Search results for ""Author David Anfam""

Abstract Expressionism is the most important art movement since the Second World War. Although it is often considered a revolution in painting alone – for the images created by such leading figures as Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko remain altogether extraordinary – its radical spirit extended further, encompassing the sculpture of David Smith and Aaron Siskind’s photography. Along with other key artists such as Barnett Newman and Franz Kline, these artists formed a nucleus united not just against the tensions of American society from the 1930s onwards, but also in their aim to forge diverse new visual languages. David Anfam explores the movement in terms of its political implications and rich cultural contexts, bringing many fresh insights to the works themselves. Taking into account a wealth of scholarship, this new edition also has nearly one hundred works reproduced in colour.

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This book focuses on the iconic Umber Paintings of Lee Krasner (1908–84), which consist of only 24 paintings. Painted between 1959 and 1962, the Umber Paintings were realized during one of Krasner’s most ambitious periods of cproduction following the sudden and tragic loss of her husband, Jackson Pollock. During this time of newfound solitude, Krasner moved into Pollock’s studio at their home in the Springs, East Hampton, which enabled her to experiment on large canvases for the first time. In addition to the increase in scale, this period was also characterized by a further commitment to %allover% compositions. By the end of the 1950s, Krasner’s emotional turmoil confined her to work only at night under artificial light. The Umber Paintings convey a distinctive rawness and intensity that was unprecedented in her oeuvre until this point, and remain lauded as the artist’s most psychologically evocative works.

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In the decade before his death in 2011, John Hoyland began to reckon with mortality. Confronting his own demise, he painted elegies to departed artist friends and tributes to illustrious artistic forebears. Imagery of the void looms large, but it is a void faced with defiance and vitality, less a rumination on the end than a celebration of life. This publication explores the paintings Hoyland made in this decade, including his final series, the Mysteries. Essays by Natalie Adamson, David Anfam, Matthew Collings and Mel Gooding offer a rich and multifaceted account of a complex body of work. Hoyland’s veneration of Vincent van Gogh, his connections to J.M.W. Turner, the use of black as a colour, his deployment of risk and attempts to subvert his own taste, and his development of the cosmic visual language of the Abstract Expressionists are all discussed. Richly illustrated, the book extends our understanding of Hoyland’s late work within the story of modern painting as a whole.

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