Sunday, April 21, 2013

We're back with a book: CENTRAL PARK NYC


We're back, and we've returned with a book—well for now, at least the publication date for a book.

We are delighted to announce that our publisher, Rizzoli International Publications, will publish Central Park NYC: An Architectural View in late September of this year. Central Park will be a large-format hardcover—a hefty 208 pages and 10 by 12 inches—with 61 of our own watercolors (good Lord, have we really painted that many?), augmented by 60 color and 55 black-and-white illustrations.

The volume surveys the architecture and history of Central Park, from its inception to the present day. Over the course of thirteen chapters, we examine the constituent elements of the park, the park's evolution, and the buildings, sculptures and ornaments that enrich this original template, crafted by Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, for what became America's Greensward Revolution.

We are extremely proud of this book, our eighth, and know that it has much that is new to say about the how and the why of the creation of Central Park. An outgrowth of our exhibiton at Didier Aaron, Inc. celebrating the 150th anniversary of the creation of Central Park, the book is also copiously illustrated with contemporary photography and archival documents and photographs. 

We have paid particular attention to the archival photo selection, wishing to surprise by "the shock of the old," as it were. Likewise, contemporary photographs come from a variety of photographers who have captured the park in stunning moments of beauty.


The men who built Central Park, photographed on Willowdell Arch in 1862.
 From left: comptroller Andrew H. Green, engineer George E. Waring, 
architect Calvert Vaux, gardener Ignaz Pilat, designer Jacob Wrey Mould, 
and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted

We will be mounting an exhibition of the watercolors that illustrate the book at Didier Aaron, Inc. in late October and early November of this year, and will post with exhibition dates closer to the time of publication. 

For now, we simply wanted to announce that—after a long and productive hiatus, for which we still have several announcements before us to make—we have again returned to posting at NOTED, and that Central Park NYC is well on its way to publication—at last!