Please join me and my Hollywood Arensberg co-authors—William H. Sherman and Ellen Hoobler—for a discussion moderated by Getty Research Institute Director Mary Miller on 9 March 2021.

The other day I was perusing (for the umpteenth time) Man Ray Portraits: Paris—Hollywood—Paris, featuring photographs from the archives of the Centre Pompidou, when suddenly this picture on page 284 jumped out at me in a new way. The subject of the photograph is the ballerina Tamara Toumanova, but behind her is the Arensbergs’ Aztec Corn Goddess!

The wonderful exhibition Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945, curated by Barbara Haskell (with a book designed by Michelle Nix of McCall Associates!) is still up for another few weeks at the Whitney Museum of American Art. It’s a great chance to see Diego Rivera’s La canoa enflorada (The Flowered Canoe).

Over the past decade or so, my colleagues and I at McCall Associates have been fortunate enough to print over 40 books at Trifolio, in Montorio, just outside Verona. Though the health restrictions of Covid-19 meant no traveling to Italy, I knew Hollywood Arensberg would be overseen with great care by Massimo Tonolli and all of the gifted technicians who work with him: https://trifoliosrl.com/#/portfolio/906

You can see much more of their work here: https://trifoliosrl.com/#/portfolio

—Mark Nelson

Hollywood Arensberg would not have been possible without the support of The Getty and its tremendous staff. We extend our profound thanks to everyone there who helped make the book a success. We are also proud to support the mission (see below) of our publisher, the Getty Research Institute.

—Mark Nelson