Artists Materials

Much more than just another guide to artists’ materials, The Painter’s Handbook is an amazingly useful resource, with information on everything from the canvas up: the canvas itself, plus paper, sizes and grounds, pigments and binders, solvents and thinners, varnishes and preservatives. Dozens of step-by-step recipes for make-it-yourself paints, pastels, varnishes, gessoes, sizes, supports, and equipment take this indispensable guide way beyond the competition. Authoritatively written by Mark David Gottsegen, chair of the federal government’s ASTM committee on artist’s materials, the revised Painter’s Handbook considers the enormous changes in the art-materials world since the first edition was published in 1993. New materials, new health issues, new information on outmoded and even harmful supplies and practices mean that every painter needs a copy of The Painter’s Handbook.

Which canvas fabric is best for oil paints? When should you use colored inks? How can you avoid the darkening of acrylics over time? Choosing the right materials for your artwork can be tricky. Artist's Materials is a compact, indispensable and comprehensive guide to help you with these dilemmas, useful for both experienced and aspiring artists. Full of detailed advice on an array of materials and techniques, topics include: • How to pick your paints, be it oils, acrylics, watercolors or tempera • Painting techniques, including encaustic painting and gesso grounds • How to use fixatives, primers and varnishes • Making your own materials, such as canvases, paints and glues • Information on drawing materials, color mixing and brushes With a pigment color index, a glossary of key terms and information on caring for and storing your finished artwork, this book will equip you with all the tools you need to become a confident and versatile artist.

The first significant publication on Clyfford Still and his work in more than twenty-five years celebrates one of abstract expressionism’s founders. Best known for his compelling abstract works with jagged fields and powerful expanses of color, Clyfford Still (1904–1980) stands among the giants of post–World War II art. Together with Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, and Barnett Newman, Still helped shape abstract expressionism. This vividly illustrated book presents more than one hundred of Still’s greatest works and is the first comprehensive catalogue of the new Clyfford Still Museum in Denver. The book offers intimate reflections written by his daughters Sandra Still Campbell and Diane Still Knox; Dean Sobel chronicles the origins of the new museum; and David Anfam, one of the world’s foremost authorities on Still’s work, gives a new scholarly and critical perspective of Still, made possible by the opening of the museum. Illustrations include monumental paintings, works on paper, and Still’s only sculptures, many of which have never been published or publicly exhibited.

Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) is widely regarded as one of the most influential and innovative post-World War II Italian artists. This title presents a technical study in English of this important painter and an informative overview of Fontana's life and work.

Jean Paul Riopelle (1923-2002) was one of the most important Canadian artists of the twentieth century, yet he is relatively unknown in the U.S.. He began his career in Montreal in the 1940s, where he played a role in the influential Automatist movement, and established his reputation in the burgeoning art scene of postwar Paris, where his circle included André Breton, Samuel Beckett, and Sam Francis. During his career, Riopelle produced over six thousand works, including more than two thousand paintings. This volume, the second in the Artist's Materials series, grew out of a research project of the Canadian Conservation Institute. Initial chapters present an overview of Riopelle's life and situate his work within the context of twentieth-century art. Subsequent chapters address Riopelle's materials and techniques, focusing on his oil paintings and mixed media works, and on conservation issues. The preface is by Yseult Riopelle, the artist's eldest daughter and editor of his catalogue raisonné. This first book-length study of the artist in English will interest curators, conservators, conservation scientists, and general readers.

This latest volume in the popular Guide to Imagery series discusses the materials and processes used in eight media: painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, mosaics, ceramics, glass, and metalwork. The book provides art enthusiasts with new insights into the creation of many of the world's great masterpieces.

This title, dedicated to the memory of Caroline Villers, is the proceedings of a conference in London in 2005.

The career of the German-American painter and educator Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) describes the arc of artistic modernism from pre–World War I Munich and Paris to mid twentieth-century Greenwich Village. His career also traces the transatlantic engagement of modern painting with the materials of its own making, a relationship that is perhaps still not completely understood. In these interrelated narratives, Hofmann is a central protagonist, providing a vital link between nineteenth- and twentieth-century art practice and between European and American modernism. The remarkable vitality of his later work affords insight not only into the style but also the literal substance of this formative period of artistic and material innovation. This richly illustrated book, the fourth in the Getty Conservation Institute’s Artist’s Materials series, presents a thorough examination of Hofmann’s late-career materials. Initial chapters present an informative overview of Hofmann’s life and work in Europe and America and discuss his crucial role in the development of Abstract Expressionism. Subsequent chapters present a detailed analysis of Hofmann’s materials and techniques and explore the relationship of the artist’s mature palette to shifts in the style and aging characteristics of his paintings. The book concludes with lessons for the conservation of modernist paintings generally, and particularly those that incorporate both traditional and modern paint media. This book will be of value to conservators, art historians, conservation scientists, and general readers with an interest in modern art.