City by Numbers - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670872512 ISBN 13: 9780670872510

Publisher: Viking Juvenile, 1998

Synopsis

A visually striking companion volume to Alphabet City challenges readers to discover the unusual mathematical wonders in his stunning urban photographs, as well as in their own surroundings.

About this title

About the Author:

Stephen T. Johnson is a highly versatile American artist whose art spans a broad range of concepts, contexts and mediums including painting, collage, drawing, sculpture and installations and can be seen in museum and gallery exhibitions, public art commissions, and through his original award-winning children’s books.

Much of Johnson’s work is characterized by an interest in the alphabet and language, which began with his book Alphabet City, a Caldecott Honor and New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year.  His most recent engagement with the alphabet is his ongoing series of “literal abstractions” which are the subject of his book A is for Art: An Abstract Alphabet, also a New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year, and featured in several solo museum and gallery exhibitions.

Johnson’s drawings and paintings are in numerous private and permanent collections, including the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. and the New Britain Museum of Art, Connecticut.  Solo exhibitions of his work have been featured at the Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester, New York; the Katonah Museum of Art, New York; and the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas. 

Among his public art is a large mosaic mural at the DeKalb Avenue subway station in Brooklyn, New York and a 58-foot long mural at the Universal City Metro Station in North Hollywood, California.

Learn more about Stephen at www.stephentjohnson.com.

From Kirkus Reviews:

In this wordless companion to Alphabet City (1995), Johnson joins the likes of Tana Hoban, Arlene Alda, and Donald Crews in his attraction to the numbers, letters, shapes, and compositions found in the architecture and infrastructures of outdoor places and public spaces. Paintings show numerals 121 that are camouflaged by the urban cityscapes in which they exist. Discovering each number is an exercise in visual literacy: 4 is found in the lines of the Manhattan Bridge at sunset, 8 is formed by the round rims of adjoining trash bins, a 15 hides in the cracked mortar between bricks. Some numbers occur in the lines, curves, and curlicues of existing architecture, such as an iron gate, a fire escape, a cornice; others are created by negative space, for example, between stones on a snowy walkway or in the scraped surface and papery patches of a building's peeling paint. The subjects are similar to those found in the first book, although the colors, this time, are wintry and more somber. Children will relish the game of locating numbers, while adults will pause over Johnson's deliberate use of shape and color to influence mood. (Picture book. 4-10) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Juvenile
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0670872512
• ISBN 13: 9780670872510
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Johnson Stephen T.