Architectural Painting

Using such techniques as stenciling, marbleizing, graining and gilding, decorative painters can lend high style to a glitzy Manhattan clothing store or imbue a country house's interior with domestic warmth. Architectural painting has definitely made a comeback, reviving traditions of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Among the 20 artists spotlighted in this survey are a muralist who follows in the itinerant tradition, a painter of futuristic ceiling stencils, restoration contractors and trompe l'oeil illusion specialists. Their techniques are explained with the aid of 200 photographs (75 in color) as well as diagrams. Ranging from a salon of the early 1900s to a surreal public telephone alcove to the Senate chamber of the Connecticut capitol building, this album diverts and instructs. Grow is author of the Old House Catalogue series. (December 15)