Reynold Brown - A Life In Pictures
(2009 - Illustrated Press)

(by Daniel Zimmer & David J. Hornung) It has to be said that the original 2009 edition is of a more manageable size, and therefore scores, in our calculation, as a better book than the 2017, one-third larger, re-issue. To speak just of the original, it's a 224-page book with 197 of those pages being dominated by Brown's art (162 featuring a large reproduction and another 35 each having two-to-four smaller images). Ten of those pages present five double-page spreads, all of which are still o.k., split by the central gutter. All images are captioned with a title, creation year, medium and the orginal's dimensions (also noted is the purpose, when displayed is a poster re-formulation of his original). Now then, currently, that original edition is still quite costly, even with the new release of the more comprehensive, somewhat re-worked edition that carries the same cover (though author Hornung no longer gets credited) at a price that is more welcome. As indicated above, the new edition is heavier - because it's got 80 more art-pages! 12 of those are multiple-image gatherings, but 62 are additional full-page movie posters (strangely, two posters, 'The Light In The Forest' & 'House Of Usher', got excised in the process). (Note that also included is a Mort Künstler poster. due to a long-standing attribution error.) Anyway, weight aside, all the posters are glorious, though the book also presents numerous examples of his book covers, illustration, military & western art, as well as the landscapes that resulted from the painterly tradition that captivated him. After his late-life stroke, he produced more abstract landscapes and there are several pages of those included here too. If you really love what he was able to capture in his posters, realistic and yet many at the same time fantastic, then ultimately you are really going to want the new edition of this tome to maximize the amount of it.