Alberto Vargas - Works From The Max Vargas Collection
(2006 - Bulfinch Press)

(By Reid Stewart Austin) Know that our artist here was childless and that the Max Vargas of the subtitle was a nephew of his who can be credited with preserving a significant amount of the materials left behind. The title spelling out Max as the source may be a bit of a subtle clue to not expect reproductions of all the published paintings. Instead, this book treats the peruser to mainly the personal paintings that Alberto prepared through years, as so-called 'Legacy Nudes', to hopefully help sustain his beloved wife after his death (as fate would have it, she pre-deceased him), as well as fine preliminary colored-pencil works that act as alternatives to the published paintings mentioned above. The volume is a bit oversized at 10-by-13-inches, with 144 pages and works on both the front and & back covers. Inside is a heartfelt biography by the author (who was a fan, then art-director to the artist, and later confidant), built from his own reminiscences and official sources. There is plenty of room left for an uncrowded display - six pages with a couple of works each and another 109 each dedicated singularly to their exhibits. 34 of those pages are presenting 17 double-page-spreads - only three of those suffer from slight mis-alignment of the halves, but the best of the rest are the handful laid in on some portfolio-centers. All the pieces are captioned with titles or function, creation-year and, frequently, pithy anecdotes. There are also in place, for comparative purposes, two pieces, by George Petty** & Maurice Milière. This book's more relaxed utilization of its pages leads to it being recommended only after VARGA (BLUE), VARGA(RED), VARGA-THE ESQUIRE YEARS and LITTLE BOOK OF PIN-UP:VARGAS, but still yields 76 new 'well-presented' pieces. (This book does score appreciably better than the groundbreaking monograph that the author put together nearly three decades previously).