Block Publications

Design in the Age of Darwin: From William Morris to Frank Lloyd Wright

Design in the Age of Darwin — by Northwestern University art history professor Stephen F. Eisenman, with Block Museum curator Corinne Granof — explores the previously unrecognized relationship between Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and English and American decorative arts and architecture in the 19th and 20th centuries. Published in partnership with Northwestern University Press, the book features more than 50 color plates of works by William Morris, Christopher Dresser, C. F. A. Voysey, C. R. Ashbee, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright, along with essays by Eisenman, Northwestern art history professor David Van Zanten, and graduate students Zirwat Chowdhury, Jacob Lewis, and Angelina Lucento. The companion to the exhibition Design in the Age of Darwin also includes an introduction by the Block Museum’s Ellen Philips Katz Director, David Alan Robertson.

ISBN: 0-8101-5204-5 (softcover) $36.95
140 pages.

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Imaging by Numbers: A Historical View of the Computer Print

Published in conjunction with the Block Museum exhibition Imaging by Numbers: A Historical View of the Computer Print curated by artist Paul Hertz and Block senior curator Debora Wood, this book showcases the intersection of the graphic arts and digital technology. Included are more than twenty-five reproductions of computer-generated prints and drawings from the 1950s to the present. The book also includes a foreward by David Robertson, the Block’s Ellen Philips Katz Director, and an introduction to the topic by Wood.

ISBN: 0-8101-2505-6 (softcover) $19.95
54 pages; 34 illustrations

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Marion Mahony Griffin: Drawing the Form of Nature

Architect Marion Mahoney Griffin is known primarily for her magnificent drafting style that incorporated dramatic and stylized landscapes into architectural plans. Yet standard histories of early twentieth-century architecture, which often consider her a minor contributor to Prairie School architecture, have not fully recognized her pioneering work. Published in conjunction with the Block Museum exhibition of the same name, Marion Mahony Griffin: Drawing the Form of Nature is the first catalogue devoted to Mahony Griffin's graphic work, presenting a new critical interpretation of her art as a largely independent and significant practice. In addition to essays on her life and career, the catalogue includes a facsimile of the Australian tree drawings and Mahony Griffin's captions as illustrated in the New-York Historical Society copy of The Magic of America, as well as photographs of all of her known Australian botanical drawings and watercolors from public and private collections.

ISBN: 0-8101-2357-6 (softcover) $34.95
132 pages; 105 illustrations

Casting a Shadow: Creating the Alfred Hitchcock Film

Published by Northwestern University Press and the Block Museum, this book expands the investigation into Hitchcock's working methods begun in the exhibition Casting a Shadow: Creating the Alfred Hitchcock Film. The catalogue features an introduction by Block Museum Ellen Philips Katz Director David Alan Robertson and chapters by exhibition curator Will Schmenner, film scholars Scott Curtis of Northwestern University, Tom Gunning of the University of Chicago, Jan Olsson of Stockholm University, and film critic Bill Krohn. Edited by Schmenner and Block Museum associate curator Corinne Granof, the book includes 63 illustrations and 33 plates.

ISBN: 0-8101-2447-5 (softcover) $32.95
156 pages; 99 illustrations
Available from Northwestern University Press

Old Master Prints

Jan Saendram, after Hendrick Goltzius, Pluto and Persephone, from the series The Love of the Gods, ca. 1600.

Barthel Beham, Moses and Aaron, 1526.

Albrecht Dürer, The Adoration of the Magi, from the series Life of the Virgin, ca. 1503.

Pieter Serwouters, after David Vinckboons, The Crossbowman, 1620.

Christoffel Van Sichem I, after Hendrick Goltzius, Elderly Man with Plumed Hat and Glove, 1607.

Modern and Contemporary Prints

Philip Pearlstein, Plane Over Fretted Clock Tower, 1993.

Richard Diebenkorn, Ochre, 1983.

Jasper Johns, Decoy, 1971.

Jacques Villon, after Pablo Picasso, Nature Morte, 1927–28

Ralph Goings, 10 AM, 1986.

Sculpture Garden

Joan Miró, Constellation, 1971.

Jacques Lipchitz, Musical Instruments with Compote and Pear, 1922.

Hans Arp, Resting Leaf, 1959.

Henry Moore, Interior Form, 1981.

Barbara Hepworth, Two Forms (Divided Circle), 1969.

Photography

Milton Rogovin, Girl with Earring, from the series East Side, Buffalo, New York, 1961–62.

John Collier, Jr., Seabrook Farm, String Beans Waiting at the Packing House, Bridgeton, New Jersey, June, 1942.

Bruce Davidson, Untitled, from the series Welsh Miners, 1965, printed 1982.

Torkel Korling, Johnson Wax, Racine, Wisconsin, 1938, printed 1991.

