50 West Coast Artists presents a critical selection of some of America's most influential contemporary sculptors and painters. The striking concept and design of the book provide the reader with special insights into the enormous vitality and diversity of the art and artists of California.

Throughout his long and prolific career, Ray Stanford Strong (1905–2006) strove to capture the essence of the western American landscape. An accomplished painter who achieved national fame during the New Deal era, Strong is best known for his depiction of landscapes in California and Oregon, rendered in his signature plein air style. This beautiful volume, featuring more than 100 color and black-and-white illustrations, is the first comprehensive exploration of Strong’s life and artistry. Through family papers, archives, photographs, and a two-year series of interviews conducted with the artist personally, Mark Humpal traces Strong’s journey from his childhood on an Oregon berry farm to his artistically formative years in New York and San Francisco. After moving back to the West Coast, Strong produced important works for the WPA, executed major diorama projects for two world expositions, helped organize the Santa Barbara Art Institute, and served as teacher and mentor for a new generation of plein air artists. But, as Humpal emphasizes, Strong distinguished himself by resisting the drumbeat of the avant-garde. During an era when many artists were experimenting with abstract expressionism, Strong never relinquished his personal vision and adherence to a more traditional style. With his outgoing personality, he forged friendships and associations with such prominent artists as Frank Vincent DuMond, Maynard Dixon, Ansel Adams, Frank Lloyd Wright, and John Steinbeck. Ultimately, Strong had little concern for his place in the sweep of art history. The proficiency he achieved through years of formal and informal study allowed him to craft a personal style difficult to categorize but unique and engaging. By expanding our understanding and appreciation of Strong’s artistic contributions, this book offers a fitting tribute to one of America’s finest landscape artists.

This stunning book is the long-awaited result of an extensive review of New York painters and their widely diverse works. It presents an overview of styles, mediums, subjects, even philosophies of art found in galleries, museums, and artists' studios of present-day New York, the oft-acknowledged Art Capital of the contemporary world. Although you may recognize the names and works of many, this company of 100 painters also features works by artists less celebrated, though no less deserving of attention. Expect to find recent works, as well as paintings from an earlier period of an artist's oeuvre -- as near as Kelynn Alder's "Coney Island," painted specifically for this book, and as distant as George Tooker's iconic allegory, "Subway," painted in 1950. Brief biographical sketches accompany each artist's work, providing insight into their emotional and philosophical connection with art as well as their schooling and accomplishments. Experience for yourself this visual feast showcasing the unique works of 100 gifted New York painters. This book is a must-have addition for the library of any art connoisseur and/or collector.

Catalog of the exhibition Summoning Ghosts: the Art of Hung Liu, organized by Rene de Guzman on behalf of the Oakland Museum of California and presented March 16-June 30, 2013.

Profiles more than 150 women artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from the American West, offers fifteen interpretive essays, and includes nearly three hundred reproductions of their works.

From across the spectrum of the arts--theater to music, painting to poetry, and everything in between--men and women from the creative front lines share their experiences and insights on the often harsh realities of a life in the arts. Artists on the Art of Survival examines the lives of artists as some continue to struggle to find their place, others have managed to carve out a niche for themselves, and still others have, for a variety of reasons, moved on to something else. By exploring each of these paths of development, the book provides valuable, practical, and spiritual lessons in maintaining and surviving as a working artist.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the visual arts were considered central to the formation of a distinct national identity, and the Group of Seven's landscapes became part of a larger program to unify the nation and assert its uniqueness. This book traces the development of this program and illuminates its conflicted history. Leslie Dawn problematizes conventional perceptions of the Group as a national school and underscores the contradictions inherent in international exhibitions showing unpeopled landscapes alongside Northwest Coast Native arts and the "Indian" paintings of Langdon Kihn and Emily Carr. Dawn examines how this dichotomy forced a re-evaluation of the place of First Nations in both Canadian art and nationalism.