Thx George, I have both of these... Trouble is that a lot of the info from Perry and Stevens is 'dated' (consider when they were published) and sometimes incomplete or inaccurate, especially about the inside painted bottles. Please notice they often refer to the most commonly seen and resold bottles in all of the important collections at prices way outside of my wallet's size, like hyperspace. But they are good 'general' base level 'must have' info books for most folks who collect all types of bottles, I would agree.
The fact that they are dated did cross my mind. I can not comment about being incomplete or inaccurate. One thing for sure is that I have found Bob's book extremely useful.
When I first started the forum, one of my interests was and is the same as yours. I searched high and low, contacted different schools, etc.. In hopes of learning more about student artists.
Bill's ( snuffbottlecollector )
Snuff Bottle Collector site has been an invaluable resource. Also have enjoyed and learned much from Wang Xisan's book which Bill has posted on his site as well.
When I searched online, and contacted the different schools, it was in an effort to learn about the artists we know nothing about. In all honesty, unlike the older bottles which I enjoy collecting for different reasons, new student bottle purchases I do take into consideration the artist. So was and am really interested in having access to information about the "new" student artists.
I do have to consider the artists of these newly painted bottles as reference to the possibility that the artist may some day become well known and desirable. Thus making a bottle purchased today perhaps worth a little money in the years to come.
So.... It seems the artists ( and I could be wrong ) that we are exposed to are made known to us only because the school has approved to promote them. Again, I could be completely wrong.
I wonder if there are student artist that we know nothing about. Just starting out... I would really like to know more about these new and unknown artist, their work, and bottles available. I have read that these schools have hundreds of students within each...
I find it odd that there just seems to be no information about each and every of the hundreds of artists within each of the schools..
Here in the States, young, brand new and upcoming artists of every imaginable kind are members of clubs, associations, special interest groups, art schools, etc, etc.. Photographs, and biographies are easy to find.
