Despite being one of the foremost American intellectuals of the mid-twentieth century, Harold Rosenberg (1906-1978) was utterly incapable of fitting in-and he liked it that way. Signature cane in one hand and a cigarette in the other, he cut a distinctive figure on the New York City culture scene, with his radiant dark eyes and black bushy brows. A gangly giant at six foot four, he would tower over others as he forcefully expounded on his latest obsession in an oddly high-pitched, nasal voice. And people would listen, captivated by his ideas. With Harold Rosenberg: A Critic's Life, Debra Bricker Balken offers the first-ever complete biography of this great and eccentric man. Although he is now known mainly for his role as an art critic at the New Yorker from 1962 to 1978, Balken weaves together a complete tapestry of Rosenberg's life and literary production, cast against the dynamic intellectual and social ferment of his time. She explores his role in some of the most contentious cultural debates of the Cold War period, including those over the commodification of art and the erosion of individuality in favor of celebrity, demonstrated in his famous essay "The Herd of Independent Minds." An outspoken socialist and advocate for the political agency of art, he formed deep alliances with figures such as Hannah Arendt, Saul Bellow, Paul Goodman, Mary McCarthy, Jean-Paul Sartre, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock, all of whom Balken brings to life with vivid accounts from Rosenberg's life. Thoroughly researched and captivatingly written, this book tells in full Rosenberg's brilliant, fiercely independent life and the five decades in which he played a leading role in US cultural, intellectual, and political history.

"It was sheer chance that I encountered David Bohm's writing in 1958 ... I knew nothing about him. What struck me about his work and prompted my initial letter was his underlying effort to seek for some larger sense of reality, which seemed a very humanized search." - Charles Biederman, from the foreword of the book
This book marks the beginning of a four thousand page correspondence between Charles Biederman, founder of Constructivism in the 1930s, and David Bohm the prestigious physicist known for his interpretation of quantum theory. Available for the first time, we are given a rare opportunity to read through and engage in a remarkable transatlantic, intellectual discussion on art and science, creativity and theory.

First published in 2006, this volume provides the first in-depth analysis of the place of visual representations within the process of decolonisation during the period 1945 to 1970. The chapters trace the way in which different visual genres - art, film, advertising, photography, news reports and ephemera - represented and contributed to the political and social struggles over Empire and decolonisation during the mid-Twentieth century. The book examines both the direct visual representation of imperial retreat after 1945 as well as the reworkings of imperial and 'racial' ideologies within the context of a transformed imperialism. While the book engages with the dominant archive of artists, exhibitions, newsreels and films, it also explores the private images of the family album as well as examining the visual culture of anti-colonial resistance.

This book is the first to examine Henry Darger's conceptual and visual representation of "girls" and girlhood. Specifically, Leisa Rundquist charts the artist's use of little girl imagery-his direct appropriations from mainstream sources as well as girls modified to meet his needs-in contexts that many scholars have read as puerile and psychologically disturbed. Consequently, this inquiry qualifies the intersexed aspects of Darger's protagonists as well as addresses their inherent cute and little associations that signal multivocal meanings often in conflict with each other. Rundquist engages Darger's art through thematic analyses of the artist's writings, mature works, collages, and ephemeral materials. This book will be of particular interest to scholars in art history, art and gender studies, sociology, and contemporary art.

William Reid Dick (1878-1961) was one of a generation of British sculptors air-brushed out of art history by the Modernist critics of the late twentieth century. This long-overdue monograph adds to the recent revival of interest in this group of forgotten sculptors, by describing the life and work of arguably the leading figure of the group in unprecedented depth. The facts of Reid Dick's life and his most important works are presented against a backdrop of the historical, social and aesthetic changes taking place during his lifetime. Dennis Wardleworth elucidates why Reid Dick's reputation plummeted so quickly, and why his position in the history of British art deserves to be restored. This study draws upon a wealth of previously unpublished material, including over 2000 letters, and press cuttings and photographs in the Tate Archive, as well as letters and photographs held by Reid Dick's family. It traces the sculptor's story from his birth in the Gorbals in Glasgow, to his election to the Royal Academy and knighting by George V, to the decline of his career and his late-life connection with American millionaire and art collector Huntington Hartford. The first monograph on Reid Dick since 1945, the book also includes images of over 40 of his works and a listing of over 200 works identified by the author.

