31 January 2012 | Awards, Books
CAA announced the winners of its Barr and Morey awards, among others. Winning the Morey award for best book is Alexander Nagel’s The Controversy of Renaissance Art, “a compelling reexamination of the key paradoxes that define this era and the works associated with it.” The Barr award for best catalogue goes to Man, Myth, and [...]
25 January 2012 | Awards, Books, Renaissance
One of four books nominated for CAA’s Morey Award, Michael W. Cole’s Ambitious Form: Giambologna, Ammanati, and Danti in Florence is a group portrait of three late Cinquecento sculptors. They are most often compared to their forerunner Michelangelo, but were just as influenced by each other, Cole writes: Early writers make it clear that sculptors [...]
21 January 2012 | Awards, Modern
The National Gallery’s Edgar Degas Sculpture may look like your average permanent-collection catalogue, of the kind that well-funded museums are perpetually issuing and re-issuing for the sake of scholarship (and self-promotion). However, details of provenance and material history are truly fascinating when it comes to Edgar Degas. He was unusual in his materials and in [...]
18 January 2012 | Awards, Renaissance
Next up in our CAA Barr Award coverage, a consideration of Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart’s Renaissance: It delivers 484 pages of catalogue-raisonné detail, scholarship-packed analysis, and long-overdue re-evaluation of this neglected artist. It also overstates its case. Nearly every essay protests Gossart’s low reputation and minimizes his failings. “One of the most [...]
11 January 2012 | Americas, Books
Also in caa.reviews, Katherine Manthorne considers ($) Kirsten Pai Buick’s Child of the Fire: Mary Edmonia Lewis and the Problem of Art History’s Black and Indian Subject: [This book is Buick's] anticipated full-length examination of this sculptor’s career. It is a thoughtful, groundbreaking study that should be a must-read for anyone interested in art of [...]
11 January 2012 | Ancient, Books
Caa.reviews offers a welcome if belated review ($) of Peter Stewart’s 2008 book The Social History of Roman Art. Brenda Longfellow writes: In an innovative twist, Peter Stewart embeds a summary of social-historical scholarship into his book on the functions and reception of Roman art … Each chapter focuses on a theme that has received [...]
11 January 2012 | Africa, Books, Modern, Photography
Wendy A. Grossman. Man Ray, African Art, and the Modernist Lens. Washington DC: International Art and Artists, 2009. 184 pp.; 23 color ills.; 259 b/w. $39.95 Wendy A. Grossman’s thoroughly researched and lucidly written exhibition catalog Man Ray, African Art, and the Modernist Lens effectively reveals the process “by which African objects, formerly considered [...]
9 January 2012 | Awards, Books, Medieval
It’s awards season again. CAA’s Alfred H. Barr Jr. and Charles Rufus Morey prizes may not be as ballyhooed as the Oscars but they are coveted by members of the American art history academy. This week I begin examining the finalists for this year’s Barr Award, which is awarded to museum catalogues published between September [...]
