Artists @ Work by Richard Wolfe and Stephen RobinsonPenguin BooksRRP $72.00Where do their artists' ideas come from, how do they end up being transformed into the finished works of art and what sort of environment do these works of art get conceived in?The
Artists @ Work by Richard Wolfe and Stephen Robinson
Penguin Books
RRP $72.00
Where do their artists' ideas come from, how do they end up being transformed into the finished works of art and what sort of environment do these works of art get conceived in?
These are some of the questions which are answered in part by a new book “Artists @ Work” by writer Richard Wolfe and photographer Stephen Robinson.
It is a book which provides useful information and insights about art and adds to the growing number of books on New Zealand art. “Artists @ Work” fills a unique and relevant place in books about artists and the way they work.
The book takes us to the studios of 24 New Zealand painters and sculptors from around the country with each artist given a generous spread of 10 pages, a dozen photographs and a decent text.
Wolfe’s text is essentially a transcribed interview with the artist and captures both the inspirational part of the artists work as well as the working aspect.
As he notes in his introduction the books aims to “provide and insight into how artists go about their business, with an emphasis on the practical aspects.”
Wolfe goes beyond that to delve into the ideas behind the art with perceptive comments throughout the book.
The photographs that illustrate the book add greatly to the insights into the artist and the studio. They allow us to see the scale of the studio; from Neil Dawson’s huge factory space to the tiny cramped corner of a shared studio where Andrew McLeod works.
There is the vast clutter of Jeff Thomson's corrugated iron construction as well as the incredibly tidy studio of Richard Killeen.
The photographs sometimes provide a sense of narrative, conveying something of the artist's thought processes and development but at other times they are merely different views of the same space.
They occasionally reveal subtleties of the artist’s method of working. In one image of Nigel Brown working on a large painting he has a book beside him, open at a couple of Leonardo da Vinci images that look as though they are the inspiration for what he is painting.
The set of photographs of Stanley Palmer showing the artist both working and and in contemplative mode give a real sense of the artist and his processes.
At times some of the photo layouts look a bit Home and Garden with a few too many stacks of brushes, palette knives and posed portraits.
The book follows in a line of books about artists studios such as Alexander Lieberman’s 1960 work “The Artist in His Studio” and the brilliant “{Contemporary New Zealand Artists A – M” by Jim, and Mary Barr with photographs by Marti Friedlander which was published in 1980. These two books feature superb photographs but they are generally of “artists photographed in their studios” while this new book presents “artists at work in their studios”.
It is interesting to note that four of the artists that were in the Barr book are also in this new book (Richard Killeen, Nigel Brown, Jeffrey Harris and Dick Frizzell).
The artists included in “Artists @ Work” are Nigel Brown, Stanley Palmer, Paul Dibble, Jacqueline Fahey, Jeff Thomson, Stephen Bambury, Richard McWhannell, Elizabeth Thomson, Mary McIntyre, Chris Booth, Sara Hughes, John Reynolds, Neil Dawson, Richard Killeen, Martin Poppelwell, Johanna Pegler, Jeffrey Harris, Liz Maw, Karl Maughan, Dick Frizzell, Tracey Tawhiao, Heather Straka and Andrew McLeod, John McLean.
