Ron Ranson

Ron Ranson, artist and author, provides a biographical account of Edward Seago, in which among other things he discuses the artist’s work and his influences. There is a brief bibliography and list of exhibitions, there is no index.

Illustrated in colour are 90 of Seago’s oils and watercolours; in addition there are a number of black and white illustrations including photographs and the artist’s sketches. A large number of the paintings are full page in size, the large format of the book allows for some to be shown actual size. There is a very short comment accompanying each of the paintings. The quality of reproduction is very good, often revealing the texture of the brush stokes.

Seago’s works is figurative or representational, freely painted; river scenes seem to dominate, but there are also landscapes and townscapes. This is a fine book providing a good insight on the artist and his work.

11.25” x 12.8” (29 cm x 32.8 cm) 96 pages. Published 1987. ISBN 0715390015. Hardback.… (mere)

The second collection of Seago paintings from Ron Ranson. The instructive captions are there, irritatingly, as in the first volume (Mr. Ransom is a prolific producer of "how to paint" books), but the selection of paintings is here much better than in the first. And I believe the reproductions are better; this belief supported by nothing more than observing the pictures being brighter, with the whites being closer to white than the pictures in his first Seago book. For certain is that Seago was a painter of "happy" pictures and that this collection is "happier" in colour than Ranson’s first collection and James W. Reid's "Edward Seago: The Landscape Art."
Slightly silly, though understandable from a marketing viewpoint, is the prominence given Seago's royal patronage. The royal names are used as large chapter headings, with anecdotes beneath, introducing a few pictures lent by them. Slightly sad is the littleness displayed by Ranson in omitting James W. Reid's work, published the year before with much of the same paintings, as the only work omitted, in his Seago bibliography.
The book is mostly reproductions of Seago paintings of high quality at a low price, on that basis I'll recommend it.… (mere)

Hard to rate this book: I really don't find the author qualified to explain the methodology of Edward Seago, as he tries to do in this work, but the instructive text is mostly in small captions beneath large reproductions of Seago paintings, and the paintings I see as excellent, the print and the paper good. There's a short biography and within the text of this a few wonderful pen sketches. Overall a good buy considering the price in comparison with other books on the art of Seago.
Pity I can't refrain from reading those captions, but captions is what people feel compelled to read according to advertising experts, and I certainly read them anew and gets irritated anew every time I open the book. The source of my irritation I perceive as in being told what to see, and having to battle that in order to judge the pictures on the basis of my own experience and the painter’s visual communication. But added to that is the author's irritating exclamation of admiration in constantly finding monochrome parts full of colour, blobs with feet full of individual character, and how remarkably much that can be said with a pair of lines on every other page in his two books on Seago - why can’t people refrain from explaining what they don’t understand with nonsensical explanations?… (mere)