Michael C. Spafford, one of the most respected and admired painters in the Northwest, has created a cohesive body of work of rare intelligence and power. Now professor emeritus at the University of Washington School of Art, he began teaching in 1963 and was an influential and provocative teacher. Spafford remains an active painter who has never shied away from bold, often brutal universal themes. The rigorous physicality and formal invention inherent in his work enhance the viewer's visual understanding as well as the potency of the image. Widely exhibited, awarded, and collected, Spafford is best known for his fascination with myths of origin and heroic endeavor. His paintings, drawings, prints, and murals depict vivid episodes from epic poems and Greco-Roman mythology: "Leda and the Swan," The Iliad and The Odyssey, "The Twelve Labors of Heracles," to mention a few. Many of these narratives were revisited by Spafford over time in different formats in search of a better visual vignette. He strips these well-known narratives to their most emblematic elements, depicting them in a radically abstracted form, which illuminates these stories in a direct and visually affecting way. This book, the first monograph devoted to the artist, seeks to glimpse the breadth of Spafford's explorations.

A stunning new look at the Tuileries Garden and its importance to the history of art and landscape architectureThe Tuileries Garden is a masterpiece of garden design and one of the world's most iconic public art spaces. Designed for Louis XIV by landscape architect Andre Le Notre, it served the now-destroyed Tuileries Palace. It was opened to the public in 1667, becoming one of the first public gardens in Europe. The garden has always been a place for Parisians to convene, celebrate, and promenade, and art has played an important role throughout its history. Monumental sculptures give the garden the air of an outdoor museum, and the garden's beautiful backdrop has inspired artists from Edouard Manet to Andre Kertesz. The Art of the Louvre's Tuileries Garden brings together 100 works of art, including paintings and sculptures, as well as documentary photographs, prints, and models illuminating the garden's rich history. Beautifully illustrated essays by leading scholars of art and garden studies highlight the significance of the Tuileries Garden to works of art from the past 300 years and reaffirm its importance to the history of landscape architecture. Published in association with the High Museum of Art Exhibition Schedule: High Museum of Art (11/03/13-01/19/14) Toledo Museum of Art (02/13/14-05/11/14) Portland Art Museum (06/14/14-09/21/14)

One of the premier sculptors of her generation in the Northwest, Hilda Morris (1911-1993) lived her artistic life in the center of the region's circle of avant-garde painters, sculptors, poets, and musicians. This is the first book to document her half-century-long career and presents Morris's highly individual abstract sculptures against the backdrop of artistic developments during the second half of the twentieth century. A part of the abstract expressionist movement, Morris's vigorous, gestural sculptures inspired by mythological and universal symbols were instrumental in introducing a rigorous, expansive thinking about abstraction to the Pacific Northwest community. As an account of her life and the first complete survey of her entire oeuvre - sculpture, painting, and drawing - this volume will be essential to an understanding of the period. Bruce Guenther, the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Portland Art Museum, has organized and contributed to numerous international exhibitions of contemporary art. Dr. Susan Fillen-Yeh has published widely on American art and is the editor and author of Dandies: Fashion and Finesse in Art and Culture (2001). Sculptor David Curt Morris is based in New York, exhibits nationally, and has executed numerous public commissions. He is the son of Hilda and Carl Morris and serves as director and trustee for the Carl and Hilda Morris Foundation.