Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava
Will Art ever be more popular than it is now? On January 4th, 2019, The Met announced another attendance record was set in 2018 when almost 7.4 million visited The Met Fifth Avenue, The Met Breuer or The Cloisters.
On this late summer day, I’ll be lucky if I can figure out a way to get up the stairs to get in! Click any Photo for full size.
Simply put, when I think back on 2018, I’ll remember the extraordinary number of truly great shows I saw at The Met and The Met Breuer this past year, among those 7.4 million. While I certainly spent quality time at the other Museums and saw wonderful shows at each of them (not to mention countless galleries and a few Art & Book fairs), it’s almost impossible to top the list of shows The Met, collectively, mounted this year- especially when you consider that I didn’t even see the biggest show of them all- biggest by attendance that is, the show that drew 1,659,647 visitors- Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination (I saw the parts of it that were installed outside of the show proper).
Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination– A view of part of the show installed to the south of the Great Staircase.
I chose to skip it. My friend, the fashion Blogger extraordinaire, Magda, saw it and did a terrific piece on it, here. As for the Art I saw in 2018? I’ll remember most standing on this spot near the south west corner of the 2nd floor of The Met, and marveling at the sight in front of me in a 270 degree range.
I’ve never seen the likes of this before. A 270 degree panorama from “the spot.” 2nd Floor, Metropolitan Museum.
Before my eyes, there were no less that 4 major and/or historic shows going on within yards of each other AT THE SAME TIME!
A fortnight of heaven. From right to left- 1- Rodin At The Met, 2- Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer, 3- David Hockney 80th Birthday Retrospective, 4- Birds of a Feather: Joseph Cornell’s Homage to Juan Gris. This photo was taken on February 4th, 2018. The last day all four of these shows were open at the same time.
Behind me, to the far right in the panorama, above, was Rodin At The Met (1, above), which I had just walked through to get to this spot.
Rodin, The Tempest, before 1910, Marble, seen in Rodin In The Met.
Just to my right was the once in a lifetime Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer (2), containing 133 of the Master’s Drawings and 3 Sculptures. Just to the left of that was the David Hockney 80th Birthday Retrospective (3). Down the hall to the left, Birds of a Feather: Joseph Cornell’s Homage to Juan Gris (4) recently opened. The run of all four overlapped from January 23rd to February 4th, when I took the above, just 13 days.
Had enough? C’mon. This is NYC!
Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire, Oil on canvas, 1833-36, on loan from the New York Historical Society. Installation view of Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings. 170 years later, they would inspire Ed Ruscha to create a contemporary version that was shown in conjunction with the National Gallery, London, incarnation of this show.
ALSO going on at that very moment down in the American Wing, Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings was a quite pleasant surprise, AND, over at The Met Breuer, the revelatory Edvard Munch: Between The Clock And The Bed was closing that very day! The Met, typically, has up to 25 shows up at any one given time. But, SIX MAJOR Shows up at the same time is extraordinary. WHERE else in the world does that happen?
Edvard Munch, Self-Portrait: Between the Clock and the Bed, 1940-43, Oil on canvas. His last significant “self-scrutiny” as he referred to his self-portraits, he stands before the faceless clock and bed, in front of his Paintings.
Thus far, I’ve written about 3 of them-
Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer
Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings
Edvard Munch: Between The Clock And The Bed
Given all of this, even before January, 2018 was over, I knew nothing was going to top The Met in Art in NYC this year. But? Keep an open mind, right? Let em try! Well, now that the year is over, and I take stock at all that happened, nothing changed my mind. In fact, there were more great shows at The Met as the year unfolded. So much happened that in spite of all of my coverage, there are other shows and Artists I feel the need to show and talk about. I’ve decided to focus on 3 Artists here I encountered or discovered in Met shows in 2018- one, very famous, another, who recently passed without receiving as much acclaim as I feel he deserves, and a third who, I feel, is one of the most important Artists of our time.
First, a spot quiz- Before you read the caption, who is this by?
Tyger Painting No 2, by David Hockney, 1960, when the Artist was about 22, Oil and mixed media on board.
