
Letters of Note: Art
Letters of Note, Book 6
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $11.25
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
By:
-
Shaun Usher
About this listen
A splendid new volume of missives about art, from the author of the best-selling Letters of Note collections.
Vincent Van Gogh curses the stare of the blank canvas. Salvador Dali contemplates mailing a piece of his "lobster-colored pajamas" to Federico Lorca. Hollis Frampton, to the MoMA, demands that artists be paid. The dean of students at San Francisco Art Institute argues to Alicia McCarthy, in very stern words, that graffiti is not art but, rather, a "pain in the ass". In a letter to the editor, Martin Scorsese defends and celebrates Fellini's filmmaking. This collection celebrates extraordinary correspondence about art, from missives on the agony of being overlooked, the ecstasy of producing work that excites, to surprising sources of inspiration and rousing manifestos. These 30 letters show us the many ways that art and life can intersect and what we talk about when they do.
Includes letters from Carl Jung, Mary Cassatt, Mark Rothko, Oscar Wilde, Frida Kahlo, Mick Jagger, and more.
Featuring narration by Sanjeev Bhaskar, Louise Brealey, Simon Callow, Crystal Clarke, Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Fry, Neil Gaiman, Toby Jones, Ferdinand Kingsley, Jude Law, Helen McCrory, Stephen Mangan, Clarke Peters, Juliet Stevenson, and Meera Syal.
©2021 Shaun Usher (P)2021 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience
- By: Shaun Usher
- Narrated by: Alan Cumming, Juliet Stevenson, Kerry Shale, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Letters of Note, the book based on the beloved website of the same name, became an instant classic on publication in 2013, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. This new edition sees the collection of the world's most entertaining, inspiring, and unusual letters updated with 14 riveting new missives and a new introduction from curator Shaun Usher.
-
-
Each letter is a little treat
- By Amazon Customer on 11-03-22
By: Shaun Usher
-
The Order of Time
- By: Carlo Rovelli
- Narrated by: Benedict Cumberbatch
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike. For most listeners, this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it appears. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where, at the most fundamental level, time disappears.
-
-
Rovelli is a Genius
- By Mike on 05-11-18
By: Carlo Rovelli
-
Paradise Lost
- By: John Milton
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Milton's Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny.
-
-
The most accessible reading of Paradise Lost
- By Tony McClung on 02-21-10
By: John Milton
-
Alison Larkin Presents: The Secret Adversary, Murder on the Links, and The Mysterious Affair at Styles
- By: Agatha Christie
- Narrated by: Alison Larkin, James Warwick
- Length: 24 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three critically acclaimed recordings are joined together in this dazzling Agatha Christie Triple Bill, read by award-winning narrators Alison Larkin and James Warwick, star of the Partners in Crime TV series on Masterpiece Theater.
-
-
Pitch perfect narration of Agatha Christie!
- By Mary Katherine Worth on 10-18-19
By: Agatha Christie
-
Bleak House
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett, Teresa Gallagher
- Length: 35 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A complex plot of love and inheritance is set against the English legal system of the mid-19th century. As the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce drags on, it becomes an obsession to everyone involved. And the issue on an inheritance ultimately becomes a question of murder.
-
-
WONDERFUL NARRATIONS!
- By KT on 08-25-11
By: Charles Dickens
-
A Room of One's Own
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Room of One's Own, based on a lecture given at Girton College Cambridge, is one of the great feminist polemics. Woolf's blazing polemic on female creativity, the role of the writer, and the silent fate of Shakespeare's imaginary sister remains a powerful reminder of a woman's need for financial independence and intellectual freedom.
-
-
A Witty, Beautiful Plea for Androgynous Integrity
- By Jefferson on 08-20-14
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience
- By: Shaun Usher
- Narrated by: Alan Cumming, Juliet Stevenson, Kerry Shale, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Letters of Note, the book based on the beloved website of the same name, became an instant classic on publication in 2013, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. This new edition sees the collection of the world's most entertaining, inspiring, and unusual letters updated with 14 riveting new missives and a new introduction from curator Shaun Usher.
-
-
Each letter is a little treat
- By Amazon Customer on 11-03-22
By: Shaun Usher
-
The Order of Time
- By: Carlo Rovelli
- Narrated by: Benedict Cumberbatch
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike. For most listeners, this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it appears. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where, at the most fundamental level, time disappears.
