Long-lost eighties children's art book - can you identify it?
October 10, 2022 10:58 AM Subscribe
I had a wonderful art book that was published sometime in the early/mid eighties. It's been lost for years and years and internet searching is not helpful. Does the description within ring a bell?
It was a large, square/rectangular hardback with a paper dustjacket. It wasn't too thick. I believe that the background/frame of the images on the cover was medium yellow. There was a colorful painting on the cover.
The book was about various famous paintings. At least in part, it was structured around comparing paintings to each other - for instance, it explained what a conversation piece was and compared an eighteenth century conversation piece (probably by Joshua Reynolds but maybe not) with David Hockney's portrait of Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark, describing how the Hockney inverts some of the conversation piece conventions. It also included Henry Wallis's "The Death of Chatterton" and explained how the wisp of smoke from the expiring candle suggests the poet's expiring breath.
I believe it had at least one other famous pre-Raphaelite painting, possibly Millais's Ophelia or Mariana.
It may have been associated with a particular museum or museum press and there may have been other books in the series.
I really loved it and would like to try to find another copy.
It was a large, square/rectangular hardback with a paper dustjacket. It wasn't too thick. I believe that the background/frame of the images on the cover was medium yellow. There was a colorful painting on the cover.
The book was about various famous paintings. At least in part, it was structured around comparing paintings to each other - for instance, it explained what a conversation piece was and compared an eighteenth century conversation piece (probably by Joshua Reynolds but maybe not) with David Hockney's portrait of Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark, describing how the Hockney inverts some of the conversation piece conventions. It also included Henry Wallis's "The Death of Chatterton" and explained how the wisp of smoke from the expiring candle suggests the poet's expiring breath.
I believe it had at least one other famous pre-Raphaelite painting, possibly Millais's Ophelia or Mariana.
It may have been associated with a particular museum or museum press and there may have been other books in the series.
I really loved it and would like to try to find another copy.
That book has a double-page spread about David Hockney's Self-portrait with blue guitar but not any of the specific details recalled. But Lucy Micklethwait is a solid lead although this one is also a bust. And that exhausts our Dorling Kindersley Micklethwait archive.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:04 AM on October 11, 2022
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:04 AM on October 11, 2022
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posted by warriorqueen at 6:05 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]