THE WORLD OF RICHARD STINE

A retrospective collection of art and writing by this well known, witty, irreverent and inspirational artist and bestselling author. The book covers a wide range of subjects: love, art, relationships, spirituality, work, debt, responsibility, freedom, isolation, desire, conflict, dreams and creativity. 150 full-color illustrations. Size D. (Art/Architecture)

At once whimsical and philosophical, conceptualist and cartoonish, Stine's delightfully irresistible art unlocks the heart's unspoken desires and pries open the mind's devious recesses. Stine-who operates PAL Press, a line of greeting cards, from his island home in Seattle and is the author-illustrator of Off to Sea-in this new compilation splices greeting-card art, vibrant paintings, sketchbook pages, excerpts from letters and notebook jottings. Although his writings tend toward simplistic feel-good psychobabble, his witty, startling pictures, many melding words and images, score quick points with ironic humor on love, hope, friendship, aspiration, creativity, the inevitability of change and the psychic barriers we erect to shield ourselves from reality and other people. Ideograms of the human condition, his work often calls to mind the art of Saul Steinberg but is more populist. BOMC selection.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Popular greeting-card illustrator Stine (Off to Sea, not reviewed) showcases his seductive full-color drawings and pithy texts, which give the subject of metaphysical angst in the '90s a decidedly mass-market spin. Stine's graphically striking style represents an eclectic inventory of au courant illustration techniques: meticulous and mellifluous inked line, scratchy pencil line, scumbled painted backgrounds, pasty pastel surfaces, complex webs of crosshatching, digitized computer imagery, photocopied pictorial manipulations, collage, and photo montage. Augmenting this are hand-lettered and typeset texts, which run the gamut from simple caption to poetic truism to diaristic vignette. The cover illustration sets the book's tone. In it, a thin male figure--presumably Stine--teeters atop a spirelike mountain, reaching for a single white star against a wash of azure sky. Inside, in ``Face to Face With The Second Step,'' a black dog rests on the step of an oversize blue geometric staircase, its panting red tongue playfully activating the composition. In many inclusions, lone figures are placed in psychologically charged landscapes, facing floating hearts that seem to represent love, hope, and loss. Texts--such as ``Even Lies Are Part of The Truth''--accompany some of the art. Occasionally Stine speaks of his own life: ``I think the next phase...is going to be the poet phase.'' Like illustrators Saul Steinberg, Robert Osborn, and Ralph Steadman before him, Stine has freely borrowed from the conventions of contemporary art to bring a level of perceived seriousness to his work. The plates have the look of greeting cards designed for yet-unnamed existentialist holidays. Poetic, pained, at times downright sappy, Stine's visual candy goes for the consumer jugular. Casting himself as a sensitive hero, he comes across like ``Jonathan Livingston Illustrator.'' (Book-of- the-Month Club selection) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.