One of "The Eight"--a major group in the history of American painting--John Sloan was also an illustrator and cartoonist. Sloan kept an almost daily diary for eight years, for the most part to entertain his first wife, Dolly. Sloan's second wife and widow, Helen Fan Sloan, turned over the diaries and his letters, as well as notes and drawings to Bruce St. John of the Delaware Art Center, which houses the Sloan collection.

John Sloan was interested in every social issue that went on around him: the people across the street, the people in the parks, and the policies of his country. He and Dolly entertained almost every night, though they were so poor that often the only dish was spaghetti, and their guests included Robert Henri (Sloan's mentor) and Walt Kuhn, Walter Pach, Rollin Kirby, Stuart Davis (and his father), Alexander Calder (and his father), Rockwell Kent, John Butler Yeats, William Glackens, and George Luks.

Even if John Sloan had not been such an important figure in the American art world, these diaries would be splendid reading: they reveal a perceptive man and the city that fascinated him during one of its most interesting epochs. The editor writes that Sloan "was a direct and honest man, not afraid of expressing his opinions." This fascinating, unique, first-person view of New York City is a masterpiece. This edition includes a new introduction by Herbert I. London, providing insight into the social and political vision that animated Sloan's art.

Hot Art, Cold War - Southern and Eastern European Writing on American Art 1945-1990 is one of two text anthologies that trace the reception of American art in Europe during the Cold War era through primary sources. Translated into English for the first time from sixteen languages and introduced by scholarly essays, the texts in this volume offer a representative selection of the diverse responses to American art in Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Soviet Union (including the Baltic States), Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, and East Germany (GDR). There was no single European discourse, as attitudes to American art were determined by a wide range of ideological, political, social, cultural and artistic positions that varied considerably across the European nations. This volume and its companion, Hot Art, Cold War - Northern and Western European Writing on American Art 1945-1990, offer the reader a unique opportunity to compare how European art writers introduced and explained contemporary American art to their many and varied audiences. Whilst many are fluent in one or two foreign languages, few are able to read all twenty-five languages represented in the two volumes. These ground-breaking publications significantly enrich the fields of American art studies and European art criticism.

The first substantial book on the French Neo-Romantics, a cosmopolitan group working in 1920s Paris who turned against modernist abstraction in favour of a new form of figurative painting. In 1926, the Galerie Druet in Paris made waves presenting a group of young painters who had spurned modernist abstraction and returned to a form of figurative painting. For most of them this was the first time they had exhibited, but their impact was considerable. Art critic Waldemar George baptized them the 'Neo-Romantics' or the 'Neo-Humanists'. They were influenced by Picasso, in particular his Blue and Rose periods, but went beyond him to forge new ways of painting. These were artists who liked to play with forgotten references and obsolete visual devices such as trompe l'oeil. They produced work for secondary art forms including the theatre, set design and ballet. In some ways they were the first post-modernists in the history of art, yet until now there has only ever been one book about them, After Picasso, published ten years after their exhibition. Only more recently has their influence on contemporary artists and thinkers including Max Jacob, George Hugnet and Gertrude Stein been recognized. Though friends, these painters never formed a formal group or movement. The Second World War sent them on different paths, with the Berman brothers and Tchelitchev moving to the United States. Before their departure, however, their activities attracted the attention and admiration of a cosmopolitan group of characters, including Gertrude Stein, Alfred Barr, Lincoln Kirstein, George Balanchine and many others including leading fashion figures of the day, Christian Dior and Elsa Schiaparelli.

This title was first published in 2001. An examination of art and patronage in Britain during the post-war years. It consists of five case studies, initially written as MA theses, that closely investigate aspects of the mechanisms of patronage outside the state institutions, while indicating structural links within it. The writers have sought to elucidate the relationship between patronage, the production of art and its dissemination. Without seeking to provide an inclusive account of patronage or art production in the early post-war years, their disparate and highly selective papers set up models for the structure of patronage under specific historical conditions. They assume an understanding that works of art are embedded in their social contexts, are products of the conditions under which they were produced, and that these contexts and conditions are complex, fluid and imbricated in one another.

