It’s been a while since I’ve done a new-books post, what with Australian Music Month, Melbourne Music Week, and the Kaldor Art Project demanding our attention. So let’s get back onto the shelf!

The art of golf: High Museum of Art, Atlanta, in collaboration with the National Galleries of Scotland

Atlanta High Museum of Art, 2012

 

What I know about golf could be written on, well, a golf ball, but clearly there’s something in it, as my many friends who play it are at pains to explain. But really they should have just shown me this charming book of golf-inspired art and all would have been well. The dominating work in this study is Charles Lees’extraordinary painting The Golfers (see above) which looks like a group of generals plotting the downfall of Napoleon, rather than the penultimate moment of a friendly game! There are lots of other wonderful images here as well, including some marvellous New Yorker cartoons and even Snoopy in his Arnold Palmer phase. Four!!!

Starstruck : vintage movie posters from classic Hollywood by Ira M. Resnick ; foreword by Martin Scorsese

Abbeville Press, 2010

 

Movie posters have a magic all of their own, or as Martin Scorses says in the Foreword to this lavish volume: “Posters carry the DNA of their era….” Ira Resnick has been collecting classic posters for over 40 years now and this beautiful book is his celebration of this grand obsession. As you would probably expect, some of the most beautiful and striking images come from the 1920s and 30s, but beyond the purely visual imagery you have to marvel at the storytelling abilities of the artists and designers who were charged with encapsulating the essence of a movie in a single picture. Quite astonishing!

The shadowcatchers : a history of cinematography in Australia by Martha Ansara

Austcine Publishing, 2012

 

I love this book! Australia has a surprisingly rich history of the most remarkable men and women working behind the cameras on film sets and out in the field documenting the real world. Martha Ansara, herself a cinematographer, has compiled a truly comprehensive history of these incredible artists, paying homage to names familiar and unknown. Not just a labour of love, the beautifully chosen photos enhance a text that successfully charts technical developments alongside human stories. A book you can truly get lost in.

Mr JW Lewin : painter & naturalist by Richard Neville

NewSouth Publishing, 2012

 

John William Lewin was one of Australia’s first professional artists, and the man responsible for the first illustrated book ever published in Australia, Birds of New South Wales (1813). Richard Neville, the Mitchell Librarian at the State Library of NSW, has translated his admiration and knowledge of the man and his work into this beautiful book, which repositions the artist as a rather more remarkable figure than he is sometimes given credit for. And just in time for Xmas……

Our own Mr Alma demonstrates how not to play golf!

Levante and Will Alma – golf course clowning

 

 

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*