The Brain Science of Leonardo’s Radical Flesh Pop – new books!


Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan / Luke Syson – ND623.L5 A4 2011


The radical camera : New York’s Photo League, 1936-1951 / Mason Klein and Catherine Evans – TR645.N532 J394 2011


Shary Boyle: Flesh and Blood [la chair et le sang] . Louise Déry – N6549.B6845 A4 2010


Who’s in charge? : free will and the science of the brain / Michael S. Gazzaniga – QP360.5 .G396 2011


Drawing American Pop Culture / Jack Davis – PN6727.D384 D73 2011

Oscar Season Has Arrived

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released their nominees for the 84th annual Academy Awards. While many of the films are still in the theaters, a few of them have made their way to DVD already. See below for a list of the films we have currently, as well as a couple of books to help fill in the history of the awards.


Academy Award winners’ movie posters / compiled by Bruce Hershenson – PN1995.9.P5 A23 1994


70 years of the Oscar : the official history of the Academy Awards – PN1993.92 .O82 1999


Bridesmaids – V-F F454 Bri DVD


The Help – V-F T3958 Hel DVD


Kung Fu Panda 2 – V-AN D732 Kun2 DVD


Rango – V-AN V473 Ran DVD


Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 – V-F C658 Har7.2 DVD


John le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – V-F I785 Tin DVD

Making Apps


Apps for iPhones, Adroids, and other hand held devices are to the 2010s what websites were in the 1990s: the new must have. Businesses build apps to deliver their content to subscribers and entrepreneurs are creating games and tools that people are buying by the digital boatload. Both Apple and Google have sold billions of apps and now Microsoft is set to open their own App store. With all of this success, the App is here to stay.
Here are some new and recent titles in the collection for designers and developers looking to try making their own apps:

Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps / Josh Clark – QA76.8.I64 C42 2010


Building iPhone apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript / Jonathan Stark – QA76.8.I64 S73 2010


Designing the iPhone user experience : a user-centered approach to sketching and prototyping iPhone apps / Suzanne Ginsburg. – QA76.8.I64 G56 2011


iPhone developer’s cookbook : building applications with the iPhone SDK / Erica Sadun. – QA76.8.I64 S33 2009


Web designer’s guide to iOS apps : create iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps with Web standards : HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript / Kristofer Layon – QA76.76.O63 L39 2011

Best (and Worst) in 2011 – the random list post


Before we get too far in to 2012 to even remember the preceding blip on our annual radar, here is a somewhat random roundup of best of lists for 2011:
Street Art Utopia’s Best of 2011 – Beautiful Decay
Best and Worst – Howard Halle – Timeout NY
Top Ten Art Shows – Jerry Saltz – New York
50 Best Album Covers of 2011 – Paste
Best Illustrated Children’s Books – NY Times
Top 10 Movies of 2011- David Edelstein – New York
Best Photography Books of 2011 – Photoeye
Best Art & Photography Books of 2011 – Amazon
10 Best Commercials of 2011 – Adweek
Top 10 News Stories of 2011 – Time

Gregg Toland, Master of Light


Gregg Toland is the legendary Cinematographer who collaborated with Orson Welles to create the striking, high-contrast look of ‘Citizen Kane’, one of the greatest films of all time.
To explore his work and impact further in the Visual Arts Library:
Visions of light : the art of cinematography / V-D A447 Vis DVD


The making of Citizen Kane / Robert L. Carringer. – PN1997.C51173 C374 1996

The Citizen Kane book: Raising Kane Pauline Kael. – PN1997.C5117

Citizen Kane : the fiftieth-anniversary album / Harlan Lebo – PN1997.C51173 L4 1990

Films on which Toland was the Cinematographer:

Citizen Kane – V-F W455 Cit DVD
Best years of our lives – directed by William Wyler. V-F W943 Bes DVD
Grapes of wrath -directed by John Ford – V-F F672 Gra DVD
Little foxes – director, William Wyler. V-F W943 Lit DVD
Wuthering Heights -Director, William Wyler – V-F W943 Wut DVD

Starman Fugs the Masters of Government Issue Alphabets by Polaroid- new books!


Helmut Newton: Polaroids – TR679 .N49 2011


Masters of fashion illustration / David Downton – TT509 .D69 2010


David Bowie : starman / by Paul Trynka – ML420.B754 T79 2011


Fug you : {an informal history of the Peace Eye Bookstore, the Fuck You Press, the Fugs, and counterculture in the Lower East Side} / Ed Sanders – PS3569.A49 Z46 2011


Government issue : comics for the people, 1940s-2000s / Richard L. Graham – PN6714 .G73 2011


Alphabets : a miscellany of letters / introduction by David Sacks – NK3600 .A555 2010

Lecture Series: Art in the First Person


SVA is hosting a free series, open to all: Art in the First Person: 23 Talks with Artists, Critics and Curators running through June.
Here’s what’s lined up for the rest of January:
David Graeber: On Bureaucratic Technologies and the Future as Dream-Time – Thursday, January 19, 7pm
Jeremy Sigler: A Reading of Selected Poetry – Tuesday, January 24, 6:30pm
Gerald Cyrus – Monday, January 30, 7pm

In the collection:

Stormy Monday : New York’s uptown jazz scene : photographs / by Gerald Cyrus – ML3508.8.N5 C98 2008

Realizing the impossible : art against authority / edited by Josh MacPhee – NX650.A52 R43 2007
*Contains an essay, “The Twilight of Vanguardism” by David Graeber*

MLK Jr. Day of Service

The Visual Arts Library will be closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service this Monday, Jan. 16th. The library will be open over the weekend and will resume normal hours on Tuesday the 17th.

Menu Design Sampler Platter


The New Yorker notes a new title and recent addition to the Visual Arts Library’s collection, Menu Design in America. The introduction was written by SVA’s design publishing powerhouse, Steven Heller, covers American menus and highlights the myriad ways menus reflect on design, food, and cultural history.

In the library:

Menu design in America : a visual and culinary history of graphic styles and design 1850-1985 / Jim Heimann (ed.), Steven Heller, John Mariani – NC1002.M4 M46 2011


A la carte : a tour of dining history / Lou Greenstein – TX911.3.M45 G74 1992


May I take your order? : American menu design, 1920-1960 / Jim Heimann – NC1002.M4 H45 1998

Classic menu design : from the collection of the New York Public Library / by Reynaldo Alejandro – NC1002.M4 A44 1988

Euromenu / Marianne Wachholz and Gretel Weiss. – NC1002.M4 W2313 1993

Restaurant & Food Graphics / Judi Radice Hays – NC1002.M4 R35 1994

Owning Sound – Christine Sun Kim


SVA alum Christine Sun Kim is a performance artist who uses sounds to, among other things, address her own deafness and find ways to “own” sound by translating it into other media. Take a look at this short profile of Kim by Todd Selby as she makes and describes her work.

To explore the world of sound art:

Sound art : beyond music, between categories / Alan Licht – NX650.S68 L52 2007


Noise, water, meat : a history of sound in the arts / Douglas Kahn. – NX650.S68 K25 1999


Sound / edited by Caleb Kelly – NX650.S68 S685 2011

For more on deafness and art, a history and a documentary film:

Deaf artists in America : colonial to contemporary / Deborah M. Sonnenstrahl – N6505 .S614 2002


Touch the sound a sound journey with Evelyn Glennie – V-D R543 Tou DVD