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Rating: 
Summary: A Cup Half Full
Review: I strongly recomend this book for someone who wants a "Who's Who" of the American fine arts scene. I have spent many hours scanning the names and pictures, aborbing the exciting 50 years of American contempoary arts. I cannot recommend this book as an especially well-written commentary on that scene, however. Some sentences contain refrences to handfulls of artists with little direction or explanation. Of course the authors were required to give fair coverage to thousands of artists who had their 15 minutes of fame in US art galleries. I follow this scene pretty closely professionally. I can report that I did not find any glaring ommissions from their collection of artists. As you might expect, regional artists received barely a nod and little is said about "outside" art. If you are looking for a great explanation of "modern" art, try "The Shock of the New" by Robert Hughes, which Amazon indicates is still in print (and rated 5 stars, almost). But if you are interested in the "Sears Catalog" of the fine arts in the past 50 years, this is the book you want.
Rating:
Summary: A Cup Half Full
Review: I strongly recomend this book for someone who wants a "Who's Who" of the American fine arts scene. I have spent many hours scanning the names and pictures, aborbing the exciting 50 years of American contempoary arts. I cannot recommend this book as an especially well-written commentary on that scene, however. Some sentences contain refrences to handfulls of artists with little direction or explanation. Of course the authors were required to give fair coverage to thousands of artists who had their 15 minutes of fame in US art galleries. I follow this scene pretty closely professionally. I can report that I did not find any glaring ommissions from their collection of artists. As you might expect, regional artists received barely a nod and little is said about "outside" art. If you are looking for a great explanation of "modern" art, try "The Shock of the New" by Robert Hughes, which Amazon indicates is still in print (and rated 5 stars, almost). But if you are interested in the "Sears Catalog" of the fine arts in the past 50 years, this is the book you want.
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