Oxford Dictionary of Art

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Oxford Dictionary of Art is the unrivalled one-volume guide to the art of the Western world. It provides a careful balance of fact and critical appraisal, ranging across painting, sculpture, and the graphic arts from classical times to the present. Almost 3,500 entries provide the reader with readily accessible information, written in succinct and readable prose, about styles, techniques, collections, artists, and critics. Ideal for students, picture researchers, and art lovers in general. This acclaimed reference book has now been brought completely up to date. Ian Chilvers brings his engaging style to bear on a host of contemporary artists -- Andy Goldsworthy, Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Damien Hirst, Julian Schnabel, Rachel Whiteread -- on the collectors and institutions that have helped shape the art world -- the Glasgow School of Art, the Bauhaus, the Habsburgs, the Rothschilds, Charles Saatchi, J. Paul Getty -- and on the range of styles and techniques now current, including Body art, installations, Video art.

SYNOPSIS

Devoted to western art, museums, collectors, art movements, and artists from ancient times through the present (artists born after 1965 are mainly excluded), this dictionary is written in a personable style rarely achieved in such works. Artists who worked in painting, printmaking, sculpture, and drawing are covered until modern times, when the variations of video art, conceptual art, and similar media are also included. Architecture, design, photography, and the applied arts are beyond the book's scope. Biographical entries provide the artist's or collector's date and place of birth and death and summarize their life and career. Each entry is fully cross-referenced. A classified list of entries by century, a chronology, and an index of galleries and museums of western art are included. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

British art historian Chilvers has edited several Oxford references on art and literature, including the 1988 and 1997 editions of this acclaimed dictionary. Its new revised and expanded edition continues to focus on Western painting, sculpture, printmaking, and drawing from ancient times to the present and Western-inspired art. Geared to the general reader, it contains almost 3500 sophisticated but engagingly written entries and offers broad coverage of artists, movements, techniques, places, writers, and collectors, dealers, and art patrons. About three-quarters of the entries are biographical, the bulk of them about artists (none born after 1965). New entries have been added on contemporary artists such as Eva Hesse, Andy Goldsworthy, and Richard Serra and on topics such as video art and abstract impressionism. The new edition also boasts more complete birth and death places and dates, lists of entry titles grouped under various useful thematic headings, an updated chronology of major art works, and an up-to-date world wide directory of significant museums and galleries of Western art. Bottom Line More comprehensive than the Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists (which covers only 1200 artists compared with Oxford's 2000) and more up-to-date than 1994's Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art and Artists, this work finds its closest competitor in The Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists. The Oxford dictionary is, however, more accessible to general readers than the scholarly Yale dictionary and is more witty and lively if not better written. Perhaps not essential for collections with Chilvers's 2003 Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists, this is otherwise recommended for all libraries. Ann Carlson, Oak Park & River Forest H.S., IL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

A handy work based on earlier Oxford Companions and revised from previous editions, this single-volume reference contains 3000 entries that discuss Western and Western-inspired art from antiquity on. It considers paintings, graphics, sculpture, and architecture in terms of artistic figures, periods, schools, techniques, critical terms, and museums; lesser artists are treated more concisely than major ones. Despite editorial claims that the dictionary is ``up to date,'' coverage of recent activities is uneven, with Neo-expressionism and other contemporary movements and artists omitted. An easy format, accurate facts, and good cross-referencing make this a useful lexicon for the layperson or for general and public collections. Robin Kaplan, The Information Group, Los Angeles

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up-Chilvers provides more than 3000 concise, lucid entries in this second revision of Harold Osborne's one-volume dictionary, which first appeared in 1988. A preface explains the scope: "-Western and Western-inspired painting, sculpture, printmaking, and drawing from ancient times to the present day," with the qualification that no artists born after 1965 have their own headings. An introductory list of entries, organized geographically and chronologically for artists, and then thematically (terms, techniques, academies, etc.) reveals the Anglocentric focus. Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenaway, and Arthur Rackham mingle with Henry Moore and John Constable in the English lineup. Major African-American artists such as Romare Bearden, Augusta Savage, and Jacob Lawrence are absent. Chilvers fails to include the infamous Guerilla Girls, and he misstates the relationship between the National Gallery and the Smithsonian. Nancy Frazier's The Penguin Concise Dictionary of Art History (Penguin, 2001), with its interdisciplinary approach, quotes from each artist, and more inclusive scope, offers an alternative, although with fewer entries. Neither source has any pictures, a situation requiring the additional use of monographs or online resources for most questions.-Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public Library Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Marina Vaizey

"..the best and most inclusive single volume available." -- Sunday Times

Graham Hughes