A captivating examination of a creative mind in constant motion.
A daughter preserves her father’s artistic contributions in this coffee-table book that intersperses sculptures, drawings, and paintings with essays.
In 1960, Charles H. Forrester asserted that the duty of an artist was “to seek meaning in chaos.” Born in 1928 near New York City, he learned to understand disorder growing up in the shadow of the Depression and World War II. He married the politically engaged Dorothy Reese and moved to Seattle. There, he changed his focus from engineering to fine arts and began his influential career, working in a wide variety of materials, from plywood and welded wire to bronze. The brief biographical essay that forms the warm heart of this volume was written by the artist’s son, John, and daughter, Winifred, the book’s editor. They are perhaps best positioned to describe how Forrester’s art emerged from and was expressed by his life. (He died in 2010.) The other writings in these pages explore specific aspects of Forrester’s oeuvre. The keynote essay by Guy Jordan, an associate professor of art history, describes Forrester’s abstract works as “art forms which do not speak in words.” Jordan points out the humor evident in such pieces as Running Abreast, a sculpture that combines the muscular leg of a runner with a woman’s pendulous breast. Most of the volume is comprised of reproductions of Forrester’s wide body of work, with elucidating commentary by Joe Nolan, a musician, writer, and artist. Nolan points out the “voluptuous forms and stylized lines” that are present even in Forrester’s representational pieces, such as his expressive portrait busts. Works like The Voyage, an abstract sculpture of two linked figures that evokes the uncertainty of travel, and The Equestrian, a concrete monolith commissioned for the Oregon centennial, are commanding on the page, inspiring a desire to experience them in person. Overall, this illuminating book provides a substantial and comprehensive overview of Forrester’s philosophy and the place of his works in the pantheon of modern art.
A captivating examination of a creative mind in constant motion.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-67826-9
Page Count: 138
Publisher: Folly Industries
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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