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Artwork
Editions on natural-history reproductions,
a cartoon retrospective and a classic collection. |
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 Bird-Watching
Art lovers and bird lovers will enjoy Birds: The Art of
Ornithology (Rizzoli New York, 2005, $60), a beautifully
illustrated history of the development of ornithological art
from 1650 until today. Drawing on the unrivaled collection
of London's Natural History Museum, author Jonathan
Elphick presents the work of the field's most famous
natural-history artists – such as Audubon, Lear, Gould,
MacGillivray and Wolf. More than 200 magnificent reproductions
of engravings, watercolors and lithographs illustrate the
degree of both artistic talent and detailed scientific knowledge
required to create these superbly detailed renderings of both
common and exotic bird species. |
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 A
Career of Cartooning
In celebration of the The New Yorker's 80th
anniversary comes the publication of Steinberg at The
New Yorker (Abrams; $50), a retrospective of versatile
cartoonist Saul Steinberg's 60 years of original covers,
cartoons and illustrations for the magazine. As author Joel
Smith notes, “In any given week Steinberg's contributions
might cast him in the role of poet, historian, streetscape
observer, short story writer or metaphysical essayist.”
This comprehensive volume of 363 illustrations reproduces
all 89 of Steinberg's New Yorker covers as well as many
of his inside drawings, while exploring the various themes
that marked his career as one of the foremost artists of the
postwar period. |
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 Masterpieces
Over
the past four decades, art patrons Jayne and Charles Wrightsman
have amassed 150 European paintings, pastels and drawings
from the late 15th to the mid-19th centuries. Most were
donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art; others remain
in Mrs. Wrightsman's private collection. The Wrightsman
Pictures (Yale University Press, $75) is a lavish catalog
of this collection, reproducing each work in color alongside
a short essay by such eminent art historians as Everett
Fahy, chairman of the Met's department of European
Paintings, and Pierre Rosenberg, former director of the
Louvre. Highlights include masterpieces by Vermeer, El Greco,
Rubens, Van Dyck, Georges de La Tour and Jacques-Louis David,
as well as numerous works by Canaletto, Tiepolo and Ingres.
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