GREAT PRINTS AND PRINTMAKERS

by Herman J. Wechsler

Amiel editon bound in blue cloth, 100 plates. About Fine in like dust jacket.

Genres: Art

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

Reviews

[Alger Smythe-Hopkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chatty as all get out, this large format book brings forward a few lesser known examples of the printmaker's art and reproduces them in fine detail. This book is obviously a guide to prints for the entirely ignorant, which is fine. What is a little strange is that it is also intended as a beginner's guide to print collecting, which is a very funny project for a book that is too short to discuss the actual items that make a particular print valuable beyond the usual "1st strike burrs on a dry point are superior to later strikes" kind of observations. Still why not? Like many coffee table books about art, the author's description accompanying the prints is usually about something other than the art on that page, never giving the reader a real insight into the reasoning behind including that version, that print. You do however get many little asides by the author about how he thinks about art, and what he expects you will recall of the print. This is a happy artifact of this author's chatty style, and also his extreme liking for 1930's style heroic brutalism. A strong angular profile always seems to strike him as something remarkable.