When I saw that David Hockney was installed right next door to all the treasures by no less than Michelangelo, the Artist called “Il Divno,” I couldn’t help but wonder what that initial phone call was like…a Met executive reaching out to Mr. Hockney by phone, saying something like, “David, this is _______ from The Met. We have some good news for you, and, maybe, some not as good news for you. The good news is The Metropolitan is giving you an 80th Birthday Retrospective! Congratulations! The not as good news is it’s being mounted right next to a once in a lifetime Michelangelo show containing 133 of the master’s Drawings and 3 of his Sculptures…” And you say you want to be a famous Artist? Stay humble. Fame is relative, possibly fleeting.
The Met reported 702,516 people visited the Michelangelo show, and 363,877 attended David Hockney.
I haven’t spent much time looking at the Art of David Hockney, but I have with his exceptional books, particularly the now classic, Secret Knowledge, and the fascinating History of Pictures: From the Cave to the Computer Screen. Secret Knowledge, which has made a real contribution to Art History, was nothing less than a bombshell when it was released in 2001. His, and physicist Charles Falco’s, theory that the Old Masters (including Jan van Eyck, my first personal God of Painting) used optics, recently developed in Van Eyck’s time, to get the incredible realism they achieved was deemed heresy. Until you looked at the “evidence” they presented, including a huge wall Hockney created of postcards of Paintings created before 1400 and up to modern times that showed a sudden sharpening of their realism occurring about the beginning of the fifteenth century.
Upon closer look, their theory made perfect sense. I wished it had come years earlier when I was struggling to learn how to draw by “eyeballing” my subjects, which, of course, continues to have its place. Secret Knowledge became a superb BBC TV Documentary, and then a television series, and its impact is being felt to this day. The 2016 Film Tim’s Vermeer shows inventor Tim Jenison using these techniques to “re-create” how Vermeer might have done his Paintings. Of course, Secret Knowledge is a theory, not history, though as I said, it’s one that makes sense. Perusing it and A History of Pictures, released in late 2016, I was led to Cameraworks and his interviews on Photography, which I’ve found equally compelling. So, the David Hockney Retrospective gave me a long-delayed chance to consider his long, prolific and restless Art career. Afterall, since the passing of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, he is oft referred to as “England’s foremost living Painter.”
Arizona, 1964, left, Portrait Surrounded by Artistic Devices, 1965, right.
Though his popularity would be a while coming, requiring a move half way around the world to California, David Hockney showed a remarkable tenacity early on, Painting in styles that were, well, “different” from that of any other Painter of the time. He moved from abstraction to works that were somewhere between abstract and figurative, generally including a figure, before landing on a style that retained his use of color while becoming even more representational.
A Bigger Splash, 1967, Acrylic on canvas. Without the unseen swimmer, the splash becomes a passage out of Abstract Expressionism, jarring the all too peaceful scene.
Moving to LA, his style exploded into color, a sudden taste for representationalism in a style that came to epitomize upper class California living to the point that its now sparked something of a “response,” from Ramiro Gomez, who focuses on the workers maintaining these places-
Ramiro Gomez, No Splash, 2013, 96 x 96 inches, after David Hockney’s A Bigger Splash, 1967, focuses on the pool workers instead of the residents. Photo: Osceola Refetoff for Charlie James Gallery
David Hockney could have continued to paint these ad infinitum and, no doubt, sell every single one he produced. But, he’s far too restless, and curious, to stand in any one spot for too long.
The Twenty-Sixth Very New Painting, 1992. Picasso and Cubism have never been very far from David Hockney’s mind- to this day.
He then revealed his own take on portraiture in single subjects and couples before exploring, and breaking the boundaries of, Photographic perception with his “joiners,” which explored his belief that we don’t see the way the camera sees- with a fixed, single, viewpoint.
In Pearblossom Highway, 11-18th April, 1986, #1, 47 x 64 inches, a “joiner” composed of hundreds of Photographs, David Hockney explores his belief that a camera has a fixed viewpoint and a single vanishing point. So, putting hundreds of Photos together creates many. He’s said he considers this work “a panoramic assault on Renaissance one-point perspective.”
