New Releases by Karen Wilkin

Clement Greenberg (1909-1994) is the most renowned American art critic of the twentieth century and the first to treat New York modern artists as an independent school. In the work of Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and sculptor David Smith, Greenberg saw a vitality absent from the art of postwar Europe. His writings helped transform the bohemian colony huddled around Manhattan''s grimy Eighth Street into the churning center of an international movement. Far less known is the fact that Greenberg was also a major collector; because of his insistence on anonymity when loaning pieces to museums, the scope of his private collection surprises many. Recently acquired by the Portland Art Museum, his incredible collection is now coming to the public in a multi-venue traveling exhibition. This extraordinary book illustrates, in color and for the first time, the collection''s 155 works. Spanning five decades of American art, it features some of the twentieth century''s finest artists. Works by Pollock, Helen Frankenthaler, Hans Hofmann, and Adolph Gottlieb represent Abstract Expressionism. Paintings by Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, and others represent the Color Field movement, in which artists used liquid pure color on raw canvas. One highlight is Noland''s first ''''target'''' painting--a 1958 masterpiece exploring the flatness of paint. The collection also includes excellent examples of the movement Greenberg dubbed Post-Painterly Abstraction, including pieces by Walter Darby Bannard and Larry Poons. The works Greenberg collected reflect his ideas, passions, and personal associations. They reveal him as a reviewer and intellectual but also as a friend to the artists. Many of the more than two hundred color plates are accompanied by Greenberg''s comments about the artists--painters and sculptors now being rediscovered by young contemporary artists exploring formalism, the nature of paint, and the evolution of modern art. The text includes discussions of Greenberg''s significance to criticism, his famous studio visits, and the controversy attached to his work, as well as short biographies of each artist. PARTIAL EXHIBITION SCHEDULE: Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon July 14, 2001-September 16, 2001

The essay & over 40 color & 20 b/w photographs are on a little known aspect of Smith''s work; his reliefs in bronze, plaster & painted assemblage.

A look at the artist and his work, including his illustrations for T.S. Eliot''s Old Possum''s Book of Practical Cats and the animated credits for the Mystery! series on public television.

"Stuart Davis (1892-1964), once described as "the ace of America''s Modernists," regarded drawing as central to his art. He believed that all his works were drawings, and developed his images as carefully adjusted black-and-white "configurations" which he translated to "color-space compositions" only at the last stage of his painting procedure. He even retranslated some of his most ambitious and best-known paintings back into large-scale black-and-white drawings on canvas, apparently as a final version of the image." "This volume examines, for the first time, the full range of Davis''s activity as a draftsman, from his early naturalistic drawings in the manner of the Ashcan School to the economical near-abstractions of his maturity. A broad interpretation of the notion of drawing, in keeping with Davis''s own understanding of the term, allows the inclusion of works on paper in a variety of mediums, including watercolors, gouaches, and some late black-and-white drawings on canvas." "Included as well are selections from Davis''s extensive writings, which contain innumerable references to drawing: attempts to define what constitutes a good drawing, and discussions of the role of drawing in his work and in the formulation of his complex theories of composition. Just as important, Davis''s notebooks contain many images, ranging from diagrams that illustrate theory to fully developed, self-sufficient drawings." "Karen Wilkin and Lewis C. Kachur, both eminent Davis scholars, draw heavily on his unpublished writings and less well-known images to deepen our understanding of Davis and of American modernism in its formative years."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Dandy, renowned for his good looks, his skills as an amateur boxer, and his ability to play Beethoven symphonies on the accordion. His art suggests a far different persona, however, for Braque was intensely serious, technically meticulous, and devoted to making thoughtful, deeply felt images--whether as a Fauve, a Cubist, or a mature painter working in his own distinctive style. The greatest adventure of Braque''s life was his six-year collaboration with Picasso, and.

This monograph documents the range of Noland''s (b. 1924) expansive and colorful abstractions, including silkscreens and works of handmade paper as well as canvases. with 107 illustrations, 97 in color. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR