One Nation: Patriots and Pirates Portrayed by N.C. Wyeth and James Wyeth, by Tom Brokaw, David Michaelis and Lauren Smith.
New York: Bullfinch Press, 2001.
$59.50 — 128 pages.

With prices of books continuing to shoot up like yesterday’s tech stocks, book lovers must watch more carefully than ever to see that they are getting the most book for their buck. Is it really worth $25 or $30 for the latest Steven King novel in hardcover? To some, yes. To many others, no.

Art books, however, fall into a different category. Traditionally high-priced anyway — the steep price for art books occurs mostly because of the higher price of printing — people who buy art books are more accustomed to paying higher prices. Moreover, they can understand the higher cost of a book on Picasso or Rembrandt as opposed to a novel by Susan Issacs or a history by Stephan Ambrose simply by comparing the art book to the book of prose.

Even then, however, those who love art books or who love to give art books as gifts have a couple of options in terms of lower price. First, they can shop second-hand bookstores for less expensive art books. Because the original owner paid more money for the art book that has now landed in a second-hand shop, the book was generally better cared for than a novel. Shoppers will often find reasonably priced art books in good to excellent condition in stores such as The Reader’s Corner in Asheville.

Art books may also be found in many bookstores on remainder tables. Remainders are books that have either been marked down or are actually made with the idea of being remaindered; they are easily identified by their prices — $7.98, $10.98, $23.98, and so on. Although these books typically aim at a more general market than some of the more esoteric art books — Van Gogh, Degas, and Norman Rockwell are always on these shelves — shoppers will still find that such books make attractive, inexpensive gifts.

There are, however, art books published that seem either overpriced or poorly done, depending on which view the reader may take. An example of such a book is One Nation: Patriots And Pirates Portrayed by N.C. Wyeth and James Wyeth.

One Nation seems at first glance a wonderful book to have in hand, especially considering our present-national difficulty. The theme is American patriotism; the artists, grandfather and grandson, are both men who have a great following in this country and abroad.

Yet One Nation disappoints on three fronts. First, there is the art itself. Putting N.C. Wyeth beside James Wyeth serves to illustrate the craftsmanship and vision of the former to the detriment of the latter. Doubtless James — wasn’t he once Jamie? — is a skilled painter, but the theme of pirates and patriots simply isn’t him. N.C. Wyeth’s Revolutionary soldiers and sailors, his soldiers from other wars, and his battlefield scenes simply overwhelm James Wyeth’s sketches of Watergate figures and paintings of different spacecraft. The result is an uneven book of glaring contrasts.

Second, there is the deceptive subtitle “Patriots And Pirates Portrayed.” There are no pirates here, with the exception of James Wyeth’s sketches of the Watergate crew, and so we are left to conclude that the editors simply put the pirates in the title because they enjoyed the alliterative sound of the sixteenth letter of the alphabet.

Finally, the price of $40 is simply too high for the book. Compare this book to Sister Wendy’s Story Of Painting, which is several times as long as the Wyeth book and contains hundreds more illustrations, yet which sells for the exact same price. Some of the price difference may be caused by the fact that James Wyeth is still living and so gains some sort of remuneration for his work. Yet it is still astounding to compare the two books and to realize the great variance in light of their identical prices.

Art books make wonderful gifts. They may be perused again and again, bringing new joy on each occasion to the owner. They are like treasure chests, I suppose, but just keep in mind that you don’t need to spend a fortune purchasing one.

(Jeff Minick lives in Waynesville.)

 

Back to Top

The Smoky Mountain News