Synopses & Reviews
The work of Barnett Newman (1905andndash;1970) has come to define the spiritual aspirations and material innovations of American painting in the mid-20th century. Best known for his zip paintingsandmdash;in which thin vertical lines rise through large, bold planes of colorandmdash;Newmanandrsquo;s work was an abrupt departure from his contemporariesandrsquo; gestural abstraction, yet anticipated Color Field painting.
and#160;
During the last five years of his life, Newman worked primarily in acrylic rather than oil paint, used increasingly vibrant colors, and experimented with shaped canvases. When he died at the age of 65, he left a group of works hanging in his studio, some deemed unfinished. Centered on three of these works, this book builds upon ten years of exhaustive technical research to provide a rare glimpse of Newmanandrsquo;s relatively mysterious artistic process. The first scholarly publication devoted to the last years of Newmanandrsquo;s oeuvre, it featuresand#160;more than 20 paintings from this period and earlier. The authors present eye-opening analysis of these unfinished works as well as rich insight into Newmanandrsquo;s full body of work. This striking volume also includes photographic close-ups and scientific imaging that reveal previously unknown aspects of Newmanandrsquo;s mediums and techniques.
Review
and#8220;Handsome small catalogand#8221; and#8212;Los Angeles Times
Synopsis
An enlightening study of Barnett Newman's last works, based on a decade of exhaustive research
The work of Barnett Newman (1905-1970) has come to define the spiritual aspirations and material innovations of American painting in the mid-20th century. Best known for his zip paintings--in which thin vertical lines rise through large, bold planes of color--Newman's work was an abrupt departure from his contemporaries' gestural abstraction, yet anticipated Color Field painting.
During the last five years of his life, Newman worked primarily in acrylic rather than oil paint, used increasingly vibrant colors, and experimented with shaped canvases. When he died at the age of 65, he left a group of works hanging in his studio, some deemed unfinished. Centered on three of these works, this book builds upon ten years of exhaustive technical research to provide a rare glimpse of Newman's relatively mysterious artistic process. The first scholarly publication devoted to the last years of Newman's oeuvre, it features more than 20 paintings from this period and earlier. The authors present eye-opening analysis of these unfinished works as well as rich insight into Newman's full body of work. This striking volume also includes photographic close-ups and scientific imaging that reveal previously unknown aspects of Newman's mediums and techniques.
Synopsis
As the focal point of numerous high-profile exhibitions, the sculpture of Richard Serra (b. 1939) has drawn international acclaim. Yet even those who have marveled at Serra's intellectually rigorous and large works of sculpture may not be familiar with his equally intriguing drawings. This handsome book brings together for the first time Serra's drawn work, considering the artist's investigation of medium as an activity both independent from and linked to his pioneering sculptural practice.
First working in ink, charcoal, and lithographic crayon on paper, Serra originally used drawing as a means to explore form and perceptual relations between his sculpture and the viewer. Over time, his drawings underwent significant shifts in concept, materials, and scale and became fully realized and autonomous works of art. The grand, bold forms he created with black paintstick in his monumental Installation Drawings were designed to disrupt and complement existent spaces and eventually began to occupy entire rooms. In the late 1980s, Serra explored the tension of weight and gravity through layering, and his most recent work experiments with surface effects, using mesh screens as intermediaries between the gesture and the transfer of pigment to paper.
Synopsis
American artist Vija Celmins (b. 1938) is widely admired and respected for her sublime images of night skies and ocean waves.
Vija Celmins: Television and Disaster, 1964-1966 looks closely at Celmins's early work, which is deeply engaged with the Pop Art scene of 1960s Los Angeles. The authors argue convincingly for a better understanding of this body of work, which is not well known by contemporary audiences, both within Celmins's overall career, and as part of the complicated historical context in which she was working.
The book illustrates Celmins's work from the mid-1960s. These paintings and sculptures of war planes, smoking guns, and other representations of death and disaster were informed by images found in books and magazines. Also reflecting the moment when print began to give way to television, as well as the impact of the first televised war, they are creative interpretations of a world destabilized by the turmoil of war and domestic political conflicts.
Synopsis
This beautifully designed and produced catalogue is the first to survey more than fifty years of drawing by a legendary sculptor and draftswoman.
Synopsis
Lee Bontecou (b. 1931) established a significant reputation in the 1960s with pioneering sculptures and reliefs made of raw and expressionistic materials. Her art is simultaneously organic and mechanical, and infused with biological, geological, and technological motifs.and#160; These same qualities also animate a less-known but compelling body of work: her drawings. Ranging from her early soot on paper works created using powder from a welding torch to recent drawings in pencil and colored pencil that evoke cosmoses and microcosmic worlds, this stunning book is the first retrospective survey of Bontecouand#8217;s consistently innovative drawings.and#160; More than sixty full-color plates, populated by imagery ranging from black voids to mechanomorphs to hybrid descendants of teeth, plants, and fish, are complemented by original essays from leading scholars who explore themes such as the drawingsand#8217; historical contexts, Bontecouand#8217;s use of the iconography of the void, and the eco-apocalyptic themes of an artist who came of age in the roiling political atmosphere of the 1960s. and#160;
Synopsis
An enlightening study of Barnett Newmanandrsquo;s last works, based on a decade of exhaustive research
Synopsis
Based on ten years of technical research, this handsome book offers the first in-depth examination of Barnett Newmanandrsquo;s late works, providing rare insights into Newmanandrsquo;s materials and process.
About the Author
Lizzie Borden is a filmmaker and writer based in Los Angeles. Magdalena Dabrowski is a Special Consultant for Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Gary Garrels is the Elise S. Haas Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Bernice Rose is the Chief Curator of the Menil Drawing Institute and Study Center. Richard Shiff is the Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art and directs the Center for the Study of Modernism at the University of Texas at Austin. Michelle White is Associate Curator at the Menil Collection.