CLUB WITHOUT WALLS: from the Journals of Philip Pavia--
The Artists Club Where the Abstract Expressionists Gathered, February 2007
Edited by Natalie Edgar
ISBN 978-1-877675-62-1 paper; 96 pp.; illust.

THE JOURNALS OF MYRON STOUT, 2005
Edited by Tina Dickey; Introduction by Robert Storr
ISBN 1-877675-52-0 paper; 352 pp.; color & B/W illust.; $28.00
ISBN 1-877675-53-9 cloth; 352 pp.; color & B/W illust.; $35.00
The Journals are the most articulate writings recorded by an artist since those of Delacroix. They reflect an artist's evolution and reflect aspects of the inner worlds of all artists: investigations into philosophy, politics, literature, the interrelationships of art forms; the history of aesthetics; the visual expression of balance, torque and tension; the relationship of abstract art to the natural world.

"The Journals appear here in their most complete form to date. . . the first entries date from 1950, three years after he enrolled in the art school run by Hans Hofmann, whose teaching so profoundly affected Stout's thinking and practice. . . . He used his writings to define his aesthetic ideas. The last entries are from 1966, by which time all the fundamental elements of the artist's approach had come sharply into focus, and many of his most important works were behind him."

Hilton Kramer in a recent review said this "is a book that every art student should read [and that many artists would profit from reading. . . . the surprise is not so much biographical] Stout has long been known to have lived a solitary life [as it is intellectual] the revelation that he devoted such close critical attention to the work of his contemporaries, keeping a detailed written record of his responses to their accomplishments and what he regarded as their failures. In one respect, the Journals resemble his paintings: "they are at their best when they are most concrete." Myron Stout (1908-1987) studied intermittently with Hans Hofmann for several years in New York and Provincetown and was mentored and befriended by him. He started exhibiting in the early 1950s at the height of the Abstract Expressionist movement pursuing his own style of small scale, geometric, purist (although deeply colored), unemotional paintings, following in the tradition of Mondrian and Hofmann.

By 1954 his focus changed to black and white abstract iconic shapes which established his place in American art. He had a retrospective in 1980 at the Whitney Museum of American Art and his works have been widely exhibited in the U.S. and Europe since.

The book is filled with color plates and black and white reproductions and photographs of his contemporaries.

THE FIRST WIFE'S TALE: A MEMOIR BY LOUISE STRAUS-ERNST, September 2003
ISBN 1-877675-43-1, Illust., $22.00
The diary is a deeply affecting story of the life of an extraordinary woman of the early 20th century. It is also a Holocaust memoir unique in its immediacy as well as its candor and writing. Louise was a professional art historian and critic, a prominent journalist known throughout Europe. Louise Strass, born in Cologne, Germany in 1893 to a solidly middle-class Jewish family, married artist Max Ernst in 1918. Their son Jimmy was born in 1920, but Max and Louise separated soon after: Max had become infatuated with Gala Eluard (later Gala Dali). After the divorce, Louise's career continued to blossom as did her social life. Then in 1933, with the Nazis newly in power, Louise was a marked woman. She fled to Paris and remained in exile in France, but in 1940, when France fell to the Nazis and the roundup of Jews began, it became clear that her comfortable life in that country was doomed and she tried with increasing desperation to emigrate to America, where her son had lived since 1938. The diary, written from 1941-1942, recalls her childhood, her family's comfortable (but rigid) lifestyle, and relics of that time which she cherished, some of them still carried with her. She also tells the tale of her love match with Max and her friendships with Europe's most avant-garde artists. In 1943, after 2 years of moving from Paris and the South of France to Drancy, under increasing threat and aware that she was watched, Louise Strauss-Ernst as finally captured. In June 1944 she was deported on the next-to-last train to Auschwitz.

HOWARDENA PINDELL: THE HEART OF THE QUESTION THE WRITINGS AND PAINTINGS OF HOWARDENA PINDELL
Introduction by Lowery S. Sims
ISBN 1-877675-25-3 paper, Illust., $14.00
Pindell discusses aspects of her life including her work, travel, and her identity as an African-American woman and addresses aspects of censorship, patriarchy, racism, religion, African-American influences, art criticism, and the halo effect.

A HOLOCAUST PORTFOLIO: DRAWINGS AND PAINTINGS BY JEANIE NEYER
Introduction by Frederick S. Plotkin
ISBN 1 877675-32-6 cloth, Color & b/w Illust, $22.00
"Neyer's paintings and drawings provide us with compelling images that force us to recall the most unique aspect of the Holocaust, the mass murder of more than a million and a half children, and the power that art can provide for understanding at least a small part of this incomprehensible event." — Dr. Stephen Feinstein, Director, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Univ. of Minnesota

MICHELANGELO AND ME: SIX YEARS IN MY CARRARA HAVEN
Hanna M. Eshel
ISBN 1-877675-19-9 paper, Illust., $14.00
An enchanting memoir by an Israeli-American artist chronicling her years in Carrara, Italy, where she fell in love with marble — and with a local Carrarese man. An artist's modern romance with a place, its people, and Michelangelo's marble mountains.