[.uk] Paintings of California (ISBN 0520211847)

Captures the feel of California:
I love this book. I lived in California for 10 years and became totally enchanted by it. This book brings back pleasant memories of sites, sounds, and smells from the Golden State. The total sensory experiences of the Sierra foothills covered with wildflowers in the spring, the ocean's edge at Big Sur, the hills above San Louis Obispo, the sierras in the summer, and many others come flooding back while browsing this book. My only complaint is its size. These images deserve a big coffee-table style book.

lovely book:
I bought this book years ago at an art museum bookstore. It was one of those books that I nearly didn't buy because I didn't think I would look at it more than once, and it was an impulse buy, but it is one of my favorites now. Every now and then I take it off the shelf and look through it, and each time I do I am glad. It reminds me of all the beautiful parts of my home, California. It is a great collection of lesser-known works which capture our landscape perfectly, beautifully. It would be nice if it were a larger book because the pictures would then be larger, but if it were, I might not pick it up so often, and I might not have bought it. The print and paper quality is excellent, so perhaps it is fine as-is.

Fabulous little book:
The introduction considers what it is about California, the light, the landscape and flora that attracts the artist. It very briefly discusses the artistic growth of the area along with its social and economic development. However the real attraction of this modest, by art book standards, publication is the sheer diversity of the work, the contrast as each page reveals a new aspect; occasionally a familiar image but more often something new. From these pictures, presented roughly in chronological order, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, one gets an image of the rapid growth of the area, and the richness of the environment and of course the variety of work that it has inspired. The images, over seventy in total, are presented in full colour, one to a page, occasionally with a literary quote on the facing page from the likes of Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac and many others. They include oils and watercolours. The book concludes with some very brief biographies of the artists included, just three or four lines each; and details of some selected California museums. The lists of artists includes: Albert Bierstadt, George Inness, Chile Hassam, Elmer Wachtel, Granville Redmond, Elmer Bischoff, Wayne Thiebaud, Richard Diebenkorn, Edward Ruscha, George Bellows, David Hockney and David Park to mention just a few.