{"id":2658,"date":"2020-12-07T08:58:32","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T13:58:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=2658"},"modified":"2020-12-07T08:58:32","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T13:58:32","slug":"charlotte-art-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/charlotte-art-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlotte Art Books"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I like coffee, and I like books, and I don\u2019t have anything against tables.\u00a0 However, I don\u2019t especially like the term coffee table book.\u00a0 <\/em>When I come across this term, it causes me to associate a book with a glorified coaster or a saucer for a coffee cup.\u00a0 I prefer to use the term art book <\/em>when I am referring to a book that features photographs and reproductions of visual images.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I enjoy perusing art books.\u00a0 I like the way the images and the text work together.\u00a0 I also like the way the images in an art book relate to the other images in the book.\u00a0 I often have sense that the images are speaking to each other in a synergistic way, and I know that this experience is no accident.\u00a0 Like the curator of an art exhibit, the creator of an art book puts a great deal of thought into the arrangement and presentation of the images in the book.\u00a0 I am pleased to report the recent publication of several art books that have associations with Charlotte.\u00a0 For the purposes of this blog post, I will focus on three such books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Anne Neilson\u2019s Angels <\/em>came out last month, and it features 40 full-color reproductions of Neilson\u2019s well-known angel paintings.\u00a0 Often described as \u201cethereal,\u201d these oil paintings reflect Neilson\u2019s skill in playing with light, color and texture.\u00a0 The wings on her angels are usually created by the thick application of oil paints, and this technique gives these angel wings a three-dimensional quality.\u00a0 The book also includes \u201cinspirational devotions\u201d in keeping with Neilson\u2019s Christian religious beliefs.\u00a0 Neilson is a Charlotte-based artist and owner of Anne Neilson Fine Art, an art gallery located in Charlotte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Charlotte:\u00a0 The Signs of the Times<\/em> reflects photographer Christopher Lawing\u2019s passion for Charlotte\u2019s iconic signs.\u00a0 He first took an interest in photographing these signs while still a student at Myers Park High School, and for the next seven years he continued to photograph and research the history of Charlotte\u2019s historic signs.\u00a0 In this lavishly illustrated book, Lawing brings together photographs of over 100 distinctive Charlotte signs, many of which are associated with important Charlotte landmarks, including Ratcliffe\u2019s Flowers, the World Famous Open Kitchen, and Mr. K\u2019s Soft Ice Cream.\u00a0 For each of the photographed signs, Lawing provides information about the sign\u2019s location, the history of the business associated with the sign, and a note about the sign\u2019s current status.\u00a0 Sadly, some of the physical signs no longer exists, but they live on in Lawing\u2019s book.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Classic Black:\u00a0 The Basalt Sculpture of Wedgwood and His Contemporaries <\/em>is by Brian D. Gallagher, the Curator of Decorative Arts at the Mint Museum.\u00a0 This book functions as a catalog for the Mint Museum\u2019s current \u201cClassic Black\u201d exhibit, which can be seen at the museum\u2019s Randolph Road location.\u00a0 However, the book also functions as a stand-alone celebration of black basalt sculptures and ornamental wares.\u00a0 Classic Black <\/em>includes 254 color illustrations of busts, statues, vases, cameos, and other works created out of black basalt.\u00a0 In the words of a reviewer from the Wall Street Journal, <\/em>this is \u201ca handsomely illustrated catalog written by Mr. Gallagher, with contributions by several eminent colleagues in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For readers who are interested in checking out other art books that are tied to Charlotte, I suggest that they visit the gift shops at the area art museums.  In some cases, Charlotte\u2019s art museums still have the catalogs for temporary exhibits, such as the Mint Museum\u2019s 2011 ground-breaking exhibit titled \u201cRomare Bearden:  Southern Recollections.\u201d  These museum catalogs, along with the various art books created by Charlotte painters and photographers, add a rich visual dimension to the ever-expanding library of books that make up Storied Charlotte. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like coffee, and I like books, and I don\u2019t have anything against tables.\u00a0 However, I don\u2019t especially like the term coffee table book.\u00a0 When I come across this term, it causes me to associate a book with a glorified coaster or a saucer for a coffee cup.\u00a0 I prefer to use the term art […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[155,156],"class_list":["post-2658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-storied-charlotte","tag-art-books","tag-coffee-table-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2658"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2674,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658\/revisions\/2674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}