Books - North America - Art of the Americas - Research Guides at South Florida State College

Featured Resources

Indian Art of Ancient Florida by Barbara A. Purdy; Roy C. Craven
Call Number: E78 .F6 P89 1996 Florida
ISBN: 9780813014623
Publication Date: 1996-11-24
For thousands of years, the Indians of Florida created exquisite objects from the natural materials available to them - wood, bone, stone, clay, and shell. This stunning full-color book, the first devoted exclusively to the artistic achievements of the Florida aborigines, describes and pictures 116 of these masterpieces. A brief history of the consequences of European infiltration and later investigations by explorers and archaeologists sets the stage for consideration of the works themselves. They date from the Paleoindian period (ca. 9500-8000 B.C.) to the mid-sixteenth century and include utilitarian creations, instruments of personal adornment and magic, and objects indicating status, paying homage to ancestors, or aiding the dead in their journey into the next world.
Northwest Coast Indian Art by Bill Holm; Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture Staff (Contribution by)
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780295999500
Publication Date: 2015-01-01
The 50th anniversary edition of this classic work on the art of Northwest Coast Indians now offers color illustrations for a new generation of readers along with reflections from contemporary Northwest Coast artists about the impact of this book. The masterworks of Northwest Coast Native artists are admired today as among the great achievements of the world's artists. The painted and carved wooden screens, chests and boxes, rattles, crest hats, and other artworks display the complex and sophisticated northern Northwest Coast style of art that is the visual language used to illustrate inherited crests and tell family stories.
America in 1492: the world of the Indian peoples before the arrival of Columbus by Alvin M. Josephy
Call Number: E58 .A526 1993
ISBN: 0679743375
Publication Date: 1993-02-02
Illustrated essays on the history and cultures of American Indians. Covers geographic locations, languages, spiritual beliefs, customs, and art.
The American Heritage History of the Artists' America by Marshall B. Davidson
Call Number: N8214.5 .U6 D38 1973
ISBN: 0070154376
Publication Date: 1973-01-01
A comprehensive view of the American scene depicted by principal artists in this country.
Florida's Colonial Architectural Heritage by Elsbeth K. Gordon
Call Number: NA730 .F6 G67 2002 Florida
ISBN: 0813024633
Publication Date: 2002-05-28
Florida's Colonial Architectural Heritage is the story of how buildings were planned and constructed in Florida from 1565 to 1821, the 256 years that the colony was ruled by Spain and England. From indigenous Native American dwellings through Spanish/Indian, Spanish, and British architecture, Gordon traces the styles, materials, uses, and context of almost every building recorded or standing during this period.
American Painting of the Nineteenth Century by Barbara Novak
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 0195309421
Publication Date: 2007-01-12
Novak examines the paintings of Washington Allston, Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Fitz H. Lane, William Sidney Mount, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, and Albert Pinkham Ryder. She draws provocative and original conclusions about the role in American art of spiritualism and mathematics, conceptualism and the object, and Transcendentalism and the fact. She analyzes not only the paintings but nineteenth-century aesthetics as well, achieving a unique synthesis of art and literature.
American Impressionism by William H. Gerdts
Call Number: Oversize ND210.5 .I4 G474 1984
Publication Date: 1995-08-01
Years in the making, this elegant and far-ranging volume has helped establish the ever-growing passion for American Impressionism and remains the most invaluable source of information on the subject. Called the best book ever written on the subject by Artforum, it includes reproductions of all the masterworks. 400 illustrations, 200 in color.
The Highwaymen: Florida's African-American Landscape Painters by Gary Monroe
Call Number: ND1351.6 .M66 2001 Florida
ISBN: 0813022819
Publication Date: 2001-11-20
Monroe examines the work of a group of young African American painters famous for their romanticized Florida landscapes.
Frank Lloyd Wright and His Manner of Thought by Jerome Klinkowitz
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780299301439
Publication Date: 2014-09-01
Klinkowitz presents a critical biography driven by the architect's own work and intellectual growth, focusing on the evolution of Wright's thinking and writings from his first public addresses in 1894 to his last essay in 1959. Did Wright reject all of Victorian thinking about the home, or do his attentions to a minister's sermon on "the house beautiful" deserve closer attention? Was Wright echoing the Transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson, or was he more in step with the philosophy of William James? Did he reject the Arts and Crafts movement, or repurpose its beliefs and practices for new times? And, what can be said of his deep dissatisfaction with architectural concepts of his own era, the dominant modernism that became the International Style? Even the strongest advocates of Frank Lloyd Wright have been puzzled by his objections to so much that characterized the twentieth century, from ideas for building to styles of living.
The Modern Art Invasion by Elizabeth Lunday
Call Number: N6448 .A74 L86 2013
ISBN: 9780762790173
Publication Date: 2013-10-01
The story behind the 1913 Armory Show, the most important art exhibit in U.S. history. Held a century ago, in the winter of 1913, the show brought Modernism to America in an unprecedented display of 1300 works by artists including Picasso, Matisse, and Duchamp. Drawing from primary sources and setting the Armory Show into the context of American culture just before World War I, the book brings the exhibition and its era to vivid life.
American Gothic by Steven Biel
Call Number: ND237 .W795 A66 2005
ISBN: 9780393059120
