Biography & Autobiography : Artists, Architects, Photographers

Maya Lin, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, was born in small-town America. Lin broke onto the American scene as a college senior, when she won a national competition to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. This is the portrait of the artist, whose use of her cultural heritage brings drama and emotional impact to her work. more...

Price: $36.00

AWARD-WINNING AND CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED WRITER WITOLD RYBCZYNSKI DELIVERS A REVELATORY COLLECTION OF LINKED AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS -- PART MEMOIR, PART FAMILY HISTORY -- ABOUT THE UPHEAVALS OF EUROPEAN LIVES DURING WORLD WAR II, HIS OWN INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT, AND THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGES OF ART, MUSIC, AND ARCHITECTURE. Witold Rybczynski's parents and grandparents were a thriving, cultured family in prewar Warsaw, then a sophisticated European city. With the onset of war, their world fell apart. His mother and father made separate escapes, reuniting against many odds on a ship bound for Scotland from Marseilles. That people can lose everything, overcome stunning odds to survive, remake themselves in a foreign country, learn a new language and culture, and then do it again is extraordinary. My Two Polish Grandfathers is a testament to the boundaryless world of art, architecture, and music -- which can be transported from one country to another -- and clear affirmation of Rybczynski's own path toward becoming an architect and one of today's most original thinkers. Beautifully written, thoughtful, and extraordinarily subtle, this riveting work offers a rare glimpse into the development of Rybczynski's educated outsider's eye and is a tribute to a European generation that has helped to define postwar American culture. more...

Price: $25.00

Joe Klein, best-selling author of Primary Colors and one of our most brilliant political analysts, now tackles the subject he knows best: Bill Clinton. Astute, even-handed, and keenly intelligent, The Natural is the only book to read if you want to understand exactly what happened–to the military, to the economy, to the American people, to the country–during Bill Clinton’s presidency, and how the decisions made during his tenure affect all of us today. more...

Price: $14.99

Norman Rockwell’s tremendously successful, prolific career as a painter and illustrator has rendered him a twentieth-century American icon. However, the very popularity and accessibility of his idealized, nostalgic depictions of middleclass life have caused him to be considered not a serious artist but a “mere illustrator”–a disparagement only reinforced by the hundreds of memorable covers he drew for The Sunday Evening Post. more...

Price: $16.95

This is the first biography of T. G. Jackson, an architect who transformed the image of Oxford, rebuilt public schools, and became a leading architect of the arts and crafts movement. Although many of his buildings are famous, until now he has been little known. Yet his work illuminates a whole society as well as an individual. - ;In the late nineteenth century one man changed Oxford forever. T. G. Jackson built the Examination Schools, the Bridge of Sighs, worked at a dozen colleges, and restored a score of other Oxford icons. He also built for many of the major public schools, for the University of Cambridge, and at the Inns of Court. A friend of William Morris, he was a pioneering member of the arts and crafts moment. A distinguished historian, he also restored dozens of houses and churches - and ensured. the survival of Winchester Cathedral. As an architectural theorist he was a leader of the generation that rejected the Gothic Revival and sought to develop a new and modern style of building. Drawing on extensive archival work, and illustrated with a hundred images, this is the first in-depth analysis of Jackson's career ever written. It sheds light on a little-known architect and reveals that his buildings, his books, and his work as an arts and craftsman were not just important in their own right, they were also part of a wider social change. Jackson was the architect of choice for a particular group of people, for the 'intellectual aristocracy' of late Victorian England. His. buildings were a means by which they could articulate their identity and demonstrate their distinctiveness. They reformed the universities and the schools whilst he refashioned their image. Essential reading for anyone interested in Victorian architecture and nineteenth-century society, this book will also be of interest to all those who know and love Oxford or Cambridge. - ;In this attractive book, William Whyte has wisely and ably brought Sir Thomas Graham Jackson out of th more...

Price: $150.00