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The book, "The Art of Gambling Through the Ages," published locally by Huntington Press ($65), is the culmination of three years of research by art historian Arthur Flowers and Anthony Curtis, whose Las Vegas Advisor newsletter has been a staple for tourists searching for bargains and gamblers seeking insider tips.
      The book is best described as a collection of gambling images that portray a variety of artistic styles through time, said Curtis, who helped write much of the text describing the artworks.
      "For something to be cultural and be associated with gambling is important," said Curtis, a former professional blackjack player.
      "Gambling is a part of our culture, and people need to see it to realize that," said Flowers, a former professor of communicative disorders who has been studying art and art history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for several years. "The people here in Las Vegas are successful in the gambling industry, but they often look down on the genre of gambling art. It's important to see this now."
      The book includes works from some of the art world's most recognized names: Pablo Picasso, who is represented by the World War I-era "Card Players" and "Ace of Clubs"; Vincent van Gogh, whose 1888 painting "The Night Cafe" depicts a game of carom billiards; and Paul CŽzanne, whose contributions include "The Card Players" (1892) and "The Card Players and Girl" (1892).
      The book also includes works by a handful of local artists, and locally flavored artwork by American painter LeRoy Neiman.
      Children, American Indians, tin soldiers, cowboys and even ancient Greeks are portrayed in this collection.
      Flowers and Curtis sifted through more than 400 pieces of art for the book, which is being sold at local bookstores and will be available online at Amazon.com later this year.
      The book, Flowers said, is meant to be enjoyed by the masses, not just gamblers or art buffs.
      "I didn't want to pollute this text with so much of the history. It's presented in a way so you can just concentrate on the visual images. If you cut down on some of the art history, you can do that."
      "My feeling was this would be a commercial success with the casinos," said Curtis. "A lot of people are trying to eradicate gambling. I wanted to produce something that reflected positively on the gaming industry."
      There are many different types of games -- and a wide range of artistic styles -- seen in the book. Craps, billiards, bridge, backgammon, poker, roulette, slots and video poker are depicted in various paintings.
      A number of paintings highlight the Las Vegas gambling scene in particular.
      Neiman, who is well-known for illustrating American popular culture and sporting events, is represented with works that depict a "Baccarat Girl" at Caesars Palace, the "World Series of Poker" at Binion's Horseshoe and a casino scene in "Neiman's Golden Nugget."
      "He is the greatest chronicler of gambling art of all time," said Curtis. "I thought he gave gambling a lot of respect."
      Neiman said he enjoyed working on the book and called it "a terrific cross section of art."
      Gambling, he said, "reveals everybody, from the Tom Sawyer-Huck Finn-type gambler to the high rollers you see today."
      Chronicling gambling is chronicling life, Neiman said. "With something like baseball, you can only go back 150 years. With gambling, you can go back to the beginning of time. Gambling is so powerful, it's temporarily made people and wrecked people. They're mesmerized by it and love it."
      There are some anti-gambling messages in the book, such as Adolph Echtler's "Ruin of a Family by Gambling," a 19th-century oil painting that shows a wife pleading and children crying during a card game. A lithograph by Odilon Redon, "The Gambler," portrays a man bearing the weight of an enormous die, which could be a metaphor for the burden of a heavy gambling debt.
      Others depict mathematical equations that deal with gambling, such as "Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance," in which artist Jean Arp simply threw up a handful of cut paper squares and let them lie, then painted them to illustrate the randomness of many casino games.
      "We wanted to depict as many styles as possible," Flowers said.
      One of the world's most recognized, and duplicated, paintings is in the book -- "A Friend in Need," a 19th-century painting by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge that features dogs playing poker.
      "I felt it was, absolutely, in gambling art, something we had to have," Curtis said.
      Modern Las Vegas games also are featured in the collection, such as Las Vegan Suz Brna's "Pay Day," a 1999 creation that shows a dealer sitting at a video poker machine following his shift. The game is perhaps the most important casino innovation in the latter half of the 20th century, Curtis said.
      Brna said she got the inspiration for the painting during a trip downtown to pay a traffic ticket.
      "I like to be able to show the people who live and work here," she said. "I'm just a middle-class American and this is a game I can play. ... That's partly why I decided to do it."
      Curtis and Flowers think the book has enough mass appeal to educate the curious.
      "This is relatively scholarly," Curtis said. "We are not art savvy ... but any art historian who wants to bust us on the fact that this isn't an art history book, they have to know that wasn't our intention. But in a way, it's raising gambling to an art form."

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