-
-
Rovelli is a Genius
- By Mike on 05-11-18
By: Carlo Rovelli
-
Paradise Lost
- By: John Milton
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Milton's Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny.
-
-
The most accessible reading of Paradise Lost
- By Tony McClung on 02-21-10
By: John Milton
-
Alison Larkin Presents: The Secret Adversary, Murder on the Links, and The Mysterious Affair at Styles
- By: Agatha Christie
- Narrated by: Alison Larkin, James Warwick
- Length: 24 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three critically acclaimed recordings are joined together in this dazzling Agatha Christie Triple Bill, read by award-winning narrators Alison Larkin and James Warwick, star of the Partners in Crime TV series on Masterpiece Theater.
-
-
Pitch perfect narration of Agatha Christie!
- By Mary Katherine Worth on 10-18-19
By: Agatha Christie
-
Bleak House
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett, Teresa Gallagher
- Length: 35 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A complex plot of love and inheritance is set against the English legal system of the mid-19th century. As the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce drags on, it becomes an obsession to everyone involved. And the issue on an inheritance ultimately becomes a question of murder.
-
-
WONDERFUL NARRATIONS!
- By KT on 08-25-11
By: Charles Dickens
-
A Room of One's Own
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Room of One's Own, based on a lecture given at Girton College Cambridge, is one of the great feminist polemics. Woolf's blazing polemic on female creativity, the role of the writer, and the silent fate of Shakespeare's imaginary sister remains a powerful reminder of a woman's need for financial independence and intellectual freedom.
-
-
A Witty, Beautiful Plea for Androgynous Integrity
- By Jefferson on 08-20-14
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Gumption
- Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America's Gutsiest Troublemakers
- By: Nick Offerman
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The star of Parks and Recreation and author of the New York Times best seller Paddle Your Own Canoe returns with a second book that humorously highlights 21 figures from our nation’s history, from her inception to present day - Nick’s personal pantheon of “great Americans". After the great success of his autobiography, Paddle Your Own Canoe, Offerman now focuses on the lives of those who inspired him. From George Washington to Willie Nelson, he describes 21 heroic figures and why they inspire in him such great meaning.
-
-
Swagger and mirth
- By Tamara Shope on 09-14-15
By: Nick Offerman
-
Geneva
- By: Richard Armitage
- Narrated by: Richard Armitage, Nicola Walker, Jane Perry
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sarah Collier has taken a step back from work to spend more time with her family. Movie nights with her husband Daniel and their daughter Maddie are a welcome respite from the scrutiny of the world’s press. As much as it hurts, it’s good to be able to see her father more too. He’s suffering from Alzheimer’s and needs special care. Sarah has started to show tell-tale signs of the disease too. She’s been experiencing blackouts and memory loss. It’s early days but she must face the possibility that she won’t be there to see her daughter grow up.
-
-
Well done, Mr. Armitage!
- By Betty B. on 10-25-22
By: Richard Armitage
-
BBC Radio Shakespeare: A Collection of Eight Comedies
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Anne-Marie Duff, David Tennant, Full Cast, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 28 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A collection of BBC Radio 3's iconic Shakespeare productions: eight comedies with all-star casts including David Tennant, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne-Marie Duff, Martin Jarvis, Siân Phillips and Miriam Margolyes. The plays included in this collection are: Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew, and All's Well That Ends Well.
-
-
Not told entirely
- By Gabsalot on 12-11-21
-
How to Be an Artist
- By: Jerry Saltz
- Narrated by: Jerry Saltz
- Length: 2 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Art has the power to change our lives. For many, becoming an artist is a lifelong dream. But how to make it happen? In How to Be an Artist, Jerry Saltz, one of the art world’s most celebrated and passionate voices, offers an indispensable handbook for creative people of all kinds. From the first sparks of inspiration - and how to pursue them without giving in to self-doubt - Saltz offers invaluable insight into what really matters to emerging artists: originality, persistence, a balance between knowledge and intuition, and that most precious of qualities, self-belief.
-
-
Terrible Book Waste of Money
- By Classic on 04-22-20
By: Jerry Saltz
-
The World of Yesterday
- Memoirs of a European
- By: Stefan Zweig, Anthea Bell - translator
- Narrated by: David Horovitch
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday, recalls the golden age of prewar Europe - its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall with the onset of two world wars. Zweig's passionate, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the brink of extinction. It is an unusually humane account of Europe from the closing years of the 19th century through to World War II, seen through the eyes of one of the most famous writers of his era.
-
-
Lucidity whilst Civilization reverts to barbarism
- By none on 06-25-17
By: Stefan Zweig, and others
-
Defiant Joy
- The Remarkable Life & Impact of G. K. Chesterton
- By: Kevin Belmonte
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You may be aware that G. K. Chesterton authored influential Christian biographies and apologetics. But you may not know the larger-than-life Gilbert Keith Chesterton himself - not yet. Equally versed in poetry, novels, literary criticism, and journalism, he addressed politics, culture, and religion with a towering intellect and a soaring wit. Chesterton carried on lively, public discussions with the social commentators of his day, continually challenging them with civility, humility, erudition, and his ever-sharp sense of humor.
-
-
I Liked It
- By Gene Hamill on 11-20-20
By: Kevin Belmonte
-
Ninth Street Women
- Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art
- By: Mary Gabriel
- Narrated by: Lisa Stathoplos
- Length: 40 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Five women revolutionize the modern art world in postwar America in this "gratifying, generous, and lush" true story from a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist (Jennifer Szalai, New York Times). Set amid the most turbulent social and political period of modern times, Ninth Street Women is the impassioned, wild, sometimes tragic, always exhilarating chronicle of five women who dared to enter the male-dominated world of 20th-century abstract painting - not as muses but as artists.
-
-
Painful pronunciation issues!
- By Curious Artist Librarian on 05-20-19
By: Mary Gabriel
-
Letters of Note: War
- Letters of Note, Book 4
- By: Shaun Usher
- Narrated by: Sanjeev Bhaskar, Louise Brealey, Simon Callow, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Defeated Cossacks taunt the pompous sultan of the Ottoman Empire. A black corporal beseeches Abraham Lincoln to ensure that his regiment receives proper payment for performing their duties. Mohandas Gandhi urges Adolf Hitler to turn back the tide of war. A suicide bomber in Iraq explains his simple motivation to his family. This poignant collection offers a nuanced and moving look at the act of armed conflict. Each of these 30 remarkable letters sheds light on what it means for us to take up arms against one another and record a piece of that terrible deed.
By: Shaun Usher
-
Letters of Note: Dogs
- Letters of Note, Book 9
- By: Shaun Usher
- Narrated by: Louise Brealey, Simon Callow, Crystal Clarke, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Letters of Note: Dogs, Shaun Usher brings together a delightful collection of correspondence about our canine friends, featuring affectionate accounts of pups' playful misdemeanors, heartfelt tributes to loyal fidos, and shared tales of remarkable hounds.
By: Shaun Usher
-
Letters of Note: Music
- Letters of Note, Book 2
- By: Shaun Usher
- Narrated by: Sanjeev Bhaskar, Louise Brealey, Simon Callow, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Verdi writes to his publisher about a man who hated Aida so much that he wants his money back. Keith Richards tells his aunt about bumping into a former schoolmate named Mick Jagger, who also loves Chuck Berry. Yo-Yo Ma wonders whether Leonard Bernstein remembers introducing him onstage as a young boy. A Harvard psychiatrist begs CVS to change their on-hold music. Riffing on their passions and surroundings, the artists and entertainers in this volume candidly reveal the sources of their inspiration, what music means to them, why they create it, and so much more.
By: Shaun Usher
-
Letters of Note: Love
- Letters of Note, Book 3
- By: Shaun Usher
- Narrated by: Sanjeev Bhaskar, Louise Brealey, Simon Callow, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beethoven yearns to see his famously unknown Immortal Beloved. A Victorian farmer proposes marriage to a woman he's never met. Zora Neale Hurston gives her ex-husband relationship advice. Mildred Loving asks the ACLU for help challenging the racist marriage laws of the Jim Crow South. Revealing deep, eternal truths from the heart, this intimate collection of 30 letters traces all of love's incarnations, from first blush and mutual enchantment to unrequited feelings and the ache of passions past. It offers a rare, passionate, and timeless look at what it means to love and be loved.
By: Shaun Usher
-
Letters of a Woman Homesteader
- By: Elinore Pruitt Stewart
- Narrated by: Gwen Hughes
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Letters of a Woman Homesteader is a frontier classic by Elinore Pruitt Stewart, a widowed young mother who accepted an offer to assist with a ranch in Wyoming. In Stewart's delightful collection of letters, she describes her homesteading experiences to her former employer, Mrs. Coney.
-
-
Every woman in the US should read this book.
- By Dolly Jane Prenzel on 03-17-15