One Hundred Portraits

Praise for One Hundred Portraits

“Perhaps the finest printmaker at work today, Mr. Moser has over the past 40 years captured countless famous countenances. One Hundred Portraits collects the best.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Long interested in the character of creators, be they writers, artists, or composers, Moser once told an interviewer, ‘The human face is almost as individual as a fingerprint. It fascinates me to no end.’ . . . Moser’s new book One Hundred Portraits gathers a cast of characters through the ages, with an emphasis on British and American notables. Moser, who lives in Western Massachusetts, works with darkness, light, and lines to achieve faces that carry a sense of life’s burdens and beauties as his subjects lived them. Ann Patchett writes in the foreword that she welcomes Moser’s portraits of novelists as an opportunity to learn more about the souls that animate their works.”—The Boston Globe

“Even if you are not familiar with Barry Moser’s name, you’ve likely seen his distinctive engravings while reading a classic novel or leafing through a children’s book. His illustrated edition of the King James Bible, published in 1999, has become a classic. The portraits presented here include artists, musicians and writers. Some were originally commissioned works, while others were created specifically for this book, including first-time portraits of his father, mother and wife.”—The Washington Post

“Moser is a rare being, a book illustrator working in a traditional medium with a distinctive and vital vision. The recipient of many awards, Moser has illustrated such foundational works as the King James Bible, Alice in Wonderland, and Moby-Dick. His newest book is wholly his own, a portrait gallery of 100 writers, artists, and leaders. Moser’s small, firmly detailed, strongly textured, and subtly expressive black-and-white portraits demonstrate all that art can grasp and encompass. We read, not merely look at, these dramatic portraits of people who gazed into the morass and out at the horizon and were indelibly changed and provoked by what they saw. Each astute, intricate, psychologically charged portrait extends what we thought we knew of each remarkable subject.”—Booklist

“Ann Patchett notes in her foreword that what makes these portraits so compelling is that Moser has brought all he knows of these people — his reading, viewing, and understanding — to bear on each composition and bids us to look through his eyes so that we see each subject in a new way. . . . [Moser’s] presence in each image is beyond dispute and the result is a rich collaboration of subject, artist, and viewer.”—The Bloomsbury Review