I love almost everything about this book.
I have been fascinated (and horrified) by the crime of art theft ever since I came across an article about one of the big art gallery thefts a number of years back. Since then I’ve learned that there have been a fair number of large-scale heists, but if they get covered at all by the media, it is usually quickly forgotten, or the story is buried a few pages in. Too often, the art from these brazen robberies is never recovered.
Through this book, author Anthony Amore hopes to educate the public. Every piece of artwork depicted here – artwork that we can actually color for ourselves – is a stolen painting, many of them still missing. By spending some time with it – looking at it, coloring it, sharing it – we make ourselves aware of the art, and awareness often helps to lead to action and perhaps, just perhaps, someone might even recognize something here.
Amore identifies the artist and the title of the painting, describes where it was taken from (and how, if known) in a brief bio of each coloring page. Artist Karl Stevens then does a truly masterful job of recreating each painting in simple, solid line form to create coloring pages. This is quite a feat, given the very different styles of paintings represented here, but every page makes a beautiful and unique challenge for the non-artist in us to attempt to color.
My advance review copy is a digital copy, but I’m getting a hard copy because I really want to color some of these in!
I love what this book is about – the call to awareness, the relaxing of coloring, the opportunity to make my own mark on a masterwork. But there is one thing that I don’t like about this book …. I don’t like the need to have this. I don’t like that precious, irreplaceable objects of art are stolen, possibly destroyed, hence Amore’s creating this book.
Looking for a good book? Stolen Beauty is a well-prepared coloring book of famous works of art that have been stolen – many still missing. It’s a wonderful book in every detail.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.
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Stolen Beauty: A Coloring Book of Lost Art
author: Anthony Amore
artist: Karl Stevens
publisher: Schiffer Publishing
ISBN: 0764352857
paperback, 66 pages
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