Flora: Contemporary Artists and the World of Flowers.

It is not often that catalogs prepared for special exhibitions at art museums in smaller communities deserve dissemination to a broader audience. This smallish paperback designed to accompany an exhibition of the same name is an exception to the rule. The Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin, is known for organizing exhibits that feature art of the natural world. In this instance, curator Thomas Garvey has brought together a group of artists who work in the traditional media of painting and sculpture and who use flowers--and on occasion plants, fruits, and vegetables in their work. The result is an exhibition that has traveled to small art museums in Texas, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Tennessee, and a colorful catalog that has been selected for national distribution. Fifteen contemporary artists are represented by three or four fullcolor reproductions of their work. In addition to biographical information about each artist, an accompanying essay combines a discussion of the artist's work with insightful interview segments. New ways of viewing and interpreting floral arrangements should be motivated if this publication is accessible to high school, college and adult painting students.