Coming Home opens with informative introductory essays which discuss firstly the inspiration for the collection, and subsequently the art of the period 1930-1950 and the conditions under which it was produced and the attitudes which prevailed at the time. Following the catalogue the book concludes with an extensive artist specific bibliography.

The bulk of the volume, from page 41 to page 319 comprises the catalogue. Each painting is allotted a double page spread, the image on the left hand page with a brief biography of the artist and comments about the painting on the facing page. Occasionally the comments extend to two pages followed by a full page bleed illustration of a detail of the painting. There are about one hundred and forty full colour plates in all.

This is a well produced work, with an attractive page layout and imaginative typography. While I have not seen the original works in flesh the colour reproduction here seems to be a little subdued, an impression not helped (or perhaps created by) by the large amount of white space surrounding each image. It is perhaps unfortunate that the bulk of the pictures here are landscape in format whilst the book itself is portrait, combined with the wide side margins this results in the image occupying less than half the total page area, sometimes considerably less than that; by contrast the few full page bleed illustrations appear bright and vibrant.

The Schoen Collection contains a fascinating and varied selection of paintings, and this handsome volume, which despite being a paperback has a feeling of quality, is well worth having.

This is a beautiful, large-ish, soft-cover book. I ordered it online and was surpised at it's oversize (sorry...no ruler handy for that info). It's an acceptable size for display and browse, even though I bought it thinking it would be more in-depth and textbook sized.

The choice of realist artists was diverse yet kept to a very American mid-century view. I particularly found the African-American imagery compelling. These are the children of the Ashcan school artists, and some of the works (and accompanying short-page, but concise explanations)are generally unknown. Many are of stiking social commentary.

If you are ready to go beyond Edward Hopper for mid-century American Realism you will greatly enjoy this book. It's really lovely and has drawn some comment and interest even with some teens who paged through it.