The Art of Craft: Contemporary Works from the Saxe Collection

A visit to the De Young Museum on my last day in San Francisco turned a time-filler into an experience of a lifetime. The exhibition itself was truly amazing; the collection superb. The lighting, layout and flow of the exhibition allowed me to get lost for a couple of hours. Here was true craftsmanship in its purest form from all over the world; even an Australian artist was represented in the collection! A visit to the gallery shop was next on the agenda to see if there was a catalogue, but since I thought a lot of the presence of place would be lost I wondered how you could put that on to paper.But there it was. A fine book with excellent production values and fine photography. It will be a great momento of my visit and comfort me to know that there are great people who support artists and help keep the barbarians from the gate.

If you are interested in glass, this book will be of particular interest. The Saxes have pieces by Chihuly, Lino, Flora Mace, Bertil, Therman Statom, William Morris, and many other well known glass artists. Also beautiful ceramics, furniture, wood bowls, sculpture.... If you can't make it to the exhibit, buy the book. You won't be disappointed.

Can't think of anything but praise for this fabulous book. The objects selected, the color photography, the insightful introduction, the artists' info in the back ‹ all top-notch. If you think the world is doomed, this will be great antidotal weekend reading!

Dorothy & George Saxe are amongst the foremost collectors of art made from traditional craft materials...glass, clay, wood, fiber...art categorized as coming out of the Post WWII Arts & Crafts movement. This book beautifully documents that part of their collection now on view at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco.Tim Burgard, Curator of American Art at the DeYoung Museum, writes accessably with the voice of a scholar. He contextualizes this art movement and documents the show from the Saxe Collection that he's recently installed at the DeYoung...THIS IS A GORGEOUS BOOK. The Saxes have made a bequest to the DeYoung of 600 works of art from their collection. This book and exhibition documents more than 1/3 of these objects.A MUST READ FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN CONTEMPORARY ART!!