Art of the American West
 Julie Christiansen-Dull & Caroline Linscott
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 1999 Quarry Books/Rockport Pub. Gloucester, Mass USA
  ISBN: 1564964736
Amazon's Value Price is: $29.99

A splendid showcase of paintings of the American West, an icon for great adventure. Historical anecdotes & notes about the artists' inspiration convey the emotion & impact of those Pioneer days.

Some paintings, such as Jack Schmitt's Everything Done Skillfully and Carefully are exquisitely meticulous images of an 1880s dental office - complete with treadmill drill; other paintings like Julie Christiansen-Dull's Rising Sun are an amazing flurry of color.

Each page presents an artist's specialty whether it be the mauve Nevada Winter by Gene Speck or Jerry D. Mitchell's moment in busy time Spirit Guardians or Impending Danger of desert washes by Grace Schlesier or the tranquility & glowing beauty of Corral Canyon Overlook by Gwen Meyer-Pentecost.

Some painting like Desert Dawn by Joseph Salamon & Comanche War Party by Richard Luce are almost sepia prints while others like Wayne Terry's When Brothers Speak & Maureen Moore's Late Day, Lake Powell & Howard Post's The Rendezvous are stylized vivid pieces.

Such an adventure is this book -- Cottonfield by Ron Bausch; Pow Wow Dancers by Reita Newkirk; Weaver's'Web by Marianne Millar; Mian Situ's Children of Lijang & so on - each page is remarkable, remarkable for its color, its composition, its insight into another way of life, another perspective of something we know in our bones.

Whether it's a mystical metaphoric painting of thunder maidens or plain-song renditions of cowboys taking a coffee break or the energetic sketch of a bull rider at a rodeo or a buffalo shedding its winter coat this book is like a window on that hot, sunny world of Cowboys & Indians, desert & animals, sunsets & rivers.

Each page begs me to speak of it - the girl taking a rest in the shade under the chassis of a wagon. The imaginative watercolor of a shoot-out between horsemen or the pastel rendition of a herd of white faced cattle crossing a creek. A group of splendidly dressed girls at a Pow Wow.

So I heartily recommend this book - to be paged through again & again - each page filled with adventure, color & passion.

Two I must make note of: Evening Dust by Suzanne Baker & Betty Billups' Heading Home... Oh, & don't pass over Janet H. Bedford's King of the Pond & then there's Reverent Robert L. Schwenck's Fishing the Little Deschutes & then there's Juan de la Cruz Machicado's Checacupe Village & Joe Garcia's California Color & Martha Saudek's Evening Storm & Paul VerBurg's The Edge of Imagination.....

A beautiful, wonder-filled addition to brighten your world!

Do check out my Interview with Julie Christiansen-Dull.
(06/12/99)

Rebecca