The extraordinary life of a captivating American artist, beautifully illustrated with his dreamlike drawings Much of Joseph Elmer Yoakum's story comes from the artist himself-and is almost too fantastic to believe. At a young age, Yoakum (1891-1972) traveled the globe with numerous circuses; he later served in a segregated noncombat regiment during World War I before settling in Chicago. There, inspired by a dream, he began his artistic career at age seventy-one, producing some two thousand drawings over a decade. How did Yoakum gain representation in major museum collections in Chicago and New York? What fueled his process, which he described as a "spiritual unfoldment"? This volume delves into the friendships Yoakum forged with the Chicago Imagists that secured his place in art history, explores the religious outlook that may have helped him cope with a racially fractured city, and examines his complicated relationship to African American and Native American identities. With hundreds of beautiful color reproductions of his dreamlike drawings, it offers the most comprehensive study of the artist's work, illuminating his vivid and imaginative creativity and giving definition and dimension to his remarkable biography. Distributed for the Art Institute of Chicago Exhibition Schedule: The Art Institute of Chicago (June 12-October 18, 2021) Museum of Modern Art, New York (November 28, 2021-March 18, 2022) Menil Collection, Houston (April 22-August 7, 2022)

New in MoMA’s ‘One on One’ series, this book focuses on Betye Saar’s Black Girl’s Window (1969) and a selection of the artist’s prints from the 1960s and early 1970s .

Betye Saar made Black Girl’s Window in 1969. It is a deeply autobiographical picture that alluded to her African-American heritage along with her interest in mysticism and astrology. The black girl named in the title appears in the lower half of this found window frame. The girl’s facial features are hidden. The only thing there are these surprisingly bright blue eyes, which appear to open and close if you shift back and forth in front of it. The work encourages us to think about connections between eyes, that are often said to be windows on the soul, and pictures, that have been said to be windows on the world. Saar herself once said that she considers windows to represent a means of traveling from one level of consciousness to another. If you continue to look at the girl, you can see that her hands are covered with yellow and red symbols. Some of these same symbols, in particular the crescent moon and the stars, are echoed in the nine small vignettes created in the spaces outlined by the intersecting crossbars of her found window frame.

What would you do if the people you counted on the most turned out to be the very ones you needed protection from? Esther recounts her journey of surviving the abuse of her mentally ill father, her relationship with her handicapped mother, her struggle living under a dogmatic, religious Jewish family, married off as a young girl to an abusive man, the dissolution of her marriage, disease, loss and finally her rise from the ashes as she learns to find the power within. Esther shares how she learned to turn all her struggles into blessings and upon shifting her mind, so did her life. This book is a guide to help you through any trauma you are going through or have been through. It is designed to help you understand why you feel the way you do and how to move forward. You will be inspired as you read Esther's dramatic shift and how she eloquently shares how you can do that too.

American Modern presents a fresh look at The Museum of Modern Art's holdings of American art made between 1915 and 1950, and considers the cultural preoccupations of a rapidly changing American society in the first half of the 20th century. Organized thematically and featuring paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, and film, the publication brings together some of the Museum's most celebrated masterworks, contextualizing them across mediums and amidst lesser-seen but revelatory works. The selection of works by artists such as Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Sheeler, Charles Burchfield and Stuart Davis include urban and rural landscapes, scenes of industry, still-life compositions and portraiture. Although varying in style and specifics, they share certain underlying visual and emotional tendencies. Cityscapes and factories are eerily emptied of the crush of residents that flocked to them, becoming both a celebration of clean modern form and technological advances, as in Sheeler's paintings and photographs, and a reflection of anxiety about increasingly urban life-styles and their consequences for the American individual