Book Reviews

And so here it is, the enormous catalog to the Helen Williams Drutt collection, acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) in Texas and co-published by that institution and Arnoldsche. Presided over by Cindi Strauss, curator of Modern and Contemporary Decorative Arts and Design, the publication is an extraordinary resource, packed full of analysis, images and the tools of art history (biography, bibliography, chronology and exhibition history). more...

In the late 1950s, Dr Ümit Bir set out with his stethoscope in his bag, traveling around the world and including frequent visits to Turkey, his home country. In 1960, he met an architect, Dr Rudolph Steinbach, who gave the order to 'start collecting!' Trained in 'the strenuous and exacting practice of medicine,' Bir turned out to be a good photographer, a note-taker and a methodical arranger of the artifacts he discovered. In the late 1990s, his growing collection was uncovered by Dr Wolf-Dieter Seiwert, who first curated an exhibition of Bir's collection and then wrote this book about it. more...

This book is a cabinet of wonderful curiosities, particularly for people who are knowledgeable about twentieth and twenty-first century art history. It will also drive you slightly mad, like being invited to a grand buffet and only allowed to pick one or two dishes. more...