From Publishers Weekly
The explorer-artists who documented the American West were obsessed and determined. George Catlin lived on borrowed money and sales of "souvenir albums" while fulfilling his dream of recording vanishing Native American cultures. "Blond giant" Frederic Remington, a failed Kansas sheepherder, became the primary mythmaker of the Old West, portraying its trappers, punchers and vaqueros and elevating the cowboy to an epic hero. Swiss view-painter Karl Bodmer, in search of a "savage America," risked his life to paint bloody Indian battles and explore Mississippi steamboat culture. With 370 plates, nearly half in color, this companion volume to an upcoming PBS-TV series glorifies the legends of the Wild West even as it dissects them. Artists of European descent who recorded Hispanic settlements in the Southwest are highlighted. The authorsWilliam H. Goetzmann is a Pulitzer Prizewinning historian; William N. Goetzmann is a museum curatoralso trace the role of filmmakers in shaping the popular image of the frontier.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
This handsome volume by the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and his son complements the recent PBS series of the same name. In relating the lives of the artists of the American West, the social and cultural climate during which they worked, and their individual thoughts and feelings, the authors reveal the fascinating dynamic which exists between artist and subject. From the early 1800s to the present, they recount the lives of both major and minor artists in an entertaining style. Strict aesthetic judgments are kept to a minimum; the focus is on how these men and women influenced and were influenced by the times in which they lived, continually shaping and defining the public's perception of the American West. For general collections. Frank Schroth, Technology Training Assocs., Cambridge, Mass.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
