The World of Richard Stine [Hardcover]

Richard Stine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1994

A retrospective collection of art and writing by this well known, witty, irreverent and inspirational artist and bestselling author. The book covers a wide range of subjects: love, art, relationships, spirituality, work, debt, responsibility, freedom, isolation, desire, conflict, dreams and creativity. 150 full-color illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At once whimsical and philosophical, conceptualist and cartoonish, Stine's delightfully irresistible art unlocks the heart's unspoken desires and pries open the mind's devious recesses. Stine-who operates PAL Press, a line of greeting cards, from his island home in Seattle and is the author-illustrator of Off to Sea-in this new compilation splices greeting-card art, vibrant paintings, sketchbook pages, excerpts from letters and notebook jottings. Although his writings tend toward simplistic feel-good psychobabble, his witty, startling pictures, many melding words and images, score quick points with ironic humor on love, hope, friendship, aspiration, creativity, the inevitability of change and the psychic barriers we erect to shield ourselves from reality and other people. Ideograms of the human condition, his work often calls to mind the art of Saul Steinberg but is more populist. BOMC selection.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Popular greeting-card illustrator Stine (Off to Sea, not reviewed) showcases his seductive full-color drawings and pithy texts, which give the subject of metaphysical angst in the '90s a decidedly mass-market spin. Stine's graphically striking style represents an eclectic inventory of au courant illustration techniques: meticulous and mellifluous inked line, scratchy pencil line, scumbled painted backgrounds, pasty pastel surfaces, complex webs of crosshatching, digitized computer imagery, photocopied pictorial manipulations, collage, and photo montage. Augmenting this are hand-lettered and typeset texts, which run the gamut from simple caption to poetic truism to diaristic vignette. The cover illustration sets the book's tone. In it, a thin male figure--presumably Stine--teeters atop a spirelike mountain, reaching for a single white star against a wash of azure sky. Inside, in ``Face to Face With The Second Step,'' a black dog rests on the step of an oversize blue geometric staircase, its panting red tongue playfully activating the composition. In many inclusions, lone figures are placed in psychologically charged landscapes, facing floating hearts that seem to represent love, hope, and loss. Texts--such as ``Even Lies Are Part of The Truth''--accompany some of the art. Occasionally Stine speaks of his own life: ``I think the next phase...is going to be the poet phase.'' Like illustrators Saul Steinberg, Robert Osborn, and Ralph Steadman before him, Stine has freely borrowed from the conventions of contemporary art to bring a level of perceived seriousness to his work. The plates have the look of greeting cards designed for yet-unnamed existentialist holidays. Poetic, pained, at times downright sappy, Stine's visual candy goes for the consumer jugular. Casting himself as a sensitive hero, he comes across like ``Jonathan Livingston Illustrator.'' (Book-of- the-Month Club selection) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 140 pages
• Publisher: Welcome Enterprises (October 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556703759
• ISBN-13: 978-1556703751
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,272,880 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The heartfelt work of a philosopher-artist, August 26, 2000

By 

Mark K. Jensen (Tacoma, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The World of Richard Stine (Paperback)

Few people who have encountered a dozen of so drawings and captions by Richard Stine are likely to have forgotten them, but if their acquaintance with his work has gone no further, as mine had not before serendipitously coming upon this volume, I doubt whether they will have divined the zealous urgency that informs it. For Stine is a philosopher as much as an artist -- a sort of folk philosopher who prides himself on his naiveté. He is a true romantic, whose work comes straight from the heart. The heart, indeed, figures in many of his works and is his ultimate touchstone of value -- in fact, Stone believes that the heart in each of us possesses a deep connection with the entire universe: "...our universe is one. Deep down everyone knows everything lives and breathes in the same being. The mind will protest, but never the heart. The heart always says, 'Together, we are all together.' The mind stands back and looks and thinks and says, 'This is good, that is not good.' Maybe there is a time and place for that, but the heart at its core stays even. Bad, good, different, up, down -- all exist in the mind, not the heart. And if the mind sits on the heart then it will have a nice* perspective. If not, it just chases its own tail until it's kissed by an angel, the kiss of peace, and then it will never be the same." If you find in these words some luminous glimmering of precious real truth, you'll treasure this incomparable volume.

*Note: as behooves a philosopher, Stine chooses his words most carefully, and I think he means here not the casual term of general approval but rather the sense of *nice* as "able to make fine or delicate distinctions; delicately skillful; finely discriminating." (*Webster's New World Dictionary*, 4th ed.)

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A picture window into the mind of Richard Stine..., January 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The World of Richard Stine (Paperback)

This collection of Richard Stine's artwork and thoughts is brimming with enthusiasm. This fervency breeds inspiration as the artwork demonstrates, as well as evokes, the same intense emotions which penetrate the reader through the text.

5.0 out of 5 stars a romantic enters the world, July 13, 2011

By 

Earthtripgirl (Princeton area, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The World of Richard Stine (Hardcover)

I used to have a t-shirt with my favorite of his drawings - A romantic enters the world. I loved it so much I ordered a framed print of it and now can cherish the image forever. I guess I am that little romantic in the cartoon, as are so many of us that love Richard Stine's art and perspective. Enjoy this book, and like the little dogs eyeing each other over that tasty bone, share it with your friends!