Description:
This book may well urge on the competitive natures of its readers: what it proves most forcefully is that even overlooked accomplishments are considerable. Often venerated in their own lifetime, artists are virtually forgotten by history unless they happened to be first in their field. Hammatt Billings is one such hapless soul. He was a prolific 19th-century illustrator and architect. His design scope ranged from organ cases to monuments--the National Monument to the Forefathers at Plymouth, Massachusetts is his. Billings was also the architect of the Boston Museum on Tremont Street, which was torn down in 1903, and the awe-inspiring center hall at Wellsley College that burned to the ground in 1914. He illustrated the first edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852, and also illuminated the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, and others. Of the 52 buildings he designed, not a one still stands--a fact that surely contributes to the anonymity that this once-celebrated artist enjoys today. Art historian James O'Gorman's expert, if sometimes unevenly distributed, descriptions of Billings's works vividly revives them. Readers who are interested in American architecture, art history, or the story of the city of Boston during one of its most fertile and exciting periods should enjoy this book.
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