Customer Reviews

Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities

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I just saw this show at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. The show was very well put together, except that the Ansel Adams photographs were over matted covering a slight amount of the border and Ansel's signature.

Copies of this book were available at the show and after seeing the actual art I was very disappointed in the quality of the book. The color reproductions of O'Keeffe's work were OK, but the reproductions of the photographs were just awful. The reproductions appeared flat in comparison to the photographs but also in comparison to many other better reproductions of Ansel's work. No only that but there appeared to be a lot of dust on the photographs when they were reproduced. For instance the black sky in his iconic 'Moonrise Over Hernandez New Mexico' has several dozen white spots in the sky. Other photographs suffer from this same problem. It is unfortunate since the show included a couple images I had not seen reproduced before.

The publisher of this book (Little Brown) has recently published several of Ansel's books in the past including 'Trees' and the excellent '400 photographs.' Both of these books were printed in Western Europe. For some reason (probably to save money) they decided to go with a printer in Singapore for this book, the quality unfortunately suffered.

Very good quality art reproductions and well-written personnel story, not too long and rambling, just the meat with some interesting and relevant details. A nice intro to both artists lives, their work and their co-incidental (love-hate) relationship with each other.

I received this beautiful book in excellent condition. I had just been to the exhibit it is based upon and I was not disappointed. The book captures the essence of their works with stellar art and photo reproductions. Next best thing to being there! I thought O'Keefe was unbelievable and then turned to the incredible black and white photography of Adams. I love color, but the almost silken quality and exquisite detail of these photos stopped me in my tracks. The affinities, mutual respect, friendship and admiration the two artists had for each other turned out to be instrumental to the continued creativity of both.

This is a small book, which is easily and quickly read. It has some good insights into both O'Keeffe's and Adams' work. There are some photos by Adams of places painted by O'Keeffe. These two are a couple of Americas best known artists and ones that are truly unique. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in either of these two artists.

This is a true masterpiece of beautiful art by two of the greatest artists of our time. I am very happy with the book. Because of loose packaging the jacket was badly torn and had to be thorn away.
I love the book though.