Bill Berkson reviews two biographies of painter David Park: David Park, Painter: Nothing Held Back by Helen Park Bigelow (Hudson Hills Press) and David Park: A Painter's Life by Nancy Boas (University of California Press).

Berkson writes that "Read in tandem, [the books] are distinct and complement each other perfectly. Helen Park Bigelow's is a family memoir, in which her father and the paintings of his that mean the most to her are central but not the only active characters… Her responses to the pictures are instinctive and often eloquent… Nancy Boas's book also is sympathetic, though more impersonal, a balanced and analytical account; her passion shows in how persuasively she argues for a wider recognition of Park's importance as more than the locally esteemed leader of the Bay Area Figuratives, which now in any case seems on the way."