of mostly nineteenth-century pieces are weathervanes of every size and description - roosters, trumpeting angels, running, jumping and prancing horses, and more. There are also ships' figureheads, decoys and such unique works as a life-size painted stalking tiger. Descriptive captions and provenance are found in a sixteen-page illustrated catalog.

Spiritually Moving: A Collection of American Folk Art Sculpture

Geismar, Thomas H.

Kahn, Harvey

Hoffman, Dave

Harry N.Abrams, Inc.

For more than 60 years, George Tooker (1920–2011) created luminous and often enigmatic paintings, addressing issues from alienation and the dehumanizing aspects of contemporary society to personal meditations on the human condition. From the Cold War urban purgatories and bureaucratic paranoia of his early paintings to his later warm, glowing images of lovers embracing in fields or found in windows, Tooker’s spiritual vision ultimately stands as a quest for the endless possibilities of intimacy, compassion and tolerance. Widespread public recognition first came to Tooker through his best-known painting, “Subway” (1950), a definitive image of anxiety and dread. His more utopian themes of peace, brotherhood and reconciliation would find expression in such works as “Embrace of Peace II” (1988). Published in conjunction with DC Moore Gallery’s memorial exhibition, George Tooker: Reality Recurs as a Dream features paintings from every period of Tooker’s long career.

George Tooker: Reality Recurs as a Dream

Cozzolino, Robert

Price, Marshall

Cadmus, Paul

Kauper, Kurt

DC Moore Gallery

Walt Kuhn (1877–1949) is best known for his bold, modernist paintings of showgirls and circus performers. He was deeply involved with theater and the circus for much of his life, and his work was informed by years of close observation. Combining a modernist impulse with a showman’s instincts, Kuhn created portraits that penetrate the veneer of burlesque shows and circuses as well as vigorously rendered still lifes. Kuhn was one of the principal organizers of the 1913 Armory Show, and from about 1922 to 1925, he also turned theater professional, writing and directing satirical skits and pantomimes. In the late 1920s, his mature style emerged through a unique melding of modernist principles with an updated realism. This first major exhibition catalogue of Kuhn’s work in decades, timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Armory Show, brings his work back into the spotlight.

Walt Kuhn: American Modern (DC MOORE GALLER)

Stavitsky, Gail

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