All along he drew, and he drew and he drew. There were times when I admit looking at his work and wondering how well he could draw but being well acquainted with the difficulties involved in mastering the line, as the show moved through his Drawings, its seminal and central place in his practice becomes clear as he relentlessly forged ahead. As the Drawing section ended, he seemed to me to have finally made peace with Drawing, having taken it from graphite on paper to the use of the Camera Lucida and more recently, to the iPhone and the iPad.
Three iPad Drawings, shown in-progress side by side in the final room.
His painting, too, continually evolved over the years and decades.
A Closer Winter Tunnel, February-March, 2006.
He left LA to return to the home his late mother had lived in and turned his attention to a little known area called the Yorkshire Wolds and created a remarkable series of landscapes, including some multi-panel monumental works, along with multi-channel videos that show this area that no Artist had previously “discovered” to be full of picturesque wonders.
Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, 1971. The “coolness” here can be partially explained by the fact that this was a rare commission the Artist accepted and so, he didn’t have a personal relationship with them.
Mr and Mrs Ossie Clark, 1970, Photograph. Not mentioned anywhere in the show, and not very well known, is that David Hockney used Photographs, usually his own, as source material for years. Later, he finally created Photographs as stand-alone works. It’s fascinating to see what’s changed in the finished Painting. (From David Hockney on Art, Conversations with Paul Joyce, P.14, hence the curve.)
Personally, I find a cool distance in most of David Hockney’s work (felt most clearly in his double portraits, but present in everything from his landscapes to his single portraits) that the bright colors and the often undeniable beauty do not hide. This works to his advantage during the period he spent immortalizing the Yorkshire Wolds, beginning in 2005, until about 2013, near where he grew up, seen before. It’s hard for me to look at these beautiful works without being a little bit reminded of the work of another of his long time influences, Vincent van Gogh. Particularly because Mr. Hockney chose to largely create these works on the spot, en plein air, during all four seasons, late winter seen above. The passage of time looms large in this series of works, as it has in the intervening years since Mr. Hockney worked in these fields as a young man. Yet, in them we see everything change- the seasons, the weather, individual trees, everything except the Artist. That we can only see through surveying his work through the years.
Ordinary versus Reverse Perspective.
David Hockney revealed an Artist who doesn’t get enough credit for his progressiveness, the resistance of his work to current fads, and its individuality. From the beginning he turned a deaf ear to trends and norms, rejecting both Abstract Expressionism and Pop while somewhat brazenly, and frankly, featuring homosexuality (which was illegal in England until 1967). After the tragic death of an assistant, Mr. Hockney sold the Yorkshire house in 2015 and returned to L.A. “Reverse perspective,” as he refers to it, has taken full hold in his most recent work, as seen in the final gallery at The Met, and at Pace on West 25th Street in David Hockney: Something New in Painting (and Photography) (and even Printing), in April and May.
Here, in David Hockney: Something New in Painting (and Photography) (and even Printing) at Pace, spring, 2018, Mr. Hockney cleverly manages to include all the works on the surrounding walls in the Pace show in this Photographic Drawing, as he calls it, which forces the eye to move around the work, each stop becoming a new perspective.
Taken to another level, I think, he’s also comparing Photography to Painting. In addition to his fascinating thoughts on perspective and how cameras see versus how humans see, I found he had already put down in print quite a few things I was feeling about Painting versus Photography a year and a half into my deep dive into “post-The Americans” Photography. I’ll save those for another piece.
Mr. Hockney has been first a number of times, so far, in a rage of realms, including Photography. Being first is not something history often rewards. David Hockney’s popularity seems to know no bounds, and his influence is there to be seen in the work of any number of Artists. Yet, as with every other Artist, posterity will decide where David Hockney’s Art belongs, and time will tell if it will be as popular in hundreds of years as it is now, or not. In the meantime? I’m interested to see what this Artist who lives to create does next.
