This first ever book on the Bay Area Beat artist reveals a unique drawing style that dovetails Cocteau with Japanese and Renaissance printmaking.
"Rick Barton should have been a San Francisco legend," declared author and artist Etel Adnan in a 1998 essay. Working primarily in pen or brush and ink in a kaleidoscopic linear style, Barton (1928-92), who was born and raised in New York and settled in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1950s, ceaselessly recorded the world around him, whether the enclosed space of his room, the cafes in which he spent his days, his lovers and friends, or the ornate churches and botanical subjects that seem to have held particular fascination for him. Flourishing in San Francisco's gay and Beat subcultures of the 1950s and '60s, Barton accrued a group of disciples who were drawn to his singular style, which synthesized sources as disparate as Renaissance and Japanese woodblock prints and the delicate line drawings of Jean Cocteau.
Bringing together more than 60 drawings, two accordion-folded sketchbooks, and printed portfolios and books, Writing a Chrysanthemum: The Drawings of Rick Barton presents for the first time the work of this unique artist who was a significant, and until now unheralded, figure of the Beat era. Rachel Federman, the curator of the exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum, has written a deeply researched essay on the artist and his work. An excerpt of Adnan's essay--the first published account of Barton--is reprinted in the catalog.
The acclaimed British illustrator James Jarvis unveils his first new narrative in five years. This highly anticipated graphic novel follows a beaked artist who travels through a wilderness to arrive at an abandoned city. Wandering the empty streets there, he encounters a mysterious, priestly being who commissions him to decorate a temple to nameless gods. De Profundis might be considered a departure from Jarvis' previous projects; in this book, he has constructed a personal narrative with artwork that combines his interest in medieval woodcuts and Dutch De Stjil.
Widely recognized as one of the most significant sculptors of the 20th century, Anthony Caro (1924-2013) rose to prominence in the 1960s with imposing painted steel sculptures. This catalog features work spanning the British artist's six-decade career.
This volume constitutes a 30-year survey of works on paper by New York-based painter Carroll Dunham (born 1949). Dunham's visual lexicon, drawing on such precursors as Arshile Gorky, André Masson and Philip Guston, and populated by biomorphic forms equipped with grinding teeth, phallic noses, top hats, daggers and guns, expresses an unbridled and polymorphous sexuality in which conflict is overtly celebrated. Dunham produces one or more drawings per day, for weeks at a time or longer, and has now amassed an astonishing breadth of material and content. Included here are some 366 drawings by Dunham, spanning his early career in the 1980s to the present, and covering all aspects of his drawing practice. Published for a 2012 exhibition at Blum & Poe, it offers one of the most comprehensive evaluations of Dunham's drawing practice to date.
Brazilian artist Iran do Espírito Santo (born 1963) is known for the subtle minimalism of his paintings, sculptures and installations. This gorgeously produced substantial overview is dedicated to the artist's drawings--some abstract and monochrome, others figurative reflections on daily objects, all technically masterful.
This publication is part of a series of monographs from the Beijing-based gallery Ink Studio, featuring significant contemporary artists who work with Chinese brush and ink. Impulse, Matter, Form presents Chinese artist Zheng Chongbin (born 1961), whose work synthesizes Chinese and Western explorations in calligraphy and gesture.
