From Library Journal
Artistic representations of the Midwest's prairies and plains are cloaked in metaphor in this sweeping survey of middle American landscapes from early settlement to the present day. Kinsey (art history, Univ. of Iowa; Thomas Moran and the Surveying of the American West, Smithsonian, 1992) delves deeply into the aesthetics of absence and emptiness while tracking artists' and photographers' evolving interpretations of the plains from wilderness through prosperity and decline to contemporary attitudes. More than an academic study, this book accompanies an exhibition traveling to Iowa City, Fort Worth, and Omaha. As such, major artists, including George Catlin, Karl Bodmer, Grant Wood, and Thomas Hart Benton, are amply represented along with numerous photographers, especially those sponsored by the Farm Securities Administration and contemporary photographers. Highly recommended for all academic libraries for its breadth of scholarship and thoughtful historical treatment and for larger regional public collections.?Russell T. Clement, Univ. of Tennessee Lib., KnoxvilleCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Bountifully illustrated with 160 years of artistic responses to both the vast grasslands and agricultural expanses of the Midwest, Plain Pictures is the first book to address representations of the midwestern Prairie as a genre distinct from American western art. In a wide-ranging narrative, Joni Kinsey argues that images of the grassland, far from being plain, offer a paradox of their own: the significance of the subject is equaled only by the struggle to express it. One hundred twenty color and black-and-white reproductions showcase works by George Catlin, Worthington Whittredge, Albert Bierstadt, Georgia O'Keeffe, Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, Laura Gilpin, Dorothea Lange, Terry Evans, and many others.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal