149 Paintings You Really Need to See in North America:

by Julian Porter, Stephen Grant

Tour North America’s greatest museums and galleries in the company of two incomparable guides.

This lively companion highlights the essential paintings, by some of the world’s greatest painters, from Giotto to Picasso, on display in North American museums and galleries.

Julian Porter has had a life-long passion for art. He worked for seven years as a student tour guide in Europe and since has conducted countless gallery tours in Europe and North America. His co-author, Stephen Grant, brings a wealth of expertise in twentieth-century artists, and presents them within the framework of a North American–led, sustained burst of originality and shock.

Presented with wit and irreverence, here is the best that North American galleries have to offer. Focused and curated to give you everything you need to enjoy the greatest works of art in the best company and save you the sore feet and superfluous information.

Genres: Art, Travel

480 pages, Paperback

Published October 24, 2017

Reviews

[Daniel Rosh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just okay. The attitude of the authors is a bit pompous and a ‘we know more than you’ kinda attitude (just look at the subtitle, ‘So you can ignore the others’).

After reading a few chapters for my favorite museums, I quit reading it. Too much ‘this is what we see’ and off-the-wall interpretations. Two stars only for pointing out artworks at museums I should view and form my own opinions about.

Plus, the selected artworks at the museums are not, IMHO, the best, or most interesting, works of that museum’s collection.
And only one selection at the Cleveland Museum of Art? San Francisco Museum of Modern Art? de Young Fine Arts Museum? Musee D’Art Contemporain de Montréal? Where is the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts and its vast collection? Two Canadians couldn’t find a single piece there to showcase?
(See eb’s review from 2017 for similar thoughts)

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like the "Europe" book, it is much more of a travelogue than an art book--it is organized alphabetically by the city, and then the gallery, in which the painting resides, rather than by artist, chronology, or artistic movement. Generally good reproductions of the works (in the e-version), and interesting if idiosyncratic notes on the paintings, artists, and galleries.

[Mar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the colour images of the prints. I enjoyed the explanations of the authors on the various paintings. It is worth checking out before visiting the art galleries they mention. I imagine the book on paintings in Europe is equally worth exploring.

[Winder Library]

+ a few in Canada...I always try to encourage people to check out non-fiction, my favorite genre. I enjoyed flipping pages, browsing city by city, enjoying some humor, learning new and learning more about paintings I know. I enjoy Art and I enjoyed this book.

[Linda Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book introduced me to a lot of paintings I had not seen before. It was a good introduction to art history and I found I am appreciating more modern art. It could have been a bit more connected. I enjoyed reading their impressions of the paintings.

[eb · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh, this was OK, I guess. The writing style feels as though Porter / Grant recorded themselves talking about each painting or museum and then transcribed what they'd said rather than actually crafting sentences-- lots of odd constructions, incomplete sentences, and exclamations, which in some cases actually do describe the emotional flavor of a particular work, but often just seem facile childish, and unnecessary.

I used it during a trip to DC and a visit to the National Gallery, which comprises Chapter 12. The works selected were, overall, strange to me. There was a beautiful Sargent, the lone DaVinci in North America, a wonderful van Gogh self-portrait mixed in with incomprehensibly obscure pieces that seemed, at best, vaguely interesting. Part of the problem seems to be that the National Gallery has a far less interesting collection than other DC museums (the Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian Museum of Art come to mind), but in that case, why not highlight the actual highlights and leave the rest? Some of the paintings profiled seemed interesting only because their subjects lived soap opera lives, not because the art was significant.

Overall, this book seems to have an unnecessarily outsized erection for art that may be seen in New York, which, while certainly a rich scene, is hardly the only place in North America with notable collections. The gimmick of "149 paintings" (replicated here after the success of the authors' 149 Paintings You Really Need to See in Europe) seems to push the text toward a glut of offerings from NYC museums and an unfocused smattering from the others.

I found it particularly galling to learn that the National Gallery's lackluster collection noted above, merited an entire chapter, while the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh PA isn't even included, despite hosting the longest-running art exhibition in the world and owning some of the most seminal pieces of art from the 1800s forward. This book also neglects such important collections as those at the Milwaukee Museum of Art (with it's near-comprehensive Georgia O'Keeffes) and Mineapolis' Walker Art Museum and Sculpture Garden. It seems odd to me to focus on anything obscure whatsoever in a restricted format like this (only 149 items), rather than, say, listing the single best work to see at a variety of small museums. Overall, the gimmick does a disservice to everyone involved: the art lover and museum goer, the artists, the museums themselves, and the authors, who look foolish.

Verdict: this book may be of use if you're visiting the vast array of museums in NY in a limited amount of time, but you will miss quite a lot if you're relying on it as a guide for anything else.