Coincidentally, and fortuitously, 10 days after I took that panorama from “the spot,” The Met’s William Eggleston: Los Alamos opened, giving me a chance to revisit the work of the Artist who’s show at David Zwirner in December, 2016 led to my deep dive into the world of Contemporary Photography. I wrote about Los Alamos here.
Exit/Entrance installation view of History Refused to Die, showing the recto of the titular work, the recto is seen below, center.
After the six major shows ended, I returned to The Met to see History Refused to Die, a sleeper of a show publicity-wise, that honored the recent gift to The Museum by the Souls Grown Deep Foundation by featuring a selection of 30 Paintings, Sculptures, Drawings and Quilts from it by self-taught contemporary African American Artists, highlighted by a number of truly amazing works by the late Thornton Dial (1928-2016).
Thonton Dial, History Refused to Die, 2004, Okra stalks and roots, clothing, collaged drawings, tin, wire, steel, Masonite, steel chain, enamel and spray paint, front, center. Verso of the work seen above.
Mr. Dial created a body of work after having watched the events of 9/11 on television. It, and the subsequent war were the subjects of a few works seen here, among others.
Thornton Dial, 9/11: Interrupting the Morning News, 2002, Graphite, charcoal, and watercolor on paper.
Thornton Dial, Victory in Iraq, 2004, Mannequin head, barbed wire, steel, clothing, tin, electrical wire, wheels, stuffed animals, toy cars and figurines, plastic spoons, wood, basket, oil, enamel, spray paint and two-part epoxy putty on canvas and wood.
Thonton Dial, The End of November: The Birds That Didn’t Learn How to Fly, 2007, Quilt, wire, fabric, and enamel on canvas on wood.
While I returned a few times to see Mr. Dial’s work again, I was also impressed with that of Ronald Lockett (1965-1995), a cousin of Thornton Dial.
Ronald Lockett, The Enemy Amongst Us, 1995, Commercial paint, pine needles, metal and nails on plywood.
One of the great things about this show was the complete freedom the Artists worked with. It’s hard for me not to believe that that was one of the benefits of being self-taught in their case. Yes, even today, you can be a self-taught Artist and still get in to The Met’s Permanent Collection.
Over my 1,500+ visits to The Met, I’ve spent countless hours sitting there in front of Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950, Enamel on canvas, 105 x 207 inches, dating back to before I started counting my visits. Seen here on August 31st, at the entrance to what was then the Abstract Expressionist galleries.
Just to the left of one of the two entrances/exits to History Refused to Die, I paused to revisit an old friend. Almost 30 years ago, I sat on those benches for hours on end staring at and contemplating one of the most remarkable and revolutionary Paintings in Western Art, Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950, at the time my favorite Painting in The Met (“favorite” does not mean “the best.” I don’t believe in that), and, perhaps, the crown jewel of The Met’s Abstract Expressionism collection. In my opinion, this is a key wall in The Met. Its the entrance to the Abstract Expressionist galleries behind it, and it looks out to visitors passing the “corridor” I’m standing in going to the stairs. Over all these intervening decades, its never been moved from this spot. Little did I know when I took this Photograph on August 31st, it would be the last time I would see it here.
Fall brought the revelation that was Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture 1963-2017, which opened at The Met Breuer just before History Refused to Die closed. Finally, and currently, back at 1000 Fifth Avenue, while the very good Delacroix show was going on down the hall, Epic Abstraction, opened on December 17th, a show I also find somewhat remarkable. It’s an “ongoing” show, meaning it has no end date at this point, largely because it and Reimagining Modernism, downstairs on the first floor, are reinstallations of works from The Met’s Permanent Collection, along with a few loans (in the case of Epic Abstraction).
Immediately adjacent to the sign, mere steps into the show, lookie here! It’s my old friend Autumn Rhythm!
