Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Art Brut: The Origins of Outsider Art

by Lucienne Peiry

In the early 20th-century, European avant-garde artists began to look beyond the accepted canons of Western art in a search for new sources of inspiration. "Primitive" art, drawings by children, the art of the insane, and graffiti all opened up new avenues for experimentation and artistic creation. At the end of World War II, leading French artist Jean Dubuffet became interested in the works being produced by... (more)

The End Is Near: Visions of Apocalypse, Millennium and Utopia : Works from the American Visionary Art Museum

The End Is Near: Visions of Apocalypse, Millennium and Utopia : Works from the American Visionary Art Museum

by Roger Manley, Adam Parfrey, Dalai Lama XIV, Stephen Jay Gould, American Visionary Art Museum

The End is Near! maps the fervor haunting the human consciousness as the Millennium's final hour approaches. will it mean the dawning of a new Utopia or a terrifying descent into apocalyptic chaos? An unprecedented group of noted thinkers, from His Holiness th Dalai Lama and Stephen Jay Gould to Reverend Howard Finster and Apocalypse culture expert Adam Parfrey, joins dozens of world-renowned visionary... (more)

Detour Art: Outsider, Folk Art, and Visionary Environments Coast to Coast - Art and Photographs from the Collection of Kelly Ludwig

Detour Art: Outsider, Folk Art, and Visionary Environments Coast to Coast - Art and Photographs from the Collection of Kelly Ludwig

by Kelly Ludwig

Serving as a vibrant primer for people new to Outsider Art and love letter to those fairly familiar with it, Detour Art brings art and images by visionaries, untrained artists, and folk creators found along the back roads of America. It honors the creative spirit that is at once traditional and whimsical, spiritual and irreverent, earthy and sublime. Included are works by Thornton Dial, Mose Tolliver, Jimmy... (more)

The Genius

by Jesse Kellerman

The sinister and provocative thriller from crime writing’s freshest new voice. Ethan Muller is struggling to establish his reputation as a dealer in the cut-throat world of contemporary art, when he stumbles onto a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: in a decaying New York slum, an elderly tenant named Victor Cracke has disappeared, leaving behind a staggeringly large trove of original artwork. Nobody can say... (more)

The World of Beryl Cook

by Beryl Cook

From plump ladies at lunch to risquÃƒÂ© nights in Plymouth pubs, Beryl Cook s immediately recognizable and widely popular work is celebrated in this generously illustrated publication that covers her entire career. For over forty years Cook s work has captured moments of social history to create a perceptive record of life in the second half of the twentieth century. Offering a unique chronicle of British life,... (more)

The Works

by Beryl Cook

Daniel Johnston

by Philippe Vergne, Jad Fair, Harvey Pekar

Daniel Johnston only ever dreamt of two things: he wanted to be a rock star and he wanted to be a famous artist. Amazingly enough, he succeeded at both. Today he is an acclaimed indie music star whose charmingly twisted songs have been covered by the likes of Beck, Yo La Tengo, and TV on The Radio. His artwork appears in galleries throughout the world and was featured in the 2006 Whitney Biennial. Johnston’s pen... (more)

Henry Darger: Disasters Of War

by Henry Darger

Henry Darger spent his life working as a janitor in Catholic hospitals, living alone in a rented room on Chicago's north side, attending Mass up to five times a day, and writing a picaresque tale in 15 massive volumes, composed of 145 handwritten pages and 5,084 single-spaced typed pages, and titled The Story of the Vivian Girls, in what is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm,... (more)

Kunst oder Chaos? = Art or chaos?

Text: German, English

Moonlight and Music: The Enchanted World of Gayleen Aiken

Moonlight and Music: The Enchanted World of Gayleen Aiken

by Gayleen Aiken

Teeming with colorful details and including hand-written notes in the corner of each one, Gayleen Aiken's paintings tell stories of a simpler, perpetually happy world, as she recreates the Vermont home of her childhood, peopled it with an imaginary family of cousins and their many cats--all named Susie. 24 color illustrations.

