Jan Garden Castro

Georgia O'Keeffe has dominated twentieth-century American art and proved herself one of its most original talents. Jan Garden Castro's The Art & Life of Georgia O'Keeffe offers the most complete account of both the artist's fascinating private life and her extraordinary career. In 1917 Alfred Stieglitz, pioneer photographer and impresario, organized O'Keeffe's first one-person exhibition, the last show at his famous gallery "291." She also became the subject of many of his finest photographic works and the center of his personal and professional world for the rest of his life. Her acceptance into the Stieglitz group brought her in touch with a wide circle of creative individuals, including Ansel Adams, Arthur Dove, John Marin, and Charles Demuth, to name a few. While learning from these colleagues, O'Keeffe also maintained a fierce independence from them. She had a certain mystique as a woman and an artist, and many of her contemporaries immortalized her in their work. She was the first woman artist whose face and life were of great interest to the public. Georgia O'Keeffe's career has spanned much of the history of modern art in America. Here are more than a hundred paintings, many rarely exhibited or reproduced, photographs of O'Keeffe at various stages of her life and of the landscapes that inspired her, and a text richly documented with letters and interviews. This material, combined with Jan Castro's insightful criticism, reveals O'Keeffe's legacy as an artist and the force of her intriguing personality.

The Art & Life of Georgia O'Keeffe

Kathryn VanSpanckeren

A prolific writer and versatile social critic, Canadian novelist and poet Margaret Atwood has recently published Bluebeard’s Egg (short stories), Interlunar (poetry), and The Handmaid’s Tale a critically acclaimed best-selling novel. This international collection of essays evaluates the complete body of her work—both the acclaimed fiction and the innovative poetry. The critics represented here—American, Australian, and Canadian—address Atwood’s handling of such themes as feminism, ecology, the gothic novel, and the political relationship between Canada and the United States. The essays on Atwood’s novels introduce the general reader to her development as a writer, as she matures from a basically subjective, poetic vision, seen in Surfacing and The Edible Woman, to an increasingly engaged, political stance, exemplified by The Handmaid’s Tale. Other essays examine Atwood’s poetry, from her transformation of the Homeric model to her criticisms of the United States’ relationship with Canada. The last two critical essays offer a unique view of Atwood through an investigation of her use of the concept of shamanism and through a presentation of eight of her vivid watercolors. The volume ends with Atwood presenting her own views in an interview with Jan Garden Castro and in a conversation between Atwood and students at the University of Tampa, Florida.

Vision and Forms

Margaret Atwood

Georgia O'Keeffe

Hundreds of illustrations document the life and paintings of the famous American artist and show for the first time photographs of the objects that inspired her work

Jan Garden Castro

Books

Your next favorite book is out there