Albert Contreras began his painting career in Los Angeles. He earned public acclaim for his minimalist paintings, and his work as an artist moved him to Mexico City and then onto Madrid, Stockholm, and New York. During his travels and work, he explored the edges of minimalist and reductivist styles, experimenting with the dematerialization of the object.

In the late 1960s, Contreras decided to stop painting entirely, returning to California to work for the City of Los Angeles. Upon retirement, he went to therapy for five years and started to paint again. Unlike his early art work, which often featured monochromes painted onto flat, stretched canvases, Contreras’s later paintings dazzle with Technicolor palettes and viscous textures.

Marquand Books recently published Albert Contreras, the first substantial monograph of the artist’s work. The 112-page book features essays by Dave Hickey, David Pagel, Ed Schad, and John Yau that chronicle Contreras’s career and reflect on the nature and significance of his work. The monograph, designed by Jeff Wincapaw, also includes seventy-seven full-color illustrations of Contreras’s recent and older paintings.

Albert Contreras can be purchased through the D.A.P. bookstore.

photography by Jeremy Linden

Dorothy Kerper Monnelly advocates for the preservation of nature through her work as a photographer and conservationist. In 2006, Monnelly published Between Land and Sea: The Great Marsh—a book of black-and-white landscapes that garnered critical praise in both the fine art and conservation communities.

In her most recent publication, For My Daughters, Monnelly pairs her photography with poetry written by her mother, Dorothy Darling Kerper. Exploring themes of happiness, connection, loss, and wonder, the book is a dialog between mother and daughter, word and image, time and place. Monnelly’s photographs communicate the enduring beauty of the natural world—its lakes and trees, driftwood and petals—as well as the abiding presence of those we have loved.

Marquand Books produced For My Daughters, designed by John Hubbard. The seventy-two-page book features more than thirty tritone illustrations and includes several poems by Kerper.

Monnelly’s work will be featured in the traveling exhibition Fragile Waters, alongside photographs by Ansel Adams and Ernest H. Brooks II. To learn more about the artist and her photography, visit her website. To purchase a copy of For My Daughters, visit Hudson Hills Press.

Photography by Jeremy Linden

Pasión Popular: Spanish and Latin American Folk Art from the Cecere Collection opened earlier this month at the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA). Over the last ten years, SAMA received more than three hundred works of Spanish and Latin American folk art by collector and folk art specialist Peter P. Cecere. The show features nearly two hundred works from the collection that range from paintings and wood sculptures to tin masks and cast-iron signs.

Bright and distinctive, Cecere’s collection reflects his eye for objects integral to the societies and cultures that created them. His career as a cultural affairs officer introduced him to many expressions of folk art and allowed him to pursue with passion his love for collecting and research.

Marquand Books, together with Paper Hammer Studio, produced a limited run of catalogues for the exhibition. Designed to be as distinctive as the works it represents, the catalogue is composed of a hand-bound folding case that holds two components. The first is a hand-sewn booklet that features a foreword by Katherine Crawford Luber and essays by Marion Ottengier, Jr. and Martha Egan, as well as an exhibition checklist. The second is a collection of thirty color plates, printed on heavy stock paper, that present selected works from the exhibition. Together, the 80-page catalogue includes more than 170 full-color illustrations.

For more information about the exhibition and catalogue, visit SAMA.

photography by Jeremy Linden

Marquand Books is pleased to announce that Melissa Duffes is our new managing editor. After three years at the helm, Brynn Warriner is stepping down from the position.

Melissa has more than a decade of experience editing, writing, and preparing museum publications. She comes to us from the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, where she was Publications and Media Coordinator. Melissa has edited many museum publications as a freelance editor over the past 12 years. Her first museum publications position was as Assistant Editor at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. 

Melissa has an MA, Art History from SUNY Buffalo and an M.Phil., History of Decorative Arts from the University of Glasgow. She has worked as a historian at The Montpelier Foundation in Orange, Virginia; a curator and historian for Historic Green Spring in Alexandria, Virginia; and a curator at Tudor Place Historic House and Gardens, Washington, DC. 

