Thoughtful texts, juxtaposed with Fonseca's striking images, offer welcome glimpses into the mysteries of how and why an artist creates.

A celebration of a brilliant young artist's tragically short career, this revealing look at Bruno Fonseca's life, unorthodox training, and startlingly diverse paintings, drawings, and sculpture not only casts light on his own impressive work but also offers unusually acute insight into the creative process. The son of a sculptor father and a painter mother, Bruno Fonseca grew up in an art-filled Manhattan household and started creating his own art early on. By the age of 18, he had started a rigorous course of study with Augusto Torres in Barcelona, where he maintained a studio until his death at age 36 in 1994.

Alan Jenkins's perceptive musings about the young artist's accomplishments capture Bruno's quirky charm and summon up the complexity of his relationships with family, friends, and the history of art. Karen Wilkin investigates Fonseca's unusually traditional approach to the study of art, based on painstakingly learned ways of seeing and creating that relate more to the 19th-century Academy than to today's conceptualizing, career- chasing art schools. Isabel Fonseca's deeply touching memoir of her brother's childhood and last days brings to life his irresistible spirit and quicksilver intelligence.