Few artists command the worldwide attention and esteem of Vincent van Gogh, whose landscapes, flower paintings, and portraits, so startlingly rendered, linger in the imagination. Here are six of his finest paintings, including a famous self-portrait and a memorable still life of irises. All have been finely reproduced in full color, ready to share with friends on any occasion. Original Dover (1991) publication.
The beloved gift format that is 100 postcards in a box has never been more beautiful. The images include 100 rare portraits of exotic flowers, cacti and succulents from the world-renowned collection of the NY Botanical Garden. Printed on lush, uncoated stock to mimic the original paintings, these brilliantly colored postacrds can be mailed, framed or used in craft projects.
Featuring 625 original, architectural, colour postcards of the United States out of a collection of 6,000 documents, this comprehensive choice provides the first ever reference book on the subject. 'Many of the images in the collection of postcards in thi
Classic covers by the beloved artist include Rosie the Riveter, The Runaway, Triple Self-Portrait, Soda Jerk, Before the Shot, and Freedom from Want, also known as "The Thanksgiving Picture."
Capturing the simplicity and sweetness of mid-20th-century American life, six cards feature classic cover illustrations by three of the famous magazine's most celebrated artists. Images include Milkman Meets Pieman, Billboard Painters, Penny Candy, and Pete's Double Headers by Stevan Dohanos, plus Brushing Their Teeth by Amos Sewell and Doggy Buffet by Richard Sargent.
Today, no one seriously doubts the value, both aesthetic and historic, of the ubiquitous American photographic postcard. This was the medium that really brought photography to the masses; these cards were affordable, they were topical, and they could be sent for a penny anywhere in the country. The variety of imagery, much of it developed anonymously in small studios, much of it taken by inspired amateurs (these were the days when anyone could, and many folks did, own a camera) displays America in all its variety and vitality. Most postcards were mass produced and printed in ink by the collotype or halftone process. But a few were original photographic prints, exposed directly from glass plates or film negatives. Known as real photos these were real photographs, aristocrats of the genre and spectacular examples of vernacular photography. In this charming and scholarly book, Vaule selects the best of them, from all over the country, addressing their social and historical contexts, explaining the mysteries of their manufacture and dissemination, and describing the characteristics and identities of their makers, many of whose names and studios are listed in the book. But without doubt, it is the images themselves that still hold us: storefronts and townships, frisky children and sober adults, air ships and barn raisings. Over one hundred are reproduced here, each in fine-line duotone, each as fascinating and compelling today as when first fixed on paper.
Brilliantly colored cards celebrate the endless enchantment of mermaids, with vibrant reproductions of works by celebrated artists. Includes: The Depths of the Sea, Burne-Jones; Ulysses and the Sirens, Draper; A Mermaid, Waterhouse; The Mermaid, Pyle; The Land Baby, Collier; The Fisherman and the Siren, Leighton.
The authors discuss the differences between original photographs and their postcard equivalents, and they explore in detail common practices - such as artificial settings, costumes and props, colorization, and patronizing captions - that perpetuated racist, sexist, and romantic stereotypes.
The use of cars and trucks over the past century has remade American geography—pushing big cities ever outward toward suburbanization, spurring the growth of some small towns while hastening the decline of others, and spawning a new kind of commercial landscape marked by gas stations, drive-in restaurants, motels, tourist attractions, and countless other retail entities that express our national love affair with the open road. By its very nature, this landscape is ever changing, indeed ephemeral. What is new quickly becomes old and is soon forgotten. In this absorbing book, John Jakle and Keith Sculle ponder how “Roadside America” might be remembered, especially since so little physical evidence of its earliest years survives. In straightforward and lively prose, supplemented by copious illustrations—historic and modern photographs, advertising postcards, cartoons, roadmaps—they survey the ways in which automobility has transformed life in the United States. Asking how we might best commemorate and preserve this part of our past—which has been so vital economically and politically, so significant to the cultural aspirations of ordinary Americans, yet so often ignored by scholars who dismiss it as kitsch—they propose the development of an actual outdoor museum that would treat seriously the themes of our roadside history. Certainly, museums have been created for frontier pioneering, the rise of commercial agriculture, and the coming of water- and steam-powered industrialization and transportation, especially the railroad. Is now not the time, the authors ask, for a museum forcefully exploring the automobile’s emergence and the changes it has brought to place and landscape? Such a museum need not deny the nostalgic appeal of roadsides past, but if done properly, it could also tell us much about what the authors describe as “the most important kind of place yet devised in the American experience.” John A. Jakle is Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Keith A. Sculle is the former head of research and education at the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. They have coauthored such books as America’s Main Street Hotels: Transiency and Community in the Early Automobile Age; Motoring: The Highway Experience in America; Fast Food: Roadside Restaurants in the Automobile Age; and The Gas Station in America.