During her time at Marquand Books, Brynn led the editorial department with her commitment to produce excellent work. She brought her eye for detail, sense of humor, and impeccable organization skills to every project. Brynn will continue to edit, typeset, and proofread many of our publications on a freelance basis from the great city of New Orleans, Louisiana. She remains an essential part of Marquand Books.

photography by Jeremy Linden

Tonight marks the opening reception for Barbara Earl Thomas’s show Story Line at the Paper Hammer Gallery. Thomas is a local visual artist, award-winning writer, and the Deputy Director of the Northwest African American Museum. Story Line presents fourteen of Thomas’s prints made between 2006 and 2013.

Thomas first started making prints in 2006. The medium allowed her to engage both her visual and storytelling abilities. Her prints focus on the “mess of living,”* and her subjects include fisherman, readers, fish, trumpets, trees, and the activities of everyday life. She uses distinct lines, colors, and characters to create vivid—and rapturously messy—images. Like words on a page, these forms culminate into fluid and complex pictures and stories.

Marquand Books produced the exhibition booklet for Story Line, which features essays by Thomas and Sandra Jackson-Dumont along with full-color illustrations of the fourteen prints. The booklets will be available for purchase at the opening reception.

To learn more about Barbara Earl Thomas and her work, visit her website.

Story Line opening reception:
Paper Hammer Gallery
1400 2nd Ave
Seattle, WA 98101
5–7 p.m.

*Barbara Earl Thomas, Story Line. (Paper Hammer, 2013), 5.

Photography by Jeremy Linden

More than one thousand years ago, Northwest Coast two-dimensional art was developed along the shorelines of the northeast Pacific Ocean, between the central coast of British Columbia and the coast of Southeastern Alaska. When the United States and Canadian governments expanded west, this aesthetic tradition was methodically suppressed, along with Native languages and social and political customs. By the early twentieth century, mastery of Northwest Coast arts and languages had nearly extinguished, save for the voices and skills of a few elders in the local Native communities.

At midcentury, young Native men and women began the work of reclaiming their Native identity and heritage, learning once-forbidden languages and traditional arts. The careful examination of old works informed these new artists about how to use structure, line, and form in their art.

The power of Northwest Coast art caught the attention of nonnative artists as well. Duane Pasco, a Seattle artist, studied the vocabulary, grammar, and syntax of the aesthetic tradition in order to master its form. Pasco’s work ranges from totem poles, longhouses, and canoes, to sculptures, masks, and bowls. Throughout his fifty-year career, Pasco has created a prolific body of work and has taught, mentored, and partnered with Native and nonnative artists and communities to create and promote Northwest Coast art.

Marquand Books recently produced the catalogue Duane Pasco: Life as Art, designed by Zach Hooker. The two-hundred-page catalogue features more than one hundred full-color illustrations. Essays coauthored by Pasco and Barbara Winther recount the events that led to Pasco’s discovery and embrace of Northwest Coast art.

To learn more about Pasco and his work, visit his website. To purchase a copy of Duane Pasco: Life as Art, visit the University of Washington Press.

photography by Jeremy Linden

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco recently opened the exhibition Artful Animals at the Legion of Honor Museum. The show features selected works from the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts—the largest collection of works on paper in the United States. Through works like Elaine de Kooning’s Ley Eyzies to Kobayashi Kiyochika’s Fox and Crescent Moon, the exhibition examines our enduring connection and fascination with the animal kingdom.

Marquand Books produced the catalogue for Artful Animals. Designed by Zach Hooker with assistance from Ryan Polich, the eighty-page book features more than seventy full-color illustrations. An essay by Colleen Terry explores the history of animals in art and how the advent of the printing press in the fifteenth century expanded our knowledge of the animal world.

