Artists' Letters and Writings

Turner at Tate explores Turner’s art through many of his best-known canvases and exquisite sketches and watercolors, all newly and exceptionally filmed in HDTV from the original artworks. Incorporating the landscapes and places that inspired the works, the film provides an overview of Turner’s life and – in an accessible and engrossing way – of critical approaches to his art. The film’s focus is Turner and England, and his work is considered against the radical social and political changes of the early nineteenth century. Turner at Tate is a film about ideas and history and landscape, a film about color and light.

J.M.W. Turner was a visionary and a maverick, whose landscape paintings astounded and antagonized those that saw them. A member of the Royal Academy in London, Turner was fiercely attacked by critics for his radical approach to painting. Turner's paintings reflect his varying responses to the world around him, a world that was rapidly changing as the industrial revolution propelled society forward. In addition to nature scenes, Turner's paintings recall the ancient world, echoing neoclassical landscapes of the French painter Claude Lorrain. Works featured in this program include Fishermen at Sea, The Shipwreck, Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps, Dido Building Carthage, Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbor's Mouth, and Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway.

At age 84 Gordon Parks is regarded by many as a living legend - photographer, film-maker, novelist, poet and composer whose life and work present an inspiring success story. In this volume the artist provides a complete retrospective of his photographic career - a book that fuses nearly 300 images with Parks' own account of his life.

This personal and engaging book reproduces over 100 letters from the most famous 19th and 20th century painters in Paris between 1855 and 1968. Among the artists are Claude Monet, August Renoir, Edouard Manet, Pablo Picasso, and Mary Cassatt. With each letter is an exact transcription (all but two of the letters were originally written in French) and then an English translation. The text of the book explores each writers' relationships with the recipients and with other artists they mention, and a precise examination of each artists's place in the history of art. Also featured are a work of art by each artist and their portrait, self-portrait, or photograph. Additionally, each letter has been briefly analyzed by a graphologist (handwriting expert), providing another insight to the human side of great talent. The letters have been selected from the collection of Pierre F. Simon, which is now in the archives of the New York Public Library.

This personal and engaging book reproduces over 100 letters from the most famous 19th and 20th century painters in Paris between 1855 and 1968. Among the artists are Claude Monet, August Renoir, Edouard Manet, Pablo Picasso, and Mary Cassatt. With each letter is an exact transcription (all but two of the letters were originally written in French) and then an English translation. The text of the book explores each writers' relationships with the recipients and with other artists they mention, and a precise examination of each artists's place in the history of art. Also featured are a work of art by each artist and their portrait, self-portrait, or photograph. Additionally, each letter has been briefly analyzed by a graphologist (handwriting expert), providing another insight to the human side of great talent. The letters have been selected from the collection of Pierre F. Simon, which is now in the archives of the New York Public Library.