A leading figure of the postwar avant-garde, Danish artist Asger Jorn has long been recognized for his founding contributions to the Cobra and Situationist International movements - yet art historical scholarship on Jorn has been sparse, particularly in English. This study corrects that imbalance, offering a synthetic account of the essential phases of this prolific artist's career. It addresses his works in various media alongside his extensive writings and his collaborations with various artists' groups from the 1940s through the mid-1960s. Situating Jorn's work in an international, post-Second World War context, Karen Kurczynski reframes our understanding of the 1950s, away from the Abstract-Expressionist focus on individual expression, toward a more open-ended conception of art as a public engagement with contemporary culture and politics. Kurczynski engages with issues of interest to twenty-first-century artists and scholars, highlighting Jorn's proposition that the sensory address of art and its complex relationship to popular media can have a direct social impact. Perhaps most significantly, this study foregrounds Jorn's assertion that creativity is crucial to subjectivity itself in our increasingly mediated 'Society of the Spectacle.'

First published in 2006, this volume provides the first in-depth analysis of the place of visual representations within the process of decolonisation during the period 1945 to 1970. The chapters trace the way in which different visual genres - art, film, advertising, photography, news reports and ephemera - represented and contributed to the political and social struggles over Empire and decolonisation during the mid-Twentieth century. The book examines both the direct visual representation of imperial retreat after 1945 as well as the reworkings of imperial and 'racial' ideologies within the context of a transformed imperialism. While the book engages with the dominant archive of artists, exhibitions, newsreels and films, it also explores the private images of the family album as well as examining the visual culture of anti-colonial resistance.

Giacometti: Critical Essays brings together new studies by an international team of scholars who together explore the whole span of Alberto Giacometti's work and career from the 1920s to the 1960s. During this complex period in France's intellectual history, Giacometti's work underwent a series of remarkable stylistic shifts while he forged close affiliations with an equally remarkable set of contemporary writers and thinkers. This book throws new light on under-researched aspects of his output and approach, including his relationship to his own studio, his work in the decorative arts, his tomb sculptures and his use of the pedestal. It also focuses on crucial ways his work was received and articulated by contemporary and later writers, including Michel Leiris, Francis Ponge, Isaku Yanaihara and Tahar Ben Jelloun. This book thus engages with energising tensions and debates that informed Giacometti's work, including his association with both surrealism and existentialism, his production of both 'high' art and decorative objects, and his concern with both formal issues, such as scale and material, and with the expression of philosophical and poetic ideas. This multifaceted collection of essays confirms Giacometti's status as one of the most fascinating artists of the twentieth century.

Ceramics and Modernity in Japan offers a set of critical perspectives on the creation, patronage, circulation, and preservation of ceramics during Japan's most dramatic period of modernization, the 1860s to 1960s. As in other parts of the world, ceramics in modern Japan developed along the three ontological trajectories of art, craft, and design. Yet, it is widely believed that no other modern nation was engaged with ceramics as much as Japan-a "potter's paradise"-in terms of creation, exhibition, and discourse. This book explores how Japanese ceramics came to achieve such a status and why they were such significant forms of cultural production. Its medium-specific focus encourages examination of issues regarding materials and practices unique to ceramics, including their distinct role throughout Japanese cultural history. Going beyond descriptive historical treatments of ceramics as the products of individuals or particular styles, the closely intertwined chapters also probe the relationship between ceramics and modernity, including the ways in which ceramics in Japan were related to their counterparts in Asia and Europe. Featuring contributions by leading international specialists, this book will be useful to students and scholars of art history, design, and Japanese studies.

With its specific focus on British representations of masculinity in relation to the trauma of the First World War and notions of national identity, class and sexuality, this book provides a much needed addition to the historiography of visual culture during the period. The study interrogates the complications arising out of issues of trauma, cultural expressions of sexuality and affect, as well as the ways in which these are encoded in diverse forms in visual culture and commemorative objects. Concentrating on masculinity and cultural memory, it investigates the ways in which these and the web of power relations that they entail worked during the interwar years in order to reconstruct the post-First World War British society. In the course of the narrative, the author looks at Bolshevism and the Returning Ex-Servicemen, the 1919 NUR Strike, the Central Labour College in conjunction with banners and revolution, as well as the Imperial War Graves, the Cenotaph, the London and North Western Railway memorial, the Machine Gun Corps Memorial and the establishment of the Imperial War Museum. He also excavates new archival material, particularly case studies of shell shock sufferers and film footage of male hysteria.

