Plain Pictures: Images of the American Prairie
Softcover
1996 · Washington, DC
by Kinsey, Joni L.
Washington, DC: University of iowa Museum / Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996. Softcover. VG (Few marks from previous gallery owner.). Color illus. wraps. xx, 236 pp. 41 bw, 80 color plates; weighs 2.5 lbs. Issued in conjunction with a series of 1996-1997 exhibitions. This is the first book to address artistic responses to the midwestern prairie (over a period covering 160 years) as a genre distinct from American western art. A wide-ranging narrative by Joni Kinsey covers the topics 1) Prairie Prospects: the aesthetics of absence, 2) Prospecting the Prairies: explorations, encounters, and enterprising solutions, 3) Promises of Prosperity: cultivating the garden, 4) Regional Reconcilations, 1920-1940s, and 5) Competing Prospects: the contemporary prairie. Includes beautiful plates throughout, 14 pages of detailed notes, 8-page bibliography, and index. Nice! (Inventory #: 7966)