From Library Journal
The vast Anderson Collection comprises works selected between the late 1960s and the late 1990s by San Franciscans Harry and Mary Margaret Anderson with assistance from their daughter. Some of their art had been previously displayed at the headquarters of their company, the Saga Corporation, in Menlo Park, but the two shows for which these catalogs were produced will expose hundreds of pieces to a wider public, in the Bay Area and beyond. Breuer, curator of the Anderson Graphic Arts Collection at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, presents a wide variety of graphic material screenprints, lithographs, aquatints, drypoints, woodcuts, etchings, monotype, and photogravures organized by decade. Breuer begins each section with a concise one-page overview of important artists and trends, encapsulating the explosive 1960s, the expansionist 1970s, the excessive 1980s, and the forward-moving 1990s. Her introductory chapter about the Andersons and the chronology section on printmaking in America from 1940 to 2000 are both informative. Editor Garrels, previously a curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, has compiled a collaborative writing effort between seven people writing chapter essays and ten people writing shorter focus pieces on a particular artist and selected artwork. Presenting Modern art by 140 artists is a challenge that this catalog valiantly meets, though the focus pieces actually leave one wishing that more of the art could have been discussed in that pinpointed fashion. The chapter essays and illustrations cover the New York School, California art, contemporary art, modern sculpture, and works on paper. (This latter category differs from the graphics catalog in comprising unique works in charcoal, graphite, ink, and so forth.) A format distraction in both books is the overuse of large areas of glaring white space and the too small, light text. Another problem is that the very large, square shape of both books makes them heavy, difficult to carry around, and quite awkward to read on one's lap. One might question whether the production of such monumental tomes, more at home on a coffee table than a reference shelf, is really in keeping with the Andersons' goal of sharing their art. Nevertheless, both books are recommended for academic and larger public libraries for the importance of the images and the quality accompanying texts. Anne Marie Lane, American Heritage Ctr., Univ. of Wyoming, Laramie Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"An American Focus celebrates the exceptional and extensive Anderson Graphic Arts Collection of prints, multiples, and monotypes by major contemporary American artists. From 1968 to 1996 Bay Area collectors Harry and Mary Margaret Anderson built one of the finest post-World War II private graphic arts collections in the United States. Their collection surveys the American printmaking renaissance with outstanding examples of print processes - woodcut, intaglio, lithography, screenprint, and monotype - from major fine art presses, including Gemini in Los Angeles, Universal Limited Art Editions in New York, and Crown Point Press in San Francisco. The Andersons held "the best" as a criterion in acquiring works of art, as seen in this selection of 192 works from their collection, now housed with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor." "This volume presents a rare opportunity to view works on paper by many of the best-known contemporary artists, including Richard Diebenkorn, Kiki Smith, Jasper Johns, Elizabeth Murray, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, Josef Albers, Roy Lichtenstein, and Ellsworth Kelly. The works are presented in chronological order and organized into four sections, each corresponding to the decade in which they were produced, from the 1960s to the 1990s." "Karin Breuer introduces each section and describes important events and trends in American print history; she has also contributed an essay on the story behind the renowned Anderson Collection and an illustrated chronology of American printmaking from 1945 to the present. The chronology tracks the printmaking renaissance, noting major events, landmark works such as Rauschenberg's Booster of 1967 that redefined the possibilities of scale in contemporary prints, and seminal exhibitions such as the 1968 Degas monotype exhibition at the Fogg Art Museum that stimulated a revival of interest in monotype among contemporary artists. With the addition of a

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal