Although this is an American book, you’d be unlikely to guess just by looking through it. Gregg Kreutz’s style is firmly European and in what we might call the Old Master tradition – that’s to say, classical, quite detailed and often rather dark. If you want your oils bright and modern, you might have a problem, though that would be a pity because you’d miss out on the useful text. This, in the Watson Guptill tradition, is discursive rather than instructive and offers plenty of hints on the why as well as the how. The variety of subject matter is also comprehensive and the book lives up to its subtitle: “Mastering portraits, figures, still lifes, landscapes and interiors”.
If you’re looking for a good primer in oil painting, or even something that’ll take you beyond the first stages, this is a worthwhile purchase. The biographical information reveals that Gregg is an instructor at the Art Students League of New York, whose work I’ve praised before.
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