Publication Date: 2005-06-01
Is There Anyone who has not seen the sturdy Iowa farmer with his pitchfork and his thin-lipped wife or daughter? Ever since it met the public eye in 1930, the work titled American Gothic has elicited admiration, disgust, reverence, and ridicule--and has been reproduced hundreds of thousands of times, in every medium. Painted by a self-proclaimed "bohemian" who studied in Paris, the image was first seen as a critique of Midwestern Puritanism and what H. L. Mencken called "the booboisie." During the Depression, it came to represent endurance in hard times through the quintessential American values of thrift, work, and faith. Later, in television, advertising, politics, and popular culture, American Gothic evolved into parody--all the while remaining a lodestar by which one might measure closeness to or distance from the American heartland. With broad perspective, acute insight, and humor, Steven Biel explores the strangely enduring life of America's most popular painting
Jackson Pollock, 1912-1956 : at the limit of painting by Leonhard Emmerling
Call Number: Oversize ND237 .P73 E46 2009
ISBN: 9783836512763
Publication Date: 2009-03-01
A tragic icon of Abstract Expressionism, Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) took influences from Picasso and Mexican surrealism and developed his own way of seeing, interpreting, and expressing. Though his name inevitably conjures up images of the drip paintings for which he is most famous, this technique was only developed midway through his career. The progression from his earlier work to his final "action" paintings --a veritable revolution of painting as a concept--reveals the genius of this tortured artist whom many call the greatest modern American painter.
Roy Lichtenstein: classic of the new by Roy Lichtenstein; Avis Berman (Contribution by); Michael Craig-Martin (Contribution by); Eckhard Schneider (Editor)
Call Number: Oversize N6537 .L5 A4 2005
ISBN: 3883759651
Publication Date: 2005-10-15
Blondes, beds, and black-and-white works sum up this selection of Roy Lichtensteins series, based on an exhibition mounted at Viennas famous Kunsthaus Bregenz in 2005. This substantial catalogue contains 80 essential color reproductions, some in high-quality foldouts, under three thematic groupings: early black-and-white works of the 60s; the woman as motif in his paintings from the 60s, 70s, and 80s; and his interiors, especially those from the 90s. Leading scholars in the field, including Michael Lobel and Avis Berman, newly illuminate the Pop masters oeuvre in the context of this juxtaposition of early and late periods. Also included are studio photographs, some of which have never been published before, and finally, a biography and bibliography related specifically to the exhibition themes.
Your Favorite Seuss: 13 stories written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss with 13 introductory essays by Dr. Seuss; María Leach (Designed by); Molly Leach (Designed by)
Call Number: Oversize PZ8.3 .G5738 You 2004
ISBN: 0375810617
Publication Date: 2004-10-12
A compilation of more than a dozen previously published Dr. Seuss books, plus essays by nine authors and other book lovers, including Audrey Geisel, widow of Dr. Seuss.
Walt Disney by Neal Gabler
Call Number: NC1766 .U52 D5375 2006
ISBN: 9780679438229
Publication Date: 2006-10-31
From Neal Gabler, the definitive portrait of one of the most important figures in twentieth-century American entertainment and cultural history. Seven years in the making and meticulously researched—Gabler is the first writer to be given complete access to the Disney archives—this is the full story of a man whose work left an ineradicable brand on our culture but whose life has largely been enshrouded in myth. Gabler shows us the young Walt Disney breaking free of a heartland childhood of discipline and deprivation and making his way to Hollywood. We see the visionary, whose desire for escape honed an innate sense of what people wanted to see on the screen and, when combined with iron determination and obsessive perfectionism, led him to the reinvention of animation.
Bearing Witness: contemporary works by African American women artists by Jontyle Theresa Robinson; Tritobia H. Benjamin; Pearl Cleage; et al.
Call Number: N6538 .N5 B43 1996
ISBN: 0847819620
Publication Date: 1996-07-15
Twenty-five of the most outstanding African American women artists have contributed their work to the exhibition "Bearing Witness," celebrating the opening of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art and the 115th anniversary of the college. Works in all mediums are included here - paintings, sculptures, fiber art, mixed mediums, and prints - created by some of today's most exceptional artists, among them Lorna Simpson, Faith Ringgold, Carrie Mae Weems, and Betye Saar.
Walls of Empowerment by Guisela Latorre
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780292793934
Publication Date: 2010-09-01
Exploring three major hubs of muralist activity in California, where indigenist imagery is prevalent, Walls of Empowerment celebrates an aesthetic that seeks to firmly establish Chicana/o sociopolitical identity in U.S. territory. Providing readers with a history and genealogy of key muralists' productions, Guisela Latorre also showcases new material and original research on works and artists never before examined in print.
Comic Book Nation: the transformation of youth culture in America by Bradford W. Wright
Call Number: PN6725 .W74 2001
ISBN: 080186514X
Publication Date: 2001-03-22
In Comic Book Nation, Bradford W. Wright offers an engaging, illuminating, and often provocative history of the comic book industry within the context of twentieth-century American society.
Still Looking: essays on American art by John Updike
Call Number: N6505 .U64 2005
ISBN: 9781400044184
Publication Date: 2005-11-08
Eighteen essays of art criticism cover early American portraiture and landscape painting, late-nineteenth-century masters Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins, and the work of such artists as James McNeill Whistler and Alfred Stieglitz.

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