To learn more about the Artful Animals exhibition, visit the Legion of Honor Museum. 

photography by Jeremy Linden

Her recent publication, Trajectories: A Half Century of Portraits, gathers portraits taken over the last fifty years. Several of the portraits feature the same subject photographed over several years. The portraits reveal each sitter’s unique trajectory and explore how circumstances and choices affected each life. Her sitters include childhood friends, neighbors, family members, immigrants, intellectuals, artists, and eccentrics.

Trajectories was produced by Marquand Books and designed by Jeff Wincapaw. The 184-page book features more than 100 full-color illustrations along with essays by Martha Casanave and Arno Rafael Minkkinen.

To purchase a copy of Trajectories: A Half Century of Portraits, visit Consortium Book Sales & Distribution. To learn more about Casanave and her work, visit her website.

photography by Jeremy Linden 

In our open floor plan, the design wall has increased visibility—making it a catalyst for dialogue between our design, editorial, and production teams. Its accessibility allows everyone to stay tuned to new projects and design directions. The design wall shows the creative work involved in book production, and it underscores the essential role each department plays in the process.

“The thing I like best about the design wall is that it encourages the designers to print pages and spreads in full size so that we can see the design subtleties in a real-world scale. This makes it feel like a real physical object, rather than a digital concept of a real object. And it allows everyone to see how their contributions are affecting the designer’s work.”—Ed Marquand, Creative Director

“I end up seeing designs much sooner than I would otherwise, so I feel connected to the material earlier on in the process. I believe that it fosters a collaborative environment.”—Brynn Warriner, Managing Editor

 “I like being able to see the designs because it’s easier to visualize possible cover treatments that might enhance them. And I love seeing the overall spread of the new books.” —Leah Finger, Production Manager

"I like the fact that it invites conversation about the designs and encourages feedback."—Jeremy Linden, Production Artist

“The design wall opens up one aspect of our work to everyone else, encouraging discussion and fostering a better understanding of what designers do.”—Adrian Lucia, Managing Director

“I really enjoy the critique environment that the design wall creates. Talking about the designs only makes them better, and I think it's great that everyone has a chance to provide input."—Ryan Polich, Design and Production Assistant

“It can definitely open up dialogue within the office, and all can see how the early concepts are developing. And when clients come to visit, it allows them to see what we’re up to. Everyone knows to look for new designs when they hear the loud clicking of magnets on sheet metal."—Jeff Wincapaw, Design Director

photography by Jeremy Linden

In 2012, the Terra Foundation for American Art, the High Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the Musée du Louvre announced a four-year collaboration to explore American and European art through programming and annual exhibitions that draw from the collections of each institution.

The first installation from this collaboration debuted at the Louvre in January 2012. This exhibition explored the birth of American landscape paintings, particularly works by Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand.

In January 2013, the Louvre opened the second exhibition, American Art Enters the Louvre: The Origins of American Genre Painting, on view through April 22. This exhibition looks at the ways in which genre paintings from the early nineteenth century helped the young United States articulate its identity and culture. The American genre paintings on display include Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait’s The Life of the Hunter: A Tight Fix, Eastman Johnson’s Negro Life at the South, and George Caleb Bingham’s The Jolly Flatboatmen. These works will be shown along with two paintings that significantly influenced the American style: Dutch painter Jan Steen’s Festive Family Meal and English painter William Mulready’s Train Up a Child.

Accompanying this exhibition is the English catalogue American Encounters: Genre Painting and Everyday Life, and the French catalogue New Frontier: Les travaux et les jours: aux sources de la peinture américaine de genre. Both editions feature an essay by Peter John Brownlee and more than twenty-five full-color illustrations. The catalogues were produced by Marquand Books and designed by Zach Hooker.

For more information about the exhibition and its travel itinerary, visit the Terra Foundation for American Art. To purchase a copy of the catalogue American Encounters: Genre Painting and Everyday Life, visit the University of Washington Press. 

Photography by Jeremy Linden