Overview

Full Product Details

9780994747440

Table of Contents

Reviews

""The city has been the subject of rich artistic interpretation since the Renaissance, but alas fell from favor in the second half of the twentieth century. Save for super realists such as Richard Estes, little urban landscape painting has been advanced in recent decades. The images by Don LePan in this book suggest what we have been missing. These paintings capture the energy and arresting forms that characterize the modern metropolis. Anyone who studies urban physical form or is simply intrigued by it will find this volume engrossing."" -- Richard Longstreth, Professor emeritus, George Washington University and former President, Society of Architectural Historians ""LePan presents a collection of charming watercolor cityscapes accompanied by commentary, in this retrospective of his three-decade career. ... [The book] features dynamic urban scenes in which light operates without conventional logic: ""Broad swaths of light sweep and swoop down and across and up and away,"" lending skyscrapers, bridges, and monuments a ""friendly but fierce and almost otherworldly energy."" The artist's loose, gestural approach offers a refreshing departure from the rigid linear representations that typically characterize urban landscapes. LePan's ""mind's-eye painting"" ... approach yields consistently vibrant results; outstanding examples include his breakthrough Chicago (1994), in which the Sears Tower and Merchandise Mart pulse with raw metropolitan energy, and New Orleans (2007), which captures both post-Katrina devastation and the city's irrepressible vitality through bold color contrasts and flowing forms."" -- Kirkus Reviews ""The Skyscraper and the City offers an exuberant tour of skylines across the U.S. and beyond, in watercolor images awash in Don LePan's own memories of the many cities he's visited. This is a personal record of his travels, collected with evident delight in the range of responses these places and buildings have inspired, and the excitement of discovery. His joy in being able to capture such moments of awe and beauty is infectious."" -- Angela Miller, Professor of Art History, Washington University in St. Louis

Author Information

the author Born in Washington, DC, in 1954, Don LePan is best known as a writer and book publisher. He is the founder of Broadview Press and the author of Animals: A Novel and of several other works of fiction; he has been painting seriously since 1994. Since 2009 he has lived in the small city of Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available