Creating Connections features over 70 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and watercolours from the Rosenthal Collection of work by self-taught artists. This richly illustrated publication explores the mysterious connections we have with works of art and examines the journey into the meaning of art for its creators. It looks at the historic approaches to the creations of self-taught artists and the problems inherent in their interpretation. It also considers where we should go to achieve a more equitable and inclusive art history. The Rosenthal Collection comprises a significant and notably varied grouping. Not only does it cover a broad mix of American names including Earl Cunningham, Henry Darger, Thornton Dial, Bill Traylor, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Ralph Fasanella, Martín Ramírez, and Janet Sobel, it also includes non-US artists Carlo Zinelli, Hiroyuki Doi, Adolf Wölfli, Donald Pass, and Nek Chand among others. Jean Dubuffet, the French painter who famously promoted their study, is also featured. An illustrated interview by Julie Aronson with Richard Rosenthal provides special insight into the collector who has brought together this exceptionally diverse array of work. Essays by Olivia Sagan and Charles Russell look at the need for a more nuanced approach to these artists and their work, at the history of its appreciation (including terminology such as “Outsider Art”), and examine the work in the context of autobiography, trauma, connection, and remembering.

In the Gilded Age, when most sculptors aspired to produce monu ments, Bessie Potter Vonnoh (1872-1955) made significant contributions to small bronze sculpture and garden statuary designed for the embellishment of the home. Her work commanded admiration for her fluid and suggestive modeling, graceful lines, and sculptural form. In 1904 Bessie Potter Vonnoh won the gold medal for sculpture at the St. Louis World's Fair for bronzes of contemporary American women and children that delighted all who saw them.
Although Vonnoh's work is represented today in museums throughout the United States, Bessie Potter Vonnoh: Sculptor of Women provides for the first time an intimate and engaging encounter with one of the most widely respected sculptors of her day.
Julie Aronson explores how, by concentrating on sculpture for domestic settings that expertly combined naturalism with elegance, Vonnoh negotiated a male-dominated field to create a pathway to professional success and made high-quality sculpture accessible to a wider audience.
In an essay that examines Vonnoh's relationship with her foundries and scrutinizes bronze castings, Janis Conner demystifies baffling issues of authenticity and quality in turn-of-the-century bronzes.
This copiously illustrated book, indispensable for all sculpture enthusiasts, accompanies the first exhibition since 1930 dedicated to the art of Bessie Potter Vonnoh.