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Title: The Art of Richard P. Feynman: Images by a Curious Character by Richard Phillips Feynman, Michelle Feynman, Albert Hibbs ISBN: 2-88449-047-7 Publisher: Gordon & Breach Science Pub Pub. Date: July, 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $72.95

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)

Rating: 5
Summary: What a find!
Comment: This is a really terrific collection. In this book are many of the little-known sketches and paintings of the late, great physicist/folk hero Richard P. Feynman. I sought this book out after reading Ralph Leighton's Feynman biography "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" I'm glad I went to the trouble to do so.

The book commences with a foreword by Albert Hibbs, whom many Feynman fans will recognize as Feynman's friend and co-author of "Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals." Don't skip over this foreword. Hibbs has a lot of interesting things to say about how visual Feynman was in all his projects, including his style of doing physics.

After the foreword is a helpful preface by Feynman's daughter Michelle. (Michelle works as a photographer, and was the primary person in charge of selecting these artworks). She describes some interesting features of Feynman family life, such as the fact that many of the models for these paintings became lifelong Feynman family friends. She gives us a fun little window into the experience of "growing up Feynman."

This book also contains Feyman's wry, interesting essay "But is it Art?" from "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!," as well as a selection of biographical sketches from four of Fenman's friends, including three artists and his biographer.

The actual sketches are really pretty good, in my humble opinion. There are about a hundred pages of black and white sketches, including charcoal, pencil, and ink wash drawings. Many are quite simple and direct. Others clearly took quite a bit of time.

Let me give you a friendly warning here, incidentally. Leafing through this section, you will go through page after page of sketches of young, beautiful women, in a variety of attractive poses. This will lead you to a pleasant, happy, blissed out frame of mind. Suddenly, with absolutely no warning whatsoever, you will turn the page and be confronted by the dilapidated, craggy, wrinkled face of an anonymous, elderly male physics professor, frowning under a ponderously furrowed unibrow, glaring out of the book at you. Be warned, O reader, and try not to have a seizure. Also included among these sketches are occasional other topics, such as Feyman's dog Rufus, and a few "one minute line drawings" (a common exercise in art classes)... Personally, I think Figure 87 is pretty neat. It includes small sketches of various subjects -- a woman, faces, a plant, a sleeping dog, and more. But there's more -- the background is full of Feynman's equations! They wind all over the place, throughout the drawing. It makes for kind of a neat juxtaposition. I could definitely see that sketch making a great poster.

After the black and white sketches are a small collection of color paintings, including a sketch of a little town, and Feynman's trusty dog Rufus.

Basically, if you are a Feynman fan, this book will go a long way toward rounding out your appreciation of him. Besides, there are some really terrific pictures in here. Two thumbs up!