Review by New York Times Review
The story of how Matisse came up with the ideas behind his cutouts (currently at MoMA in a rapturously reviewed show) makes for an ingenious picture book. As Amodeo's collaged paper figure of the artist cuts out birds and then adds other objects, we see how shape creates feelings and memories. When he adds color, an entire personal world comes into being. Friedman's spare text hits its marks perfectly, and foldout pages of Matisse cutouts provide an extra hit of happiness. THE IRIDESCENCE OF BIRDS: A Book About Henri Matisse By Patricia MacLachlan. Illustrated by Hadley Hooper. 38 pp. Neal Porter/Roaring Brook. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8) Matisse once said that he got his sense of color from his mother. MacLachlan runs with that notion, inviting readers to picture themselves as a boy in a "dreary" town in northern France whose days were brightened by his mother's paints, fruits, flowers and rugs. The little boy gets to visit a silk mill, and he raises pigeons, appreciating the "iridescence" that his mother points out. At the book's close, he watches his grownup self at the easel. Hooper's illustrations wonderfully evoke Matisse's palette and style with a dappled beauty all their own. MR. CORNELL'S DREAM boxes Written and illustrated by Jeanette Winter. 32 pp. Beach Lane. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8) That reclusive man living in Queens with his mother and brother was the artist Joseph Cornell, who liked to share his miniature-filled boxes with the neighborhood children. Winter tells her readers that if they'd lived near Mr. Cornell, they might have seen him "through the window, working in the dim light" - and been invited to a special show he gave just for children. It's a lovely tribute to Cornell's inventiveness, and a reminder to give our own neighborhood eccentrics their due. EDWARD HOPPER PAINTS HIS WORLD By Robert Burleigh. Illustrated by Wendell Minor. 32 pp. Christy Ottaviano/Holt. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 5 to 9) As a boy, Hopper wrote "Would be Artist" beneath his name on his pencil box, and Burleigh makes the shy painter understandable to any child with a serious, solitary passion. We follow Hopper into adulthood as he devotes himself to finding "what other artists didn't paint." Minor's illustrations capture the profoundly wistful essence of both Hopper himself and his most famous paintings. In pages that move between 20th-century New York City and Cape Cod, we see how Hopper's singular vision tied together his two beloved places. STAND THERE! SHE SHOUTED: The Invincible Photographer Julia Margaret Cameron By Susan Goldman Rubin. Illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. 61 pp. Candlewick. $16.99. (Middle grade; ages 8 to 14) Richly illustrated with Cameron's own photos and drawings of her life by Ibatoulline, this biography takes an admiring but playful approach to the pioneering British photographer. Rubin shows how the ethereal beauty of her portraits was the result of her ruthless pursuit of aesthetic effects - and of children and celebrities to model for her, "captives" who were often forced to sit miserably still for hours. Especially inspiring is the way the book nonchalantly presents the flow between Cameron's work and her family life; her husband and six children come across as good-humored supporters and participants. ONLINE A slide show of this week's illustrated books at nytimes.com/books.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 2, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review
Full-page paintings reminiscent of Hopper originals accompany the straightforward text of this picture-book biography from the team behind Night Flight (2011). Burleigh introduces the introspective and determined artist in gentle paragraphs detailing Hopper's life, beginning with his childhood dream to become an artist, through to his last work, Sun in an Empty Room, as well as his struggle for notoriety in the twentieth-century art world and his reasons for painting I'm after ME. Minor's full-color gouache illustrations depict scenes that might have inspired Hopper for his most iconic paintings a gas station on an empty road, a lighthouse, a diner, a deserted street all in Hopper's distinctive, light-filled style. Other pages are filled with charcoal-gray sketches, as if drawn directly from an artist's notebook. Cleverly, in each spread where Hopper appears, he is always looking intently at something, which emphasizes how much his art arose from studied observation of the world around him. With a closing author's note, time line, and further reading, this is a lovely, quiet introduction to a luminary among American painters.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Burleigh and Minor (Abraham Lincoln Comes Home) pair up for another terrific profile of a famous American, this time artist Edward Hopper. Minor's gouache watercolors (stunning works of art in their own right) echo Hopper's evocative realism and clean lines. Full-color spreads and sketched b&w vignettes portray the artist from his youth to his old age, observing and painting his surroundings. From the boyhood room in which Hopper paints a lone sailboat on the Hudson River to the country gas station he captures at dusk in his famous painting, Gas, the illustrations convey the solitary tone of Hopper's work. In many scenes, readers peer over Hopper's shoulder as he works, seeing what he sees. The accessible narrative then invites the audience to think more critically about the context in which Hopper created. "Many houses in his paintings seem moody, quiet, and alone. Were Edward's houses a bit like Edward himself?" A few of Hopper's quotations about art are included in an afterword, along with reproductions of several well-known paintings. Sources, a bibliography, and an artist's note wrap up this remarkable picture-book biography. Ages 5-9. (Aug.)