Art Book Club

Art Book Club: The Origins

Over the last year I’ve joined a group of women artists to read books about art together. We met in an abstract painting class over at Gage Academy and discovered in each other a great love of reading. So, naturally, we decided to have ourselves a book club! We choose books about Art: history, theory, and practice.

Recently, I thought to myself “Stevie, why aren’t you blogging about this?” and my answer was that I wanted to keep this to myself. But then I began to notice something.

I read A LOT of books. Every time I want to read a new book I look up the reviews. With art books, there are almost never any reviews. The last book I went to read had three (3!!!) reviews- and the book had been published for over 20 years!

Unacceptable. There are art books that I’ve read in the past that have been extra bad that I could have dodged if someone had written a review. No one needs to be wasting time. Be the change you want to see Stevie!

So, I’ve decided! Every time we finish a book I will be writing a review here on it. In the meantime, here are some short reviews of books Art Book Club as already read:

Lessons in classical drawing cover.jpg

Lessons In Classical Drawing by Juliette Aristides

★★★★★ An excellent book full of helpful tutorials and engaging stories. Aristides is as good of a writer as she is a painter- and her paintings are stellar.

Ninth Street Women cover.jpg

Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art by Mary Gabriel

★★★★☆ This book will make you love these five women artist who had to fight to be seen. A great biography told like a story.

Matisse, Picasso, Miro--as I Knew Them cover.jpg

Matisse, Picasso, Miro--as I Knew Them by Rosamund Bernier

★★★☆☆ An interesting personal perspective on three famous artists. Not sure if it made me like them more or less.

Carr, O'Keeffee, Kahlo cover.jpg

Carr, O'Keeffe, Kahlo: Places of Their Own

by Shsryn Rohlfsen Udall

★★☆☆☆ This book reads like an academic dissertation. Really interesting comparisons written in the driest voice. Proceed with caution.

BooksStephanie ScottComment