W. Eugene Smith, Robert Slocombe, Monsanto Chemical Company, 1953

The Last Expression: Art and Auschwitz

If cliché leads us to believe that art is made out of suffering, there are few circumstances in which the language of art could be more direct, more profound, or more moving than art made in the European concentration camps of World War II. The catalog includes reproductions of some 200 artworks; each tells a piece of an incredible history. Each remnant of these personal journeys and individual travails contributes to our understanding of the victims of the Holocaust, their experiences, the nature and function of the camps, the strategies of the perpetrators, as well as the will and need to create art. This catalog was published in conjunction with the Web site and exhibition The Last Expression: Art and Auschwitz.

ISBN: 0-8101-1548-4 (softcover) $55.00

Prints by Sculptors

Winner of the 2002 American Association of Museums Publications Design Competition

Many of the most significant sculptors of the twentieth century were also printmakers, as exemplified by the exhibition and catalogue Prints by Sculptors: The Rudolph H. and Fannia Weingartner Collection at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art (September 22-December 9, 2001). Richly illustrated and featuring examples by leading twentieth-century artists, including include Barlach, Christo, Giacometti, Hepworth, Maillol, Moore, Nadelman, Pepper, Serra, and Shapiro, Prints by Sculptors provides a unique opportunity for understanding the relationship between two- and three-dimensional art. With essays by Rudolph H. Weingartner, collector and former Dean of Northwestern University's College of Arts and Sciences, and Starr Figura, Assistant Curator, Prints and Illustrated Books, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

ISBN: 0-941680-22-3 (softcover) $23.00
105 pages: 60 color plates

College Proofs: The Riverhouse Editions Collection at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art

Honorable Mention in the 2002 American Association of Museums Publications Design Competition

Riverhouse Editions, a unique printmaking studio that has published the works of leading contemporary artists since 1988, was founded by art dealers and publishers William and Jan van Straaten in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. In 1992, they decided that one intaglio print of each Riverhouse edition would be set aside as a "college proof," so called because these works were to be given to a college or university for educational purposes. The Block Museum of Art has become the permanent home for the college proof archives. Selections from this rich body of work comprise the majority of this catalogue, which highlights the history of the studio, the importance of Riverhouse's setting, and the diverse possibilities of the intaglio technique. This catalogue was published in conjunction with the Block Museum exhibition of the same title, which ran September 21 — October 28, 2001.

ISBN: 0-941680-23-1 (softcover) $23.00
109 pages: 212 color plates

On European Ground

Published by the University of Chicago Press and the Block Museum in conjunction with the exhibition On European Ground: The Photographs of Alan Cohen, this volume of photographs features over ninety high-quality reproductions drawn from Cohen's series on World War I battlefields, Nazi death camps, and the Berlin Wall. The book contains interpretive essays by Sander Gilman, noted cultural critic and Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and Jonathan Bordo, Professor of Cultural Studies at Trent University, Ontario, Canada. Cohen's own insights into the development of his oeuvre and the significance of his photographs are included in the form of an artist interview conducted by Roberta Smith, contemporary art critic for The New York Times.

ISBN: 0-226-11294-2 (hardcover) $40.00
128 pages: 94 b/w plates

Manuscript Illumination in the Modern Age

This book examines attitudes toward and treatments of medieval manuscript illumination in France and England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and in early twentieth-century America. Each chapter takes as its title a word used in a particular period to define manuscript illumination: Curiosities, Specimens, Reproductions, Revivals, and Reconstructions. Trends and developments examined include the Enlightenment assessment of medieval miniatures as barbaric playthings, the nineteenth-century growth of a market for medieval art, the impact of reproductive technology on taste for illumination and the early twentieth-century importation of medieval manuscripts to the United States as a means through which to appropriate the history and culture of a European past. By Sandra Hindman, Michael Camille, Nina Rowe, and Rowan Watson.

ISBN: 0-941680-21-5 (softcover) $45.00
329 pages: 38 color plates, 159 b/w illustrations

Theo Leffman

Theo Leffmann was an important contemporary American fiber artist. This catalogue accompanies a retrospective exhibition presenting and critically examining her life's work. With insightful essays by Mary Jane Jacob and Mildred Constantine, this beautifully illustrated book addresses Leffmann's training, influences, and accomplishments. It also elucidates her role in bringing abstraction and avant-garde practices to fiber art and, at the same time, advancing this medium as a relevant category of avant-garde artistic production.

ISBN: 0-941680-19-3 (hardcover) $30.00
87 pages: 39 color, 21 b/w plates

Architects Drawings from the Collection of Barbara Pine

Architectural drawings are a window into the creative process and into an understanding of the design and building world. This volume presents conceptual drawings to illustrate how an architect translates an intangible idea into a solid reality. This collection, curated by Pine, focuses on working, presentation, and theoretical drawings by architects of different schools.

ISBN 0-941680-05-3 (Softcover) $5.00
48 pages: 7 color, 24 b/w plates

BlockPoints: Volume 1

BlockPoints features articles on print connoisseurs of the late nineteenth century, relationships between music and painting, and art markets.

ISSN 1072-619S (Softcover) $10.00
110 pages: 40 b/w plates

BlockPoints: Volume 2

This BlockPoints volume features several essays on reproductive engraving, techniques of prints, and functions of prints, along with the annual report on the status of the Museum.

