Charles Krafft's one-of-a-kind artwork moves in provocative directions, combining the highbrow with the gruesome in such works as his Disasterware (Delft-style painted plates featuring catastrophes) and Sponeware ("the human bone china"). Krafft's work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Artforum, and Juxtapoz. With 60 color photographs, the full range of his plates, paintings, and other creations is sampled in this book, which also includes biographical information on this remarkable self-taught painter. The Art of Charles Krafft documents Krafft's major shows and productions.

A gaunt woman stares into the bleakness of the Great Depression. An exuberant sailor plants a kiss on a nurse in the heart of Times Square. A naked Vietnamese girl runs in terror from a napalm attack. An unarmed man stops a tank in Tiananmen Square. These and a handful of other photographs have become icons of public culture: widely recognized, historically significant, emotionally resonant images that are used repeatedly to negotiate civic identity. But why are these images so powerful? How do they remain meaningful across generations? What do they expose--and what goes unsaid? InNo Caption Needed, Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites provide the definitive study of the iconic photograph as a dynamic form of public art. Their critical analyses of nine individual icons explore the photographs themselves and their subsequent circulation through an astonishing array of media, including stamps, posters, billboards, editorial cartoons, TV shows, Web pages, tattoos, and more. As these iconic images are reproduced and refashioned by governments, commercial advertisers, journalists, grassroots advocates, bloggers, and artists, their alterations throw key features of political experience into sharp relief. Iconic images are revealed as models of visual eloquence, signposts for collective memory, means of persuasion across the political spectrum, and a crucial resource for critical reflection. Arguing against the conventional belief that visual images short-circuit rational deliberation and radical critique, Hariman and Lucaites make a bold case for the value of visual imagery in a liberal-democratic society.No Caption Neededis a compelling demonstration of photojournalism's vital contribution to public life.

Matthew Kangas captures the essence of the debate as to whether those working in craft media are artists or not, covering all crafts media with a special emphasis on ceramics.

"In Painted Clay, Paul Scott proposes an alternative version of ceramic history ... one where form and function are not dominant, but where painting and the graphic development of ceramic surface are the prime concerns. Covering a range from pre-Dynastic Egyptian painting on pots, through Chinese porcelain, Persian Minai ware and Maiolica to the blue and white of the industrialized West, he charts the development of increasingly sophisticated painted and graphic works." "The book takes an extensive overview of today's contemporary (graphic) ceramic scene, and the figures and movements that have influenced it. In exploring the use "painters" such as Picasso, Miro, the CoBrA Group, Conrad Atkinson, and others have made of ceramics, it also examines the relationships artists have had with the pottery industry, from Soviet Revolutionary Propaganda ware to collaborations at the Wedgwood Pottery company. It highlights a wide range of work by contemporary ceramic artists, painters, and printmakers from around the world: Ann Kraus, Cindy Kolodziejski, Eric Mellon, Grayson Perry, and many others." "This book should appeal to anyone interested in ceramics, as well as to painters, printmakers, graphic artists, and all those generally interested in the visual arts."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved