Product Description

The Art of the Brooklyn Bridge--the first art book of its kind--brings together nearly 250 artists' imaginings and interpretations of the bridge, in painting, photography, comic books, movies, advertisements, and elsewhere, spanning the advent of photography, the rise of the illustrated press, Modernism, the Great Depression, the post-war boom through to the post-9/11 world.

Accompanying over 265 stunning images is bridge expert Richard Haw's engaging narrative, taking readers through the bridge's dynamic history and America's transformation, from the quirky to the tragic, the heroic to the idiotic, the average to the exceptional. Along the way you'll meet the sandhogs who built the bridge, caped daredevils and circus celebrities, visionary architects, corrupt financiers, and dour urban planners.

A treasure trove of anecdotes and historical incidents, literary tributes, and the output of some of the world's most famous--and obscure--artists, Art of the Brooklyn Bridge pays homage to the global icon with the richest visual history of any man-made structure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #723115 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Review

Richard Haws book is an ecstatic ode to the Brooklyn Bridge, which we all know is so much more than its 14,680 tons of wood, stone and steel. Its all in here: the builders and bigwigs, the Roeblings and the riggers, the jumpers and joggers, the painters and poets. Rare images and fascinating text memorialize the odd jumble of characters without whose brains, brawn, and chutzpah the bridge might never have been built. This marvelous book shows why we say Brooklyn is the place where legends are made and dreams come true. -- Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn Borough President

Art of the Brooklyn Bridge is an elegant structure, which takes you to another shore and along the way offers unparalleled views. Richard Haws beautiful book is about one of the worlds great bridges, but also all about the city that makes it great. -- Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the World

Richard Haws magically illustrated cultural history of the Brooklyn Bridge is a most welcome celebration of one of the greatest engineering achievements of all time. Art of the Brooklyn Bridge is a visual and literary delight. --Henry Petroski, author of Engineers of Dreams and The Toothpick: Technology and Culture

Richard Haws Art of the Brooklyn Bridge is irresistible. Delightfully written, it presents a fascinating gallery of characters associated with the Bridge through its history. But the book is much more than that. It is packed with rarely seen and many never published images of the Bridge, from newspaper and magazine engravings, to movie posters, to major paintings and some of the most compelling photographs of the Bridge I have ever seen. Haw is a wonderful story teller and he is blessed with an eye for the humorous as well as the aesthetic. He reveals the Bridge as an icon, muse, and obsession for New Yorkers. -- Thomas Bender, Department of History, New York University

Richard Haw is our greatest chronicler of the Brooklyn Bridge. He has dug deeper than the usual treatment of the bridge as technological triumph and cultural icon to see it as a psychological fact and witness to changing times, as represented by the stunningly varied artists and photographers drawn to the bridge. This book is also the most compelling compilation of Brooklyn Bridge images I have ever seen. --Francis Morrone, author of An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn

As a package, Art of the Brooklyn Bridge has the manic feel of a lifetime obsession, but itss nonetheless engrossing, a magnet to the eye, the kind of book you have to force yourself to put aside. Every few pages theres an arresting image, and of those, at least half a dozen are masterpieces: the impressionist canvases of Childe Hassam; a small, lovely watercolor by John Marin; a cubist drawing by Albert Gleizes; black-and-white photographs by Karl Struss, Walker Evans, Henri Cartier-Bresson and William Gedney; and the magnificent paintings of Joseph Stella, who eventually turned the bridge into a high modernist altarpiece. -- The New York Observer, December 2008

...in a thoughtful and well-researched analysis of the images through the lens of social, literary, political, and art history, offers an important chronicle of urban realism in American art. Almost every page contains a high quality illustration, and each illustration has a full caption with artist, dimensions, medium, and sources. Choice, December, 2008

The appealingly anecdote-filled text is supplemented with early newspaper clippings, but the real treat here is the wealth of images Mr. Haw has collected, including 19th-century lithographs and posters, and contemporary photos and paintings of John Roeblings masterpiece. -- Wall Street Journal, December 2008

About the Author
Richard Haw, author of The Brooklyn Bridge: A Cultural History (2005), is an associate professor of English and Interdisciplinary Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. A native of Leeds in the U.K., he now lives in Brooklyn, a short walk from his favorite bridge.

Customer Reviews

Beautiful and Informative
Haw's collection of both color and black-and-white images surrounding the building and celebration of the Brooklyn Bridge is beautiful. Page after page of drawings, paintings, and photographs, plus informative surrounding text, chart the bridge's building, opening, and early use. Considering the huge number of images, some in warm color, others of hard-to-find cartoons and drawings, this book is a bargain. After leafing through this handsomely produced volume, one understands why the Brooklyn Bridge has become an icon of American vision and engineering know-how.

Art Poster of the Brooklyn Bridge
The poster arrived quickly (within ten days of the
order). It was well wrapped. I could see the subject of the poster but it was safely wrapped to avoid damage in shipping and yet be 'green' as far as amount of pack-
ing material used. It was very nicely framed & an excellent gift for my daughter who collects Brooklyn
Bridge memorabilia.