Original Sin: The Visionary Art of Joe Coleman

Original Sin: The Visionary Art of Joe Coleman

by Harold Schechter, Katharine Gates, Joe Coleman

Joe Coleman is a powerful artist whose paintings in acrylic on Masonite contain within their bizarre decorative borders an astonishing profusion of specific, intensely colorful nightmare images. He does not try to be pretty. He does not flinch from depicting revolting details of body parts and violence. (Click on the cover illustration for a closer look.) Often he places a totemic figure, such as Edgar Allan... (more)

Cruising

by Beryl Cook

Beryl Cook's place deep in the heart of the British public is long-standing . Her humour, playfulness, subtlety and perceptiveness have guaranteed her position as Britain's most enduringly popular artist. Saucy and shy, risque and prudish, she records details of contemporary life with irrepressible glee. Cruising is a book that illustrates both the sailing and the amorous kinds. Whether it's a group of large... (more)

Jonathan Lerman: The Drawings of a Boy with Autism

Jonathan Lerman: The Drawings of a Boy with Autism

by Jonathan Lerman

The remarkable story of Jonathan Lerman, a young artist with autism, seized the attention of the art world at the 2002 Outsider Art Fair. Coverage by The New York Times, The Today Show, 48 Hours , and other international media has brought him into millions of homes across the country. This selection of fifty drawings, with a text by critic Lyle Rexer, presents the full range and astonishing growth of Jonathan's... (more)

Mixed-Media Collage: An Exploration of Contemporary Artists, Methods, and Materials

Mixed-Media Collage: An Exploration of Contemporary Artists, Methods, and Materials

by Holly Harrison

More than 60 new mixed-media collages by leading mixed-media artists. Mixed-media collage artists are embracing, unearthing, and reconstructing the flotsam and jetsam of modern life with abandon, integrating discards along with a range of art materials and novel techniques to create compelling, new works. Original, idiosyncratic, and delightful, this catch-as-catch-can approach to making art is inspiring and can... (more)

Create and Be Recognized: Photography on the Edge

Create and Be Recognized: Photography on the Edge

by John Turner

Create and Be Recognized is the first survey of a compelling, always surprising art form -- outsider photography. Presented here is the work of seventeen largely self-taught artists who have used photography or photographic elements in their creations, including such luminaries as Adolf Wolfli, Howard Finster, and Henry Darger, as well as discoveries from little known, equally dramatic artists. As with most... (more)

The Mission of Art

by Alex Grey

This is an inspirational book about art's power to bring about personal catharsis and spiritual awakening. Alex Grey's reflections combine his extensive knowledge of art history and his own first-hand experiences in creating art on the boundaries of consciousness. Included are practical techniques and exercises that can be used to explore the spiritual dimension of art. Challenging and thought-provoking, The... (more)

Beryl Cook's LondonBeryl Cook

Beryl Cook's London

by Beryl Cook

SPECK: A Curious Collection of Uncommon Things

SPECK: A Curious Collection of Uncommon Things

by Peter Gordon Buchanan-Smith

In Speck, Peter Buchanan-Smith, Art Director of the New York Times Op-Ed page, asks artists, designers, lawyers, writers, collectors, and photographers to explore our obsessions with the small objects that loom large in our everyday lives. To wit: Maira Kalman empties people's pocketbooks; Nicholas Blechman and Jesse Gordon trace the history of the oldest piece of dust; David Horrowitz catalogs manhole covers;... (more)

The New American Splendor Anthology

by Harvey Pekar

American Splendor is the series that sparked a revolution in comics and brought graphic novels to the attention of post-adolescent readers everywhere. Here is the best of American Splendor and other comics by Harvey Pekar, including never-before-seen material.

The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place

by E. L. Konigsburg

I Prefer Not To.... That's Margaret Rose Kane's response to every activity she's asked to participate in at the summer camp to which she's been exiled while her parents are in Peru. So Margaret Rose is delighted when her beloved uncles rescue her from Camp Talequa, with its uptight camp director and cruel cabinmates, and bring her to stay with them at their wonderful house at 19 Schuyler Place. But Margaret Rose... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: outsider art

by Lucienne Peiry

by Roger Manley, Adam Parfrey, Dalai Lama XIV, Stephen Jay Gould, American Visionary Art Museum

by Kelly Ludwig

by Jesse Kellerman

by Beryl Cook

by Beryl Cook

by Philippe Vergne, Jad Fair, Harvey Pekar

by Henry Darger

by Gayleen Aiken

by Harold Schechter, Katharine Gates, Joe Coleman

by Beryl Cook

by Jonathan Lerman

by Holly Harrison

by John Turner

by Alex Grey

by Beryl Cook

by Peter Gordon Buchanan-Smith

by Harvey Pekar

by E. L. Konigsburg