When I walked in the first time, I was startled to see that the show begins with Autumn Rhythm! Wow. They moved it! While I admired it at the beginning of this “epic” show, questions immediately flooded into my mind. An Abstraction show that BEGINS with Autumn Rhythm? That’s incredibly bold. Talk about throwing down a gauntlet for all that’s come after. Well, the subtitle of the show is Pollock to Herrera, so, chronologically, this is the beginning. That Sheena Wagstaff, Randall Griffey (credited with organizing Epic Abstraction & Reimagining Modernism- kudos) and the Modern & Contemporary Staff chose to move Autumn Rhythm and give it pride of place in this show I take as a “sign” they may agree with me about its importance. While I wondered what is going to maintain this level in the rest of the show to come, my mind then turned to the inevitable question- WHAT did they choose to hang in that prime spot where Autumn Rhythm hung for the past few decades?
Epic. Jackson Pollock, 3 Drawings, each, Untitled, 1938-41, Colored pencils and graphite on paper.
The first room is entirely devoted to the work of Jackson Pollock, except for one work- Kazuo Shiraga’s Untitled, 1958! Highlights, besides the reinstalled Autumn Rhythm include 3 spectacular colored pencil Drawings that should permanently quiet anyone who thinks that Jackson Pollock couldn’t draw. As remarkable as this start was, the second gallery is entirely devoted to Mark Rothko, save for a central sculpture by Isamu Noguchi! This is sure to stagger any long time Met goer. For decades, only 2 or 3 Rothkos have been on view at any given time. What museum on earth, besides the National Gallery in Washington, has enough Mark Rothkos sitting in storage to fill an entire gallery? Talk about an embarrassment of riches. I couldn’t believe it. Instantly, my fears about how they were going to keep the pace of this show going disappeared. Of course. They topped themselves.
Finally, making it through the first two galleries, still in shock, I turned the corner to finally see what was now in the spot Autumn Rhythm occupied. A sharp right turn, and my eyes alighted on this-
Mark Bradford, Duck Walk, 2016, Mixed media on canvas. Taking its title from Chuck Berry’s strut across the stage strumming his guitar, now hangs where Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) hung for decades.
If you don’t think a lot of thought went into this, Untitled, 1950, by Clyfford Still, one of Mark Bradford’s influences, hangs directly adjacent to it on the wall to the right, with the Sculpture, Raw Attraction, 2001, by Chakaia Booker, Rubber tire, steel, and wood, between them, behind the lady in red, and Tanktotem II by David Smith, barely seen at the far left.
Mark Bradford’s Duck Walk, 2016, a Mixed media on canvas diptych floored me the minute I saw it. It’s every bit as daring as Autumn Rhythm, in my opinion, done in a completely unique way, as Pollock’s was 66 years earlier in 1950. Mark Bradford uses layers of colored paper that he cuts through using a very wide range of techniques. Of course, Mr. Bradford didn’t do it in a vacuum. He’s had influences, including David Joseph Martinez and Clyfford Still, who’s been somewhat overlooked it seems to me among Abstract Expressionists. But not by Mark Bradford.
Detail of the center where the two canvases meet. Interestingly, the two pieces are shown in the opposite configuration on The Met’s website.
“Abstraction for me, I get it-you go internal, you turn off the world, you’re hermetic, you channel something. No. I’m not interested in that type of abstraction. I’m interested in the type of abstraction where you look out at the world, see the horror-sometimes it is horror-and you drag that horror kicking and screaming into your studio and you wrestle with it and you find something beautiful in it. That’s what I was always determined to do. I have never turned away.” Mark Bradford.
Mrs. N’s Palace, 1964-77, by Louise Nevelson. Notice the black line on the floor going off to the left. That was left by a wall The Met took down to install this monumental work, the back of which is to the left. I’ve never seen this space, the room behind the Mark Bradfordls Duck Walk open like this before.
