I would have given the book five stars if, after having read through the entire book and encountered several rather obscure artists with whom I am not familiar, I had not suddenly realised that Andrew Wyeth was not even mentioned in the book. Why? He most certainly is twentieth century, and most certainly is an artist. Not even an obscure one. Bad enough that NC Wyeth only considered himself an illustrator of books and not a real artist; it is certainly reprehensible that his son, one of the greatest painters of any century, should be left out of a book which purports to chronicle the lives of the great twentieth century artists. This happens to be a very good book, a good overview of the various movements in art during the last century, but it has rather pointedly ignored a very fine and important artist whose enormous body of work should be at least be mentioned. And I won't even mention poor Norman Rockwell, who chronicled every day life in his own century much as the great artists of the past painted what was prosaic to them and very exotic to us. Maxfield Parrish was also ignored in this book. Not an artist, I guess, just an illustrator with the greatest understanding of light since Rembrandt. Oh, well. I feel much about this book as I do about "Great Poetry" collections which always manage to leave out that which I love the most. Everything, I guess, is a matter of opinion. If you know absolutely nothing about twentieth century art, this book will certainly give you a good introduction to the various artists and important movements. Perhaps the writer, Edward Lucie Smith, should have considered two or three volumes, in order to more completely cover this subject.
