Charles Pfahl, Artist at Work Hardcover – December 1, 1977

Charles' work is brilliant and this shows in detail his early work and painting method very clearly. Nice reproductions too. While other people were painting flat boring coke cans like children and filling balloons with helium as art, Charles stuck with his belief in realism and painting.

Took me some time to find a copy for my own…so glad to have it. They do not make books as simply wonderful as this anymore. Glad to own it…lovely technique and insight into how this painter thinks and works.

one of the best how to paint books

One of the finer pieces of work in the Watson-Guptill catalog. Black cloth with silver details over boards; 143 pp; designed by the great Bob Fille.Pfhal is a real painter's painter. His work is Romantic and a little dreamy, possessing a current sensibility that is fully grounded in the realist tradition. He depicts figures and interiors with the splashy specificity reminiscent of Titian, Degas, and Vermeer. Not to say that he's derivative. This painter has his own eye; I find his compositional choices and his palette highly individualized. However, Pfahl is a descendant of some of the greatest painting traditions in Western culture.Illustrations throughout, about 75% color and 25% b&w. Many full-page illustrations.TABLE OF CONTENTSThe ConceptPosing and ComposingLighting the SubjectColorTools and MaterialsHow Pfahl Draws in OilPfahl Draws in PastelFraming the PictureDemonstration 1: A Female NudeDemonstration 2: A Clothed Female FigureDemonstration 3: A Figure in an InteriorDemonstration 4: A Male NudeDemonstration 5: An InteriorOne-Man ShowBibliographyIndex

One of the finer pieces of work in the Watson-Guptill catalog. Black cloth with silver details over boards; 143 pp; designed by Bob Fille.Pfhal is a real painter's painter. His work is Romantic and a little dreamy, a current sensibility fully grounded in the realist tradition. He depicts figures and environments with the splashy specificity reminiscent of Titian, Degas, and Vermeer. Not to say that he's derivative. This painter has his own eye. However, he's a descendant of some of the greatest painting traditions in Western culture.Illustrations throughout, about 75% color and 25% b&w. Many full-page illustrations.TABLE OF CONTENTSThe ConceptPosing and ComposingLighting the SubjectColorTools and MaterialsHow Pfahl Draws in OilPfahl Draws in PastelFraming the PictureDemonstration 1: A Female NudeDemonstration 2: A Clothed Female FigureDemonstration 3: A Figure in an InteriorDemonstration 4: A Male NudeDemonstration 5: An InteriorOne-Man ShowBibliographyIndex

I got this book when it was still in print, and if you are a painter, I urge you to get it, as it's been impossible to find. Pfahl is a great painter, and this book, unlike many others, shows many step by step paintings. The paintings are large and the color is real good, in fact, just the slip cover alone is worth the price of the book, in my opinion, and this reproduction of it doesn't do it justice. I believe it will become one of your favorite books in your art collection.

Great book, Great painter. Sadly missed.

Love this book a lot.Dilivered super fast.Nice Quality.

It would be difficult to understate how respected the late painter Charles Pfahl was by his contemporaries working in the field of American representational/realist painting; this book was a very early recognition of his talents, published when the artist was still a young man.It has the appearance of a how-to book, but it is really aimed at the more advanced artist and the text - written by fellow artist Joe Singer - is a little over-reverential in tone.There are some 80 colour and 28 black and white illustrations in the book, but a significant number of the colour plates consist of different stages in the process of painting the five demonstration works covered in the main body of the volume. There is a selection of preparatory drawings and a short, final gallery section at the end.Phahl`s work is mainly concerned with the dramatic effect of light; it fits very comfortably into the Northern Realist tradition which still exerts a considerable influence on serious figurative painters world-wide.For me, the main reason for purchasing the book was to obtain some examples of his works for reference.A more recent, self-published volume of the artist's work exists (good luck in finding it, I couldn't) but aside from a few examples in catalogues and general art commentaries, this remains the only book that offers a reasonable collected body of his work.

This, some might say excessively, adulatory book was published in 1977, when the artist was a mere 31 years old (although he manages to make himself look older in his self-portraits). Publications of this era had nothing like the colour content we have today, and it may come as no surprise to find that a third of the 30 works shown in the "gallery" are illustrated in black and white - as with many other examples throughout the book. This reduces its value significantly.The tenor of Pfahl's work as shown here tends to the gloomy, not just in style, but in subject. As the author remarks"Pfahl is obviously drawn to the darker side of life" - so we have works entitled "depression", portraits showing sitters under stress, dark, gloomy interiors and works characterised as "sombre" - the latter adjective being applicable to just about everything depicted here.He is undoubtedly a talented artist, and I admire his immense skill, which, perhaps, is well-suited to the classical chiaroscuro style he favoured. I had never heard of him before I stumbled across this book on Amazon. He died last October, which perhaps may explain the - to my mind - ridiculous prices now being asked for both new and used copies of this book. If you are an ardent Pfahl devotee you may be happy to pay these prices for this, the only book to feature his work (although a chapter from it did appear in another Watson-Guptill compendium some years later); but if you're just another interested art-lover you may, like me, prefer a used copy at a sensible price - if you can find one.