Now? Four visits in to Epic Abstraction, I can think of no other work in the show that deserves to be hung in this spot more. It not only holds its own with anything else in the show, which is a who’s who of Modern & Contemporary Abstractionists that includes de Kooning, Motherwell, Louise Nevelson, Franz Kline, Carmen Herrera, Cy Twombly, Dan Flavin, Alexander Calder, Joan Mitchell (including some pieces I’ve never seen on view), along with Pollock, Rothko and Noguchi. I was also very pleased to see that The Met managed to get a great work by a great contemporary Artist before the Artist’s prices made it possible only by donation. (Recently, tennis star John McEnroe sold a Painting by Mr. Bradford for over 12 million dollars at auction-to the Eli Broad Museum, in LA). It now joins single Paintings by Kerry James Marshall and Jack Whitten in The Met’s Modern & Contemporary Art collection, a collection that, unfortunately, can’t compare with the collections of museums in Chicago, L.A. or San Francisco in works by these Artists, at this point, due to…? I don’t know why. The Met owns 2 Paintings and a set of 6 prints, which are currently on display in the Drawings & Print Gallery, by Mark Bradford, seen below, with the accompanying card-
On the heels of Tomorrow is Another Day (named for the last spoken lines in Gone With The Wind), the show he mounted at the 2017 Venice Biennale after being chosen to represent the USA, and his current installation, Pickett’s Charge, his largest work to date, currently on view at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington (well, if and when the government re-opens, through 2021), I believe Mark Bradford is one of the world’s most important living Artists. He is an Artist who has been speaking truth about the reality of the world and the issues it faces from early on in his career and doing so in his own ways, developing unique techniques in a variety of medium. “The world is on fire,” he said in a 2017 interview in the catalog accompanying Pickett’s Charge, “whether we like it or not.” “I do feel there are moments in history when the intensity of the world in which you live comes to your door. We are at that moment now. There’s no way around it. Politically and socially we are at the edge of another precipice. I’m standing in the middle of a question about where we are as a nation.”
Anselm Kiefer, Bohemia Lies By The Sea, 1996, 75 1/4 inches x 18 feet 5 inches, left, Kerry James Marshall, Untitled (Studio), 2014, Acrylic on PVC panels, 85 5/16 x 119 1/4 inches, right.
It’s also hard for me to not look at the choice of installing Duck Walk in this spot as a statement. Has the baton been passed to the next generation? Mark Bradford was born in 1961, 5 years after Jackson Pollock’s tragic early death. This baton passing might have also be happening downstairs in the Modern & Contemporary Mezzanine, Gallery 915, The Met’s large Anselm Kiefer, Bohemia Lies by the Sea, which for many, many years has occupied an end wall, has been moved to a side wall, and its former spot is now occupied by Kerry James Marshall’s Untitled (Studio). (Note- Anselm Kiefer was the subject of Provocations: Anselm Kiefer at The Met Breuer in early 2018).
If you continue further down the stairs to the first floor, you’ll discover the early Modern Art galleries have, also, been completely reinstalled, as Reimagining Modernism 1900-1950. It’s endlessly fascinating to me to see which pieces have come on display and which have gone into storage, (or loan?)
The signs they are a-changin’
Times are changing at The Met, in the Modern & Contemporary Galleries, and in the rest of the Museum, as new Director Max Hollein now takes charge (though I imagine Epic Abstraction & Reimagining Modernism were being planned prior). Along with The Met as a whole, the Modern & Contempoaray Department had another remarkable year. The list of memorable and/or important shows that have already appeared at The Met Breuer continues to grow. This is the second time in three years I’ve singled out Sheena Wagstaff and her Modern & Contemporary Department for having great years in NYC Art. Yes, the New Museum, who I singled out last year, continue to impress and grow, and yes MoMA had a number of memorable shows this year, including Stephen Shore and two featuring the work of Charles White, the Guggenheim impressed with Danh Vo and Hilma af Klint, but none of them had the year The Met had, in my view, particularly in Modern & Contemporary Art.
They started from so far behind compared to the other Museums. I wonder how many others are now noticing.
BookMarks- I only list items in BookMarks that I strongly believe in and personally recommend. If you like what you see here, you can make a donation to help keep NHNYC.com ad-free through PayPal by clicking on the box to the right of the banner at the top of the page that will take you to the Donation button. Your support is VERY much appreciated. Thank you!
