PositiveFriezeThat budding Giorgio Morandi will be disappointed to find nothing from Saltz on how to stretch a canvas or what the correct proportions of oil medium to pigment should be. They will, however, discover a surprising amount of solid advice ... His advice is sensible...and addresses issues around parenthood that women artists face. He gets gnomic ... The artists he cites are often mid-century heroic moderns, which makes How to Be an Artist feel like it should be titled How to Be an American Artist. But, throughout, his counsel frequently rings true ... Saltz has not written a book for insiders, but for the novice enthusiast – something all of us have been at one time. Occasionally, he alludes to his life...In these brief sentences, his tone softens, yet how these life-defining moments join up remains unclear. I wanted more, because the best self-help books for artists, in which the most solace and encouragement can be found, are biographies. Artists’ life stories teach that all careers are messy. That everyone thinks they’ve started too late, gets embarrassed, gets ripped off, gets nowhere. That there’s always someone across the room who looks like they’re doing better than everyone else but who is privately wracked with doubt, asking themselves: ‘How to be an artist?’
A. O. Scott
PositiveThe Los Angeles TimesScott's knowledge of American and European art and literature is deep, but if the above examples suggest that Scott is of the Dead White Males school of art appreciation, then you'd be half-right. Yet Scott acknowledges the debates over who gets to play cultural gatekeeper, not shying away from addressing canonical blindspots and the prejudices of critics. Further, he handles his historical sources and evident erudition with lightness and humor, never condescending to the reader.
