From Josef Albers to Larry Zox - the A-Z of modern art, as chosen by illustrator Andy Tuohy and art historian Christopher Masters. Each artist gets a Tuohy portrait, often incorporating elements of the artist's signature style, along with a short biography and one or two highlighted works. If you want more bio details and major pieces, this is not your best resource, but it suffices for a survey of (mostly) Western modern artists, from the 1880s-present time, from the well-known (Magritte, Picasso, Rothko, etc.) to new-to-me entries like Lebanese painter Choucar, Australian Nolan, Sudanese El-Salahi.
Good for brushing up on a who's who in modern art before a visit to the museum.
It's a good coffee table book. I wouldn't buy it. You can't define an artist in one piece, not possible. He either picked a incredibly cliché work of art or something that does not define the artist at all. Lichtenstein is one of my favorite artist and he picked one of his worsts paintings. Disappointing, good idea but it needed a lot more. I did enjoyed his illustrations.
Brooooo, m’ha agradat molt!!!!!! mmmm no és gens pretensiós i és una porta per entrar a quadres i a artistes moderns, sense que intimidi !!!! Aquest llibre és com una primera clau i de veritat que de locos. O sigui ara tinc mil ganes de saber més sobre l’art , he descobert quadres i rerefons súper súper súper macus mmmm vull seguir!!! A veure li he posat tres perquè clar, podria ser més complet i si no fossis súper súper curta com jo mmm segur que ja els coneixeries tots, però a mi m’ha servit molt i mje enamorat de molts artistes i sobre tot m’ha donat ilu per seguir investigant , que crec que és el més important :))) a les notes m’he apuntat els artistes que vull seguir explorant 🧚🏼🧚🏼 i què més es demana dels llibres ?!! No es demana més , si arriben a les teves notes mmm ho han aconseguit !!!!!!!!!!!
The designer Andy Tuohy has decided to represent a selection of twentieth century artists, mainly painters from the USA, Britain, Germany and France, by applying a symbolic portrait template or model, usually face on. He attempts to represent in some way the character and style of the individual subject, for example, the image of Henry Moore has a large aperture through his torso. Yes…
There are a few witty and observant portraits, but he often comes unstuck. Sidney Nolan, one the two Australians included is shown in profile in the manner of his Ned Kelly figure, holding a rifle. Unfortunately, Nolan’s head of the bushranger is already a perfect symbol which cannot be improved. Brett Whitley is actually OK, shown with his overalls and Harpo Marx hair.
But to be positive, Joan Miro is terrific in both colour and abstraction and Edward Hopper is properly noir.
However, the limitations of the images, their gimmickry if you like, is shown through the excellent text by Christopher Masters; his capsule bios of each artist are concise masterpieces of knowledge and appraisal. I learned a lot. To add to the imbalance, one or two works are included for each artist and they tend to show up the Andy Tuohy’s portraits.
I'm not really sure what this book was trying to be. The selection of artists included seems to have been made based solely on the fact that another artist made a caricature of them. The style depicted is a little too cartoon for my tastes - while there is some effort to capture the subject's style, I had no idea what the subject actually looked like in many cases. The accompanying text was simplistic and tended toward trivia, rather than substantial biography or critique. Perhaps this is intended for a young adult market.
Three stars for the concept, which is a good one, but not very well executed, in my opinion. And I thought all the "portraits" of the artists were too similar to each other to give one an idea of their individual styles.
the art work was realy good and it was kinda cool to see from an artistic stand point of the way people and famous artist where portrayed. The book gave a stong base of information and the history it told wasn't as boring as some would think.I would recomend this book to someone who likes art and would enjoy learning about where most of the art styles came from. There are no spoilers because its a history sort of deal.
A collection of portraits of modern artists accompanied by short biographies and one or, less often, two examples of their work. The portraits make a nod to the style of the artist, but that's the problem with them - they neither inform us of what the artist actually looked like nor are they a sufficiently close imitation of the style to inform us about what the artist did. The choice of artists is eclectic, which I don't mind when it comes to inclusion but why are so many artists excluded? Marc Quinn is the sole representative of the Young British Artists, and where are Balthus, Fernando Botero, Christo, Beryl Cook, Paul Delvaux, Gilbert and George, Andy Goldsworthy, Anthony Gormley, Richard Hamilton, Yves Klein, Willem de Kooning, Jeff Koons, Tamara de Lempicka, Bridget Riley, Dorothea Tanning, Victor Vasarely or Ai Weiwei? As for movements - Op Art isn't even mentioned, while neo-Impressionism is mentioned three times in the text but not explained in the glossary. The explanations of Divisionism and pointillism are so bad as to make it unclear as to whether the effective leader of the movement, Paul Signac (not mentioned, despite his influence), counts, since he painted mainly in brush-stroke dashes of colour rather than the insisted-on "dots".
My rating is all a matter of this book's title. If it had been titled "Illustrations of Modern Artists by Andy Tuohy", then it would have gotten a better review. As it is titled the reader thinks they are getting information on modern artists but Tuohy's colorful fun illustrations take up an huge portion of the space devoted to each artist. The artists covered often only get one illustration of their work and that is only 1/3 of the page while Tuohy's illustrations are all full page. There is reasonable information about the artists but without good examples of their work it is hard to really understand them.
This book is for everyone who love art and want to know something more about their favourite artists from the era of the Modernism. I like the clear texts for all 52 artists who are included in this book but also like the illustrations - simple but very attractive. It is easy for reading and it has tips for every artist like where we can see their artworks and "did you know..." short texts. I think that it will be useful for everyone who deal with art.
it's decent! i liked the illustrations, and the information was interesting and informative, though too brief to be super useful. it's okay for a basic primer while also going into some lesser-known but important artists (kusama!!! my heart was happy :')), but a lot of the artworks displayed in the book just aren't that important or great compared to the artist's whole portfolio IMO.
2.5 stars rounded down (upon after thought) No great depth to be found here, and I would argue it lacks breadth- very few women and non-white artists are represented. I’m also surprised by some of the “old white guy” omissions (Norman Rockwell, for example). A good starting point for ideas of artists to investigate, but functions for little else.
No me gusta el arte y no sé casi nada acerca de ello.
Pero este libro es una guía perfecta que nos lleva a observar las motivaciones de los artistas modernos más importantes del siglo. Increíble libro, supremamente recomendado para quienes gustan del arte y para los que no también.
Este libro lo leí gracias a mi pareja. Gracias, mi amor.
A brief summary of some modern artists works, most I hadn't heard off but a few I will delve into deeper. This book seems to get slated for trying to cover an artist's work on one or two examples, which is fair enough but it has expanded my understanding of a broad range of artists so fair play to it.
It's taken me a long time to even start this book but it was rewarding when I finally did, and I decided to look up each artist and piece of art as I went along to make it a more interactive educational read! There are some amazing artists here that I would never have discovered otherwise, definitely need a trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Tate Modern in London.
I loved this book because I understood the different styles of each artist. The concept behind the book is good and the design of it is awesome. It is very unique and informative at the same time. It has a proper length of information concerning each artist.