American Dreamer: The Art of Philip C. Curtis (Non-mint)

Hardcover | 25.6 x 2.4 x 25.8 cm | 180 pp

Hudson Hills | 1999 | 9781555951665

Philip C. Curtis is unique artist, an American original whose life and work have spanned and absorbed the art history of virtually the entire twentieth century. His charming, exquisitely crafted paintings, in unique frames selected and integrated by the artist, present an imagined vision of Americana influenced by the magic world of the circus and entertainment and by the artist's memories of his turn-of-the-century childhood in Michigan. They combine people (often in period costumes) and musical instruments with invented, isolated, boundless settings in intense colours and in moods that echo surrealism, magic realism, and realism. The figures in Curtis' paintings are in effect characters in a play staged by the artist: "I treat the canvas as a stage and the people I use belong to an acting company of mine".

Philip C. Curtis' provocative paintings, like those of René Magritte, stimulate and enchant our minds as well as our eyes, delighting us with their brain-teasing takes on the nature of art and the foibles of living. The loneliness they sometimes portray
is softened by the artist's evident fascination with the rituals and activities summoned up by his memories of the past.

American Dreamer, the fist monograph on Curtis, brings together his finest paintings with essays on various aspects of his work by leading art historians and curators, along with full documentation of his life and career.

PLEASE NOTE: This book is a NON-MINT item. NON-MINT books are new but are either ex-display copies or warehouse marked - minor cosmetic imperfections such as scuffs, marks, or minor dents to the covers.