Picture books generally come out at Christmas. Here are three that missed the holidays but are welcome no matter the time of the year.
Charles M. Russell: A Catalogue Raisonne, edited by B. Byron Price, $125. Charles M. Russell is well-known as the Montana cowboy who became a self-taught artist. Truth is, he came from a cultured, well-to-do Midwestern family and cowboyed for only about 20 years, until he married. Russell’s work, nonetheless, is beloved for its intimate knowledge of the Old West, as well as its artistic value.
An early work, “Waiting for a Chinook,” showing a starving cow, is as well-known as the 1886 die-off that decimated the Western cattle industry and inspired the drawing.
This oversized picture book, which includes 200 illustrations of Russell’s work, many in full color, contains a series of essays by art scholars, including the Denver Art Museum’s Peter H. Hassrick. They address Russell’s life and career. Book buyers are given a code that allows them to access a private website that contains all of the artist’s known works.
Russell was a poor cowpuncher who either gave away his work or sold it for a few dollars – until he married. His wife, Mamie, became the business half of Russell’s career, negotiating prices and arranging commissioned work.
“The worst fight we ever had was in 1897,” Russell once said, “when she asked $75 for a canvas, which I thought was highway robbery — and got it. I was willing to sell it for $5.” In fact, just before Russell died in 1926, Mamie sold one of his works for $30,000.
There are plenty of books out there on Russell, which is not surprising, since he’s one of America’s best-loved artists. But this is the most beautiful and certainly the heaviest.
Seasons of Light: Impressions of Steamboat Springs and the Yampa Valley, photographs by Rod Hanna, text by Tom Ross, $48. The Yampa Valley is that pristine swath of land as you descend the west side of Rabbit Ears Pass.
The valley of the Yampa River, however, is much more than the emerald fields with the indigo mountains behind them. Hanna, a one-time Broncos photographer and a former marketing executive with Steamboat Ski Resort, spent years capturing the area’s unique beauty.
Many of his shots are panoramas, which explains the horizontal format of this book. There are swaths of yellow aspen trees, afternoon clouds over a red barn, ice-covered bushes in a snowfield lit by a pink dawn, a boulder field near Mica Lake covered with arnica and daisies.
While most of the photographs show broad sweeps of landscape, “Seasons of Light” includes close-ups. There’s the de rigueur shot of a purple columbine, this one set among ferns, and another of a wild rose. Perhaps the most beautiful is of a bed of blue and white lupine and red Indian paintbrush, a Fourth of July flower spectacular, shaded by a grove of aspen.
Dozens of photo books of Colorado scenery have been published over the years, so you get a bit jaded looking at pictures of autumn aspen and summertime meadows. “Seasons of Light” will take your breath away.
Silver & Stone: Profiles of American Indian Jewelers, by Mark Bahti, $40. The 65 Native American craftsmen featured here use traditional Indian designs as a departure point for an array of contemporary jewelry. Unlike the Indian silversmiths of the past, who used only turquoise and silver and occasionally coral, these artists employ a variety of semi-precious stones, wood, ebony and gold. And while many still design traditional squash blossoms and turquoise tab necklaces, others turn out jewelry you’d be hard-pressed to identify as Indian.
The departure from traditional designs was popularized by Charles Loloma, a Hopi, who died several years ago. His rings, pins and bracelets, many set with precious stones, sell for tens of thousands of dollars, primarily to museums.
Artists following in Loloma’s footsteps include Raymond Sequaptewa, a Hopi. A Sequaptewa pendant, illustrated in the book, has eight colored stones plus silver and gold in an abstract linear design.
Steve Wikviya Larance, a Hopi-Assiniboine, and his wife, Marian Denipah, a Navajo and San Juan, use gold, diamonds and turquoise in sophisticated sandcast bracelets.
“Silver & Stone,” which is nicely illustrated with color photographs of the artists and their work (unfortunately, there are no captions), showcases the artistry of today’s contemporary Indian jewelers.
Sandra Dallas is a Denver novelist who writes regularly on new regional nonfiction.