ISSN 1072-619S (Softcover) $10.00
131 pages: 52 b/w plates

Chinese Ceramics from Chicago Collections

This volume developed from a desire to explore porcelain and pottery collections of public and private Chicago collectors. The works contained in this volume have not been previously published or exhibited. Included are works from the Neolithic period to the early twentieth century.

ISBN 0-941680-01-0 (Softcover) $10.00
ISBN 0-941680-01-0 (Hardcover) $15.00
104 pages: 5 color, 82 b/w plates

Emigrants And Exiles: A Lost Generation of Austrian Artists In America, 1920-1950

This volume explores the identity of Austrian exiles through their art. The catalogue attempts to look at the aesthetic response to the condition of the exile, the loss of an Austrian avant-garde, and the impact of a generation of Austrian immigrants on American culture. Emigrants and Exiles brings together powerful and evocative works by eleven Austrian artists who left Europe between 1920 and 1950.

ISBN 0-941689-16-9 (Softcover) $39.95
492 pages: 118 color, 52 b/w plates

Graven Images:The Rise of Printmakers

This volume explores prints and print production in workshops in Antwerp and Haarlem of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Within this period, radical changes took place in the methods of producing prints. This publication looks at the relatively unknown engravers and etchers who executed the designs of famous artists such as Pieter Bruegel, Hieronymus Bosch, and Peter Paul Rubuens.

ISBN (Softcover) $25.00
175 pages: 114 b/w plates

Landscape Drawings of Five Centuries, 1400-1900: From the Robert Lehman Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art

This exhibition presents a series of wonderful and important works illustrating a wealth of ideas and interpretations in the realm of landscapes over a 500 year period. Artists in this volume include Titian, Renoir, Van Gogh, Seurat, and many others.

ISBN 06-941680-06-1 (Softcover) $29.95
200 pages: 16 color, 82 b/w plates OUT OF STOCK

Master Drawings Rediscovered

This exhibition catalogue by James E. Mundy illustrates and analyzes Old Master drawings from the Block collection and the collection of Esther and Malcolm Bick. Focusing on Italian drawings from a range of artistic centers during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the catalogue is a testimony to artistic variety and regional style.

(Softcover) $10.00
93 pages: 45 b/w plates

The Modernist Tradition in American Watercolors

This volume helps to define the state of modernist watercolor painting in America between 1911 and 1939. The artists represented were chosen because their watercolors are important statements in the history of twentieth-century American modernist painting. The volume also deals with the historical perspective of important critics and dealers of the time. Included are works by Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Hopper, and Max Weber.

ISBN 0-941680-09-6 (Softcover) $20.00
110 pages: 55 color, 4 b/w plates

Painting At Northwestern University: Conger, Paschke, and Valerio

These three influential contemporary painters brought excitement to Northwestern University. Each had a distinctive style that has earned nationwide accolade. The images in this volume were selected with intimate consultation of the artists and represent their best works from 1970s through the first half of the 1980s.

ISBN 0-941680-03-77 (Softcover) $10.00
64 pages: 30 color, 25 b/w plates

Printmaking in America: Collaborative Prints and Presses 1960 — 1990

This volume highlights collaborative prints and presses of 1960 — 1990. Attention is paid to the cooperation of printers, artist, promoters, and patrons. This volume includes a brief introduction to the collaboration in printmaking before the 1960s and the important developments in printmaking during the 1960s. It includes color plates from Jim Nutt, Roy Lichtenstein, Barbara Krueger and Andy Warhol.

ISBN 0-941680-15-0 (Softcover) $35.00
ISBN 0-8109-3709-3 (Hardcover) $59.70
248 pages: 70 color, 48 b/w plates

Second Sight: Printmaking in Chicago, 1935-1995

This volume highlights the past sixty years of printmaking in Chicago, a period of substantial development in the visual arts. It includes works from the WPA to the Chicago Imagists to computer-generated art. Featured artists include Karl Wirsum, Tony Fitzpatrick, Bill Cass, and Vera Klement.

ISBN 0-941680-17-7 (Softcover) $35.00
224 pages: 110 color, 89 b/w plates

Henry Simon, 1901-1995

This catalogue examines the life work of Henry Simon, a Chicago artist whose works reflect important cultural, social, and political developments of the twentieth century. Simon began his career designing posters and sets for Chicago movie houses and went on to work as a political cartoonist during the Depression and as a painter for the Illinois Art Project of the Works Progress Administration. The catalogue includes examples of social realist, folkloric, historical American Scene, and Surrealist works executed from the 1920s through 1980.

ISBN 0-941680-18-5 (Softcover) $25.00
76 pages: 16 color, 60 b/w plates

Stark Impressions: Graphic Production in Germany, 1918 — 1933

This presentation of 143 works organized into six distinct themes provides an extensive view of the diversity, complexity, and cultural surroundings in which these artist thrived. It examines themes of war, religion, urban lifestyle, rural landscapes, struggle for existence, love and sexuality, and fantasy and abstraction. Each theme is examined from the perspectives of German artists.

ISBN 0-941680-12-6 (Softcover) $35.00
358 pages: 9 color, 144 b/w plates

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