Art

Photographer Rosamond Purcell's new book, Owls Head, is about her 20-year friendship with William Buckminster, an eccentric collector whose dilapidated antiques shop and 11-acre junkyard in Maine became something of a tourist attraction. Buckminster sold many of his items to Purcell, who took them home and photographed them in large-format Polaroids. Purcell, who's been called the "doyenne of decay," has also collaborated three times on books with the late paleontologist and science historian Stephen Jay Gould.

His new book is Between Midnight and Day: The Last Unpublished Blues Archive. It is a large-format book with photos and text by Waterman. In the early 1960s, Waterman became interested in traditional blues music. He rediscovered blues legend Son House living in Rochester, N.Y. Waterman then formed Avalon Productions, the first agency dedicated to promoting blue artists. Waterman managed many acts, including Bonnie Raitt. He's been representing and photographing blues artists for more than 40 years. He is the only non-performer to be inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

Actor Spalding Gray, famous for his autobiographical monologues, was found dead on March 7 in New York's East River. He'd been missing for two months. In the first of a two-part series, Terry Gross speaks with people who knew Gray well, including his wife, Kathie Russo, and his friend, Robby Stein. The second program features excerpts of Gray’s Fresh Air interviews.

On March 7, the actor and monologist Spalding Gray was found dead in the East River in New York. Gray, 62, had been missing for two months. His family believes he committed suicide. Gray was best known for his autobiographical monologues, including Swimming to Cambodia, Monster in a Box and It's a Slippery Slope. Over the last 19 years he was a frequent guest on Fresh Air. We listen back to excerpts of his performances and interviews: Swimming to Cambodia (rebroadcast from Aug. 20, 1985), Monster in a Box (rebroadcast from Sept.

She's starring in her one-woman show, Bridge and Tunnel. The play about the immigrant experience in America has been critically acclaimed. Margo Jefferson of The New York Times writes, "Humor, compassion and daring have more often found a place in solo performance. This free form frees gifted artists to change sex, race, age, body type and personality in an instant. It takes great craft and generosity. Sarah Jones has both."

His new book is Picture This: Debby Harry and Blondie. Rock photographed many musicians before they were famous. The British-born photographer took pictures of Lou Reed, Brian Eno and Ziggy Stardust (aka David Bowie) when he was just a cult figure in London. His book Blood and Glitter is about the Glam Rock era.

His colorful, chaotic, bold, vibrant and often comic paintings of New York City feature the spectrum of life from prostitutes, thieves and gamblers to tourists, shoppers and moms and dads. When he was 20, nearly 50 years ago, Grooms moved to New York City from Nashville, and his visceral reaction to the city has informed his paintings since. There's a new book of his work (the first major book on Grooms in 20 years), Red Grooms.

We discuss the plans for rebuilding at ground zero in Lower Manhattan, and the debates surrounding those plans. Goldberger says idealism met cynicism at ground zero, and so far they have battled to a draw. His new book is Up from Zero: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Me and You and Everyone We Know, starring performance artist Miranda July.

John Leguizamo, who got his start as a stand-up comedian, stars in the new Spanish-language film Cronicas. He plays a tabloid reporter from Miami who travels to Ecuador to track down a serial killer.

Brian Walker, son of Hi and Lois creator Mort Walker, has co-edited a new book that traces the history of America's funny pages in the 20th century. Walker now writes the Hi and Lois strip with his brother, editor Greg Walker, and illustrator Chance Browne.

A new tactic has emerged in the angry debate over cartoons depicting religious figures, as an Israeli artist launches a contest for the best anti-Semitic cartoon -- drawn by a Jew. Amitai Sandy says the Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoons Contest is a response to an Iranian newspaper's competition for cartoons on the Holocaust.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz describes the first major American exhibition of Dadaist art at Washington's National Gallery of Art.

William Gottlieb died of a stroke last Sunday at the age of 89. In the '40s, Gottlieb learned photography and took hundreds of shots of the jazz greats of the time. Many of those shots are now well known through album covers, books, and posters. 200 of those photos appear in Gottlieb's book, The Golden Age of Jazz.

The award-winning Australian novelist Peter Carey is known for his manic comic energy. Reaching for comparisons, reviewers have likened him to James Joyce, Tom Wolfe and other writers obviously in love with words, words, words. Carey's latest novel, Theft: A Love Story, is sure to steal its readers' attention away from all other activities.

Movie musicals usually get lumped together as a category. But classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz says that a batch of original musicals from MGM and 20th-Century Fox, just released on DVD, reveals an array of categories that date back to the earliest sound films. The batch includes Till the Clouds Roll By, Summer StockDown Argentine Way and It's Always Fair Weather.

Nell Freudenberger lived every young writer's dream when her first short story was published in The New Yorker. She was 26 at the time and an editorial assistant at the magazine, writing fiction in the morning before work. Her award-winning short story collection, Lucky Girls, was published in 2003 and made our best books list that year. Freudenberger has just published her first novel, The Dissident.

Hamburg-born Astrid Kirchherr met the Beatles in 1960, before they were famous. She took some of the earliest photographs of the group and was engaged to Stuart Sutcliffe, the Beatles' original bassist, before he died of a brain hemorrhage in 1962.

Photographer William Claxton got his start taking photos of jazz musicians in natural settings instead of smoky lounges. His 1967 film Basic Black was considered the first fashion video. He died Oct. 11 from congestive heart failure.

Fresh Air's film critic reviews Everlasting Moments, the latest from Jan Troell, the 77-year-old Swedish director best known in the U.S. for the '70s epics The Emigrants and The New Land.