Hunt Slonem: An Art Rich and Strange Hardcover – Bargain Price, May 1, 2002

wonderful illustrations . and read.

The artwork details in this book is stunning! The essence of this artist is very well depicted in this volume. I thoroughly enjoyed it as do my friends who see it on my coffee table!

Hunt Slonem (b. 1951) paints the winged creatures of the air (birds and butterflies of all sorts), ocelots, saints, mysterious guardian faces, and occasionally Rudolph Valentino. These iconic images are often suspended in space, either appearing or disappearing through a veil or grid/cage (hidden, hiding or trapped?), which sometimes mutes their otherwise vivid colors. Slonem uses light, space and pattern masterfully to display the totemic spirituality of his subjects. And the resulting paintings celebrate that spirituality in works that are gloriously, wonderfully, joyfully beautiful.Almost all of this volume is devoted to reproductions of Slonem's work, with a few photographs of his studios (themselves works of art) mixed in. Color-reproduction is excellent and the works are beautifully displayed. The selection of paintings covers a broad period of time from the mid-1980s though 2001 and presents a representative sample of Slonem's subjects. The plates appear to be arranged thematically (with birds at both the beginning and the end), rather than chronologically. Donald Kuspit's essay is mostly helpful in putting the spiritual quality of Slonem's work into words, although he occasionally lapses into psychobabble. Minor criticisms -- a few pictures that appear to be out of focus (or enlarged beyond their capacity to render a sharp image), a table of contents that does not match up to the actual pages for the Bibliography and Collections, occasional confusion about which captions go with which pictures -- are annoying but not enough to outweigh the joys of this volume, which deserves to reach a wide public.

For the last 20 or so years many of us have been in deep admiration for the lushly romantic paintings by the singular Hunt Slonem. Here is an artist who truly lives in his work and we are the richer for it. Slonem captures the magic in the exotic and makes even the mundane transporting. His best known paintings are of his ongoing preoccupation with birds of the tropical vein: he lives with them, nurtures them, is obcessed with their spiritual stance as a meeting point between heaven and earth. But his talents are not wholly absorbed by his aviary. Slonem paints ocelets, monkeys, tigers, saints, mythical beings and other subjects, along with his passion for portraiture of exotic people. Rudolph Valentino, go-go boys, princesses, et al find their way into elaborate baroque frames that adorn not only the artist's home, but in collections and museums throughout the world.Donald Kuspit does his usual fine writing in capturing the quintessence of Slonem's visual messages. The color reproductions are excellent and as lavish as the talent of the painter. A truly beautiful Monograph!