David Hockney’s Secret Knowledge (New and Expanded Edition): Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters
is one of the most revelatory Art History books of the century thus far and is recommended to the Art History buff and the Art student. The Expanded Edition is only available in paperback, but it is the version I recommend. Keep an eye out for the excellent 2 part BBC Documentary, too.
His A History of Pictures: From the Cave to the Computer Screen
, is a wider look at Art History, seen from an Artist’s perspective, which makes it somewhat unique, and is recommended for the general Art History student and buff. There is also a version for children.
Hockney’s Cameraworks
is a remarkable book, unlike any other Photography monograph I know of. It includes a look at his Photography through 1984, along side a fascinating interview. Currently out of print, it’s highly recommended to Photographers, Hockney fans, and those interested in this sticky debate about perspective in Art, and definitely worth looking for. Copies in very good condition (minimal wear to the book or dust jacket, without marks of any kind or writing) may still be found for less than 100.00.
The best overview of Thornton Dial’s work, currently, is Thornton Dial in the 21st Century
published by Tinwood Books in 2006. The time has come for a complete, comprehensive monograph on his life and work, and this, the best we currently have, is recommended until it arrives.
Mark Bradford (Phaidon Contemporary Artist Series)
is the best and most current introduction to Mr. Bradford career. After that, it’s a toss up between 2010’s Mark Bradford
published by Yale U. Press or Tomorrow Is Another Day
, one of Michelle Obama’s “personal favorites.” The Yale book is the most comprehensive book on his work to 2010, with the best images of his work to that date, while Tomorrow is an in-depth look at the work Mr. Bradford created for the US Pavillion at the 2017 Venice Biennale.
*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Coming Up” by Paul McCartney fromMcCartney II
, 1980, seen here performing it with Wings, and Linda McCartney, Live in Kampuchea, 1979-
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, by Sarah Kelly Oehler, Esther Adler and with a preface by Kerry James Marshall, published in 2018 by the Art Institute of Chicago, is the finest book yet published on Charles White and easily the best one in print. It’s a terrific introduction to the Artist that will also serve as a go-to reference for years to come thanks to the depth it goes into on such little-known areas like Charles White’s Photography as well as the inclusion of a full and detailed chronology and exhibition history. The reproductions are gorgeous. Easily recommended.
by Esther Adler and published by MoMA in 2017, is the other recommended, in print, Charles White book. MoMA curator Esther Adler does a very good job of analyzing Black Pope and relating it’s history, in the process looking at a number of other works from Mr. White’s career. While A Retrospective is the first choice for an introduction, for those looking to go deeper into one of Charles White’s greatest and most mysterious works, this book has the most information we are likely to get anytime soon.
is one of the most revelatory Art History books of the century thus far and is recommended to the Art History buff and the Art student. The Expanded Edition is only available in paperback, but it is the version I recommend. Keep an eye out for the excellent 2 part BBC Documentary, too.
, is a wider look at Art History, seen from an Artist’s perspective, which makes it somewhat unique, and is recommended for the general Art History student and buff. There is also a version for children.
is a remarkable book, unlike any other Photography monograph I know of. It includes a look at his Photography through 1984, along side a fascinating interview. Currently out of print, it’s highly recommended to Photographers, Hockney fans, and those interested in this sticky debate about perspective in Art, and definitely worth looking for. Copies in very good condition (minimal wear to the book or dust jacket, without marks of any kind or writing) may still be found for less than 100.00.
published by Tinwood Books in 2006. The time has come for a complete, comprehensive monograph on his life and work, and this, the best we currently have, is recommended until it arrives.
is the best and most current introduction to Mr. Bradford career. After that, it’s a toss up between 2010’s Mark Bradford
published by Yale U. Press or Tomorrow Is Another Day
, one of Michelle Obama’s “personal favorites.” The Yale book is the most comprehensive book on his work to 2010, with the best images of his work to that date, while Tomorrow is an in-depth look at the work Mr. Bradford created for the US Pavillion at the 2017 Venice Biennale.
, 1980, seen here performing it with Wings, and Linda McCartney, Live in Kampuchea, 1979-
