Product Description

This second volume of Robert Taylor's aviation paintings features a collection of the artist's most recent work. The book provides an insight into the background of this artist's technique, revealing the way he works and how he brings a painting from its initial concept to completion on the canvas. Robert Taylor also discusses the subject of research, and the book contains behind-the-scenes stories of his meetings with some of the finest aviators in history. A number of these great pilots have contributed their own personal recollections, including first-hand accounts of the aircraft they flew in combat.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #500296 in Books
• Published on: 1991-10-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 128 pages

Customer Reviews

Excellent introduction to brilliant aviation artist
This is the perfect introduction to Robert Taylor's aircraft paintings, if you'd like one. he is very, very good; in most paintings you could take away the aircraft, and still be left with a very good landscape (or skyscape) painting! But he gets the `feel' of the aircraft just right, due to lots of research and by talking to the people who flew them.
For each painting there is a colour reproduction on one page; sometimes over one-and-a-half, which leads to a bit of loss on the fold. In addition you get a few paragraphs on how the painting came about, some history of the `plane or the pilot, and sometimes a comment by someone who flew the plane involved; plus a pencil sketch.
And there are 62 paintings reproduced - a very large number, so you get an amazing range, from Camel and SE-5 to Phantom and F-16, but mostly WW2 planes and scenes: lots of the famous ones, but also some rarer ones such as the Do-24 or the F1M2 `Pete'. Great stuff!
I like even better his `Air combat paintings' Vol. 1-4, because there you get more text and more pencil sketches (though fewer paintings per book). But this is a very good introduction, and it has paintings from all four volumes of that series - plus thirteen (13) ones that are not included in any of them! What is more, the reproduction in this `masterworks collection' is very good, slightly lighter-coloured, so in some paintings you actually see more detail.
This book does justice to Mr. Taylor's brilliant aviation paintings (he does ships too - see his Maritime paintings book). Recommended!