A selection of the most delectable specimens. From the vivid green
oranges grown in Florida to the delicate yellow cherries found in
Michigan, the book provides a sumptuous journey of discovery.--Baya
Simmons "Financial Times"
Not only visually arresting, but botanically accurate.--Emily
Gosling "Creative Boom"
That the U.S. Department of Agriculture and art could be on
speaking terms seems astonishing. Yet from 1886 to 1942 the agency
commissioned artists to document fruits and nuts grown in the
United States, to record the varieties and help with identification
at a time when the use of color photography was not widespread. The
beautiful new book exhibits but a fraction of the 7,584 botanical
watercolor paintings in the collection. Lively, informative text
accompanies the illustrations.--Florence Fabricant "New York Times
Cooking"
The pictures are virtuosic... you feel you could reach out and pick
from it.--Sebastian Smee "Washington Post"
These artists were in the business of rivaling color photography,
not yet widely used. More than a picture book, this is a survey of
visual learning; prior to the orange's introduction in Europe
during the Renaissance, Westerners went around calling the shade of
the same name 'yellow-red.'--Lizzy Harding "Bookforum"
Because color photography was not yet reliable in the 1890s, the
division relied on the meticulous observation and brushwork of
Newton and her colleagues to record the bounty harvested from the
continent's sprawling orchards and fields. Their stunning pictures
of oranges and apples and strawberries and persimmons, which have
long been a resource for specialists on the USDA website, have
finally received the mainstream attention they deserve.--Jonathon
Keats "Forbes"
The book's main attraction is its hundreds of lusciously detailed,
full-color illustrations: the reader can almost taste and smell the
bright, juicy fruits and nuts across its pages. But the catalogue's
accompanying texts by Adam Leith Goliner, Jaqueline Landey, John
McPhee, and Michael Pollan about each fruit's history and makeup --
which encompass elements of archaeology, anthropology, botany, and
the arts -- are unexpectedly illuminating, and nearly as
delightful.--Lauren Moya Ford "Hyperallergic"
The technical accuracy of these illustrations is a marvel, finding
beauty even in the diseased and rotten...--Holly Black "Elephant"
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