The Book of a Hundred Hands

George Bridgman's art instruction books are a compilation of his life's work as an instructor at the Art Students League of New York. In his book "The Book of a Hundred Hands" Bridgman has devoted an entire volume solely to the depiction of the hand—its history in art, construction, mechanisms, and nuance details. Hands are considered among the most difficult things in art, and artists are often judged by their ability to depict hands. George Brant Bridgman (1864-1943) was a Canadian-American painter and instructor. He studied under the painter and sculptor Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Bridgman taught artistic anatomy and figure drawing at the Art Students League of New York starting in 1898. Over his 45 years of teaching, Bridgman taught thousands of art students including Norman Rockwell, Andrew Loomis, and Robert Beverly Hale.