Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis
This was the Holy Grail amongst illustrators, as so many tried to get their hands on this informative, out-of-print book. Loomis covers composition, tone, color, and storytelling in this 1947 manual designed as an aid for professional commercial artists.
Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth by Andrew Loomis
Another great book by American illustrator and teacher, Andrew Loomis. As the title implies, this tome focuses on drawing the figure. Valuable lessons and great, glamorous drawings by Loomis.
J.W. Waterhouse by Peter Trippi
I am a big fan of John William Waterhouse, and this monograph by Peter Trippi is excellent. The large format provides for good size images of the artist’s work.
more to come ...
Lawrence Alma-Tadema by Rosemary J. Barrow
Alma-Tadema is another of my favorites, and this is one of the best books out there on this artist of classical subjects.
Charles Bargue and Jean-Léon Gérôme: Drawing Course by Gerald Ackerman
This is a great book with plates originally designed in the nineteenth century for the academic art student to copy.
Alla Prima: Everything I Know About Painting
by Richard Schmid
A fantastic book by a modern master, Alla Prima covers Richard’s palette, philosophies, and way of seeing. Now in its eighth printing, it’s finally available in a more affordable paperback edition.
Beyond Impressionism: The Natural Impulse
by Dr. Gabriel P. Weisberg
This is a book I just keep coming back to again and again. It has sections on Friant, Bastien-Lepage, Claussen, Dagnan-Bouveret, Stanhope Forbes, etc.. Wonderful plates and great examples from the art of this time period.
Exposed: The Victorian Nude by Alison Smith
I loved the show which this book accompanied, and though I wish some of the paintings had received larger plates, it is still a nice collection of artwork. Leighton, Waterhouse, and Draper are among the artists featured.
Rockwell on Rockwell by Norman Rockwell
The other “Illustrator’s Bible,” this is a wonderful walkthrough of Rockwell’s methods written by the artist himself.
The Painter in Oil by Daniel Burkleigh Parkhurst
Written by a student of Bouguereau, this book offers a wealth of information about materials and processes of the nineteenth century academic painter. The current reprint is very affordable at Amazon.com, but you can find copies of it scanned and free on the internet at sites such as the Art Renewal Center.
Brushwork Essentials by Mark Christopher Weber
Despite having more than a dozen Northlight books, there are very few of which I am fond. This book, however, fills a nice void in the instruction book market: how to handle a brush. I found it very interesting, and it made me look at the brushwork in some of my favorite paintings a bit differently.
Orientalists: Western Artists in Arabia, the Sahara, Persia and India by Kristian Davies
An affordable book on Orientalist art, with nice clear plates, detail images, and information on artists not normally profiled in most books readily available on this topic.
A Manual of Oil Painting by John Collier
The book is more expensive than a Dover book, but that is what it most resembles. It is small, and the interior is nothing more than the scanned copy of the third printing (1889), but the information is good. The first half focuses on practice & training, and the second half on color/vision theory.
The Practice & Science of Drawing by Harold Speed
A great little book with valuable information, covering the academic approach to drawing.
Herbert Draper: A Life Study by Simon Toll
This is the only book out there on Draper, a fantastic artist whose subject matter was similar to Waterhouse.
John Singer Sargent: The Complete Paintings (Vols. I, II, III, & IV) by Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray
The definitive collection of Sargent’s paintings.
A Brush With Grandeur: Philip Alexius de László (1869-1937) by Sandra de László
This book, along with de László in Holland, provide the beginnings of a project to create a catalog raisonné of this artist’s work. Though not as well known as Sargent, it was de László who took over Sargent’s mantle, and became an even more successful portrait artist.
Against the Modern: Dagnan-Bouveret and the Transformation of the Academic Tradition
by Gabriel P. Weisberg
Another fantastic book on the Naturalist Movement in France by Dr. Weisberg. This book deals specifically with one of Gérôme’s best students, Pascal-Adolphe-Jean Dagnan-Bouveret (1852-1929).
The Artist’s Complete Guide to Figure Drawing
by Anthony J. Ryder
Tony Ryder is a Zen-like master whose meditations consist of tiny, specifically placed brush and pencil marks on a blank canvas. This is a wonderful exploration of a classically based approach to drawing the figure.
The Artist’s Handbook of Materials and Techniques
by Ralph Mayer
This book has been around for a while (and some may say that because of that, there isn’t enough on the newest art supplies), but it is still one of the best resources for information on pigments, methods, and materials. It should be in every artist’s reference collection.
A Life in the Arts by Eric Maisel, Ph.D.
My first non-art, art book to make the list, this self-help book was enjoyable, if only to reinforce the idea that all artists go through the same struggles with self-confidence, depression, and creative blocks.
Jeremy Lipking: Figures
forward by Michael Zakian, Ph.D.
Lipking is one of today’s greatest living realists, and this book is the only one out there on this fantastic painter. The book is self-published, and I hope Jeremy puts out more, soon.
William Merrit Chase: The Complete Catalog of Known and Documented Work by Wililam Merritt Chase (1849-1916), Vol. 2: Portraits in Oil
by Ronald G. Pisano
I recommend this book with some hesitation. There are some incredible pieces of artwork in this volume, most notably Chase’s portrait sketches, many of which I had never seen before. However, this printing brings up the question “for whom are art books intended?” I always want the largest, clearest plates with the best colors, but in this book by Pisano, it seems it was more important to list them all, rather than to represent them pictorially in the best light. There are photocopies OF photocopies of some images, and full-page images which are blurry, and yet you still find wonderful little treasures scattered throughout, but printed at only four times the size of a postage stamp. Thankfully, the quantity of good paintings helps to make up for the quality of the plates.
I hope this book on Chase leads to more, and that the next might be made up entirely of larger images of his color portrait studies; I would pay the same for a volume of 25 of those as I did for this catalog raisonné .
Anders Zorn Självbiografiska Anteckningar
by Birgitta Sandström
Zorn was a master of expressive brushstrokes, and he is often among the top 5 favorite “painterly” painters listed by contemporary romantic artists (the others being Sargent, Sorolla, Velázquez, and Fechin).
This little book is one of my treasures. I ordered it directly from the Zorn Museum in Sweden, because it was far too expensive to buy it from dealers in North America. The biography is in Swedish (there is no English translation of this book), but the pictures need no explanation. The images run from childhood drawings, to etchings, watercolors to oils. Among them are many great portraits, and his wonderful nudes painted en plein air.
Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light & Color and
Landscape Painting Inside & Out
by Kevin Macpherson
These two books by Macpherson are filled with practical information on plein air painting materials and offer nice little exercises and demos for the beginning outdoor painter. Most of all, however, they offer you Kevin Macpherson, who comes across as a kind and positive man and teacher. I’m sure that all who have had the opportunity to study with him directly find him to be very inspiring and encouraging.
J.C. Leyendecker
by Lawrence S. Cutler and Judy Goffman Cutler
The Cutlers, co-founders of the National Museum of American Illustration, turned a 12 year labor of love into a fantastic book on one of America’s greatest illustrators of the Golden Age. It is the first book on the artist in three decades, and includes not only his iconic Arrow Collar Man images, but also all 322 covers he did for the Saturday Evening Post (more than any other illustrator).
Bouguereau
by Fronia E. Wissman
Adolphe-William Bouguereau (1825-1905) is one of the greatest artists of the 19th century, who, unfortunately, was erased from art history. His photo-idealist paintings still present a technical prowess for which many of today’s contemporary realist painters still strive.
This book by Wissman is still the only contemporary book available on Bouguereau, and it offers a good biography as well as decent plates. Until the Art Renewal Center finally prints the Bouguereau Catalogue Raisonné, this is the book to have if you love French Academic art.
On the Training of Painters by Richard Lack
This small, spiral-bound manual, published by The American Society of Classical Realism, is a treasure trove of information from the atelier system as handed down through the Boston School. It contains an overview of atelier training, and provides instruction on Venetian and Bistre painting techniques, as well a wonderful list of recommended art books.
Oil Painting Techniques and Materials by Harold Speed
Speed’s follow-up to his drawing book is nearly as good as the first manual. The only drawback to this book is that it doesn’t have color plates, a problem Speed also laments. Still, a fantastic book for the price.
N.C. Wyeth: The Collected Illustrations, Paintings, and Murals by Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen, Jr.
This is a great introduction to this star of the Golden Age of Illustration. Many of Wyeth’s greatest works are reproduced here, from famous book covers, to his seldom-seen fine art pieces.