? (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-5-Hopper was one of the foremost American painters of the 20th century, and this wonderfully illustrated book provides a detailed biographical portrait of him. Minor's art, lush and perfectly varied with pencil sketches interspersed between colorful paintings, is accompanied by Burleigh's compelling text, which traces the artist's childhood in Nyack, NY, to his studies in Manhattan and Paris to his married life in New York City and Cape Cod, MA. Minor has reenvisioned many of Hopper's well-known works, placing Hopper in the picture, depicting the artisit as he surveys the scenes that inspired his paintings. Though Minor's interpretations are brighter, he hints at the dark and foreboding qualities for which Hopper was famous; Hopper's compositions are sad and lonely, leaving viewers to ponder the mysterious narrative. One might assume that Hopper's work was a mirror of his personal life. As the title states, he painted world as he saw it, yet in actuality his world and personal life was rather typical. Burleigh and Minor touch on this in the afterword, but they don't specifically address the contradiction between the darkness of his work and his seemingly normal personal life, which leaves a ripe subject for discussion among teachers and librarians and their creative readers. Additional back matter includes quotes about art from Hopper, miniature reproductions of four of Hopper's most famous works with discussion prompts, important dates, and a note on the illustrations from Minor.-Billy Parrott, New York Public Library (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
In a narrative as calmly straightforward as Hopper's work, Burleigh introduces the great American realist (1882-1967), who from boyhood dreamed of being an artist but wondered: "Will I ever be able to paint things the way they appear to me?" With occasional quotes smoothly worked in, the text takes readers through Hopper's early years studying in New York and Paris, working as an illustrator, and pushing on with his own art as "America was changing" in the early twentieth century. Then, after Hopper's marriage at forty-two, the story tracks his travels with his wife along New England's seashore, through the countryside, and back to his beloved New York City, where "he was looking for what other artists didn't paint...what only he saw." Burleigh's prose captures the essence of Hopper's renderings: lighthouses that "rise up, gleaming in the sunlight, looming above land and sea"; the "quiet emptiness" of a gas station; the many "small mysteries" of city life. So, too, do Minor's gouache paintings, all of which echo Hopper's sense of wonderment over the potential of everyday scenes (four of Minor's illustrations are his "interpretations" of Hopper paintings--Early Sunday Morning, Lighthouse Hill, Gas, and Nighthawks). An afterword describes Hopper as a "hero" who believed in his own vision and an "explorer" who discovered a unique brand of realism amidst modern artists venturing away from it. Other back matter includes Hopper quotes and thumbnails of his work, an extensive list of resources, and an artist's note. katrina hedeen (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Two masters of illustrated, brief biographies for young people reunite (If You Spent a Day with Thoreau at Walden Pond, 2012) for this accessible introduction to an iconic 20th-century American realist.Their careful, almost developmental approach quickly transcends the provision of objective biographical facts (though they are all there in abundance) by first presenting Hoppers childhood pencil caseinscribed Edward Hopper Would be Artist: five words that summarize a life story. It is evident that Burleigh and Minor are determined that readers both understand and see the artists process of discovery. Their decision to avoid reproductions of Hoppers work throughoutreflects the essential understanding that Hoppers own paintings were never exact representations of a specific place at a specific time. Minor helps readers acquire both the sense and the sensibility of a Hopper work via his own charcoal-and-pencil studies of the paintings under consideration in Burleighs thoughtful text. In this wonderfully illuminating way, they both help readers comprehend Hopper from the inside out: from the actual motifs, to the edited and combined studies, to the familiar, finished and admired paintings on the museum walls. Backmatter is particularly well-organized and inclusive.Well-researched and carefully paced, this is an enduring and inspiring book that will help kids to understand the why and the how of an artist at work. (Picture book/biography. 5-9) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
