New Books: Fine Arts (Art, Music, Theater)

Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) possessed one of the twentieth century's most astonishing voices. In this first major biography since Fitzgerald's death, historian Judith Tick offers a sublime portrait of this ambitious risk-taker whose exceptional musical spontaneity made her a transformational artist. Archival research and in-depth family interviews shed new light on the singer's difficult childhood in Yonkers, New York, the tragic death of her mother, and her tense experiences of racial discrimination and struggles with constricting models of Black and white femininity at midcentury. Tick's compelling narrative depicts Fitzgerald's career in fresh and original detail.

At the dawn of the nineties, the British invasion of Broadway was in full swing. Musical spectacles dominated the box office. As American musical comedy made its grand return, plays, always an endangered species on Broadway, staged a powerful comeback. A different breed of producers rose up to challenge the grip theater owners had long held on Broadway, and corporations began to see how much money could be made from live theater. New York Post theater columnist Riedel draws on more than 150 insider interviews to celebrate the productions, artists, and movements that shaped Broadway in the 1990s.

Fielding over two hundred questions, distinguished teacher and performer Richard Miller tackles problems raised during hundreds of his master classes and pedagogy courses. He deliberately avoids abstract generalities, concentrating instead on specific, recurring questions: What are some good exercises to loosen or relax tension in the back of the tongue? Do you apply the same principles regarding breathing to a younger student that you do to older students? What is meant by voiced and unvoiced consonants? Is there a female falsetto? Through such specialized questions, Miller probes the very essence of artistic expression.

Rooting hip hop in Black freedom culture, this state-of-the-art collection presents a globally diverse group of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American, Arab, European, North African and South Asian artists, activists, and thinkers who view hip hop as a means to move freedom forward for all of us. Contributors do so by taking stock of the politics of hip hop culture at this critical juncture of renewed racial justice movements in the US and globally. This volume is a testament to hip hop's power in that it functions as an art 'form/forum.'

One of the most significant British artists of the twentieth century, Gwen John (1867-1939) made her life and work within the heady art worlds of London and Paris. This critical biography demolishes the myth of Gwen John as a recluse and situates her, brilliant, singular and assured, amid a rich cultural milieu that included James McNeill Whistler, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Paula Modersohn-Becker and Maude Gonne. With over 120 illustrations, 'Gwen John: Art and Life in London and Paris' offers a lively, meticulously researched portrait of Gwen John as a vital and utterly compelling figure in twentieth-century art history.

Craft Across Continents offers an intriguing selection of over 50 works from Japanese and Western makers. Half of the volume focuses on pieces from Japan, and the other on creations from Europe and the U.S. Recently, 20+ pieces from Japan, an indigo resist-dyed wall hanging, multi-generational bamboo sculptures; as well as glass sculptures, Møhl's installation, Skibska's mobile, and Mason's glazed ceramic vessel have been added.

For just over a decade, from 1956 to 1967, a collection of dilapidated former sail-making warehouses clustered at the lower tip of Manhattan became the quiet epicenter of the art world. Coenties Slip, a dead-end street near the water, was home to a circle of wildly talented and varied artists that included Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, James Rosenquist, Delphine Seyrig, Lenore Tawney, and Jack Youngerman. As friends and inspirations to one another, they created a unique community for unbridled creative expression and experimentation, and the works they made at the Slip would go on to change the course of American art.

This surprising anthology pairs well-known authors with their (sometimes) unexpected forays into the world of the visual arts. Full-color reproductions illuminate the art of more than 200 writers--from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to Jonathan Letham--as expressed via paint, graphite, and ink with varying degrees of skill and resolve.

Crumbling ruins, undead fiends, dark alleys and forests teeming with horrors seen and unseen: the tendrils of the Gothic have crept out of the architecture of churches, mosques and grand houses and into suburban malls, overcrowded cities, the deserted corners of the world and beyond, taking the shape of monsters from Beowulf to Gojira, Cthulhu or the wendigo to our own terrifying, warped reflections. Across time, form and media, this book traces the weaving path of the Gothic from the shadows of history to the very heart of popular culture today.

In this visual tour through art history, art historian Matthew Wilson depicts a global visual language enshrined in art: the language of symbols. Symbols exert a strong hold on our culture, and have done so for thousands of years. From national emblems to corporate logos and emojis, our day-to-day lives abound with icons rooted in the distant past. Wilson traces the often surprising trajectories that symbols have taken through history, from their original purposes to their modern meanings, identifying the common themes and ideas that link seemingly disparate cultures.