Klee's art appeals to our primary instincts and makes us look beyond the ordinary. A natural draughtsman, master of colour and hugely influential artist, Klee eludes classification, having been variously linked with Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism and Abstraction. Part of a new series of beautiful gift art books, Paul Klee Masterpieces of Art brims with the subtle warmth and humour of a unique artist. With a fresh and thoughtful introduction to Klee's life and art, the book goes on to showcase his key works in all their glory.

This collection includes previously unpublished letters from Jack to his father, John Quinn 'The Man from New York' and Sarah Purser. Introduced by Bruce Stewart of the University of Coleraine, the work is edited by Sligo-man Declan J. Foley, originator and organizer of three John Butler Yeats seminars in Chestertown (JBY's burial ground) New York in 2001, 2004 and 2007. The book contains drawings and illustrations by Jack B. Yeats, and for the first time shows the six works he exhibited at the Armory Show in New York. Most vitally, it will introduce Jack and his prodigal father John Butler Yeats to a new generation of readers.

This title was first published in 2003. Problem pictures were very popular during the Edwardian period. These pictures invited multiple interpretations of modern life and were often slightly risque. Pamela Fletcher explores how these works of art engaged with questions of gender, sexuality and identity during their heyday.

This title was first published in 2001. An examination of art and patronage in Britain during the post-war years. It consists of five case studies, initially written as MA theses, that closely investigate aspects of the mechanisms of patronage outside the state institutions, while indicating structural links within it. The writers have sought to elucidate the relationship between patronage, the production of art and its dissemination. Without seeking to provide an inclusive account of patronage or art production in the early post-war years, their disparate and highly selective papers set up models for the structure of patronage under specific historical conditions. They assume an understanding that works of art are embedded in their social contexts, are products of the conditions under which they were produced, and that these contexts and conditions are complex, fluid and imbricated in one another.

"It was sheer chance that I encountered David Bohm's writing in 1958 ... I knew nothing about him. What struck me about his work and prompted my initial letter was his underlying effort to seek for some larger sense of reality, which seemed a very humanized search." - Charles Biederman, from the foreword of the book
This book marks the beginning of a four thousand page correspondence between Charles Biederman, founder of Constructivism in the 1930s, and David Bohm the prestigious physicist known for his interpretation of quantum theory. Available for the first time, we are given a rare opportunity to read through and engage in a remarkable transatlantic, intellectual discussion on art and science, creativity and theory.

The historic encounter around 1911 between the composer Arnold Schonberg and the painter Wassily Kandinsky occurred at a moment when the first wild revolts against traditional art, Dada and Futurism, had just manifested themselves. Independently of those sometimes spectacular activities, both Schonberg and Kandinsky had already concluded that the material and the compositional methods they had relied on in the past were exhausted and did not satisfy the development of their artistic ideas.
Both artists had already submitted their modes of production to a critical analysis which resulted in Schonberg's Theory of Harmony and Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art, both of 1911 - indeed the two artists had already been putting their self-criticism into practice for some time. In Schonberg's case this led to breaking with tonality; Kandinsky effected the transition to abstract painting.
This book is a collection of the papers presented at the conference on Schonberg and Kandin

The historic encounter around 1911 between the composer Arnold Schonberg and the painter Wassily Kandinsky occurred at a moment when the first wild revolts against traditional art - Dada and Futurism - had just manifested themselves. This volume is a collection of the papers presented at the conference on Schonberg and Kandinsky at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague in January 1993. The conference focused on the varying aspects of the avant-garde from 1910 to 1913, when both Schonberg and Kandinsky formulated their far-reaching views on the ways in which music and painting should develop, and discussed their common interest in new theatrical forms of presentation.

Part of a series of exciting and luxurious Flame Tree Sketch Books Combining high-quality production with magnificent fine art, the covers are printed on foil in five colours, embossed, then foil stamped. The thick paper stock makes them perfect for sketching and drawing. These are perfect for personal use and make a dazzling gift. This example features Klimt's Fulfillment

Part of a series of exciting and luxurious Flame Tree Notebooks. Combining high-quality production with magnificent fine art, the covers are printed on foil in five colours, embossed, then foil stamped. And they're powerfully practical: a pocket at the back for receipts and scraps, two bookmarks and a solid magnetic side flap. These are perfect for personal use and make a dazzling gift. This example features William Morris's Compton