The Artist's Studio, Edited by Giles Waterfield

Who doesn't enjoy peeking into another artist's creative space, to see where and how they paint? This catalog comes from an exhibition that focuses on artist's studios and is enjoyable just for the paintings depicting studios and artists and work (plus photos for more modern artists). But then I found myself dipping into the text here and there, then getting entranced. It's not a lightweight read, but it rewards your attention with all sorts of bits of knowledge.

While visiting an exhibition and seeing the paintings first-hand is wonderful, seeing every exhibition is impossible. The next best thing is, of course, a decent exhibition catalog. By decent I mean well printed, good-sized images, and informative text, which the one for The Artist's Studio is. Being only 128 pages it won't strain your wrists reading it neither.

The essays don't necessitate a PhD in artspeak to decipher, but to get the most from it you'll require an interest in the subject and knowledge of terminology you'd cover in art theory 101 and who the artists referenced are, or the willingness to look it up if you can't figure it out from the context. But that's part of what exhibition catalogs do; they teach us new things and show us paintings anew.

When I read catalogs, it's the photos of the paintings that get the bulk of my attention initially. (Hardly a surprise.) It's fascinating seeing what an artist has decided to include in a painting, and their composition of the space. And wow, what messy studios in the photos of Bacon, Auerbach, Kossoff, and Freud! (The text goes into how this a "means of self-promotion", how Bacon published photos of his chaotic studio as it supported the impression the wanted of his creative process.

If you enjoy peeking into artist's lives and studios, seeing how they work and how they present themselves in their studios and their paintings, this is a catalog to look at. If you're an artist who paints self-portraits of yourself in your studio, it's a catalog to look at. If you're looking for a present for the serious painter in your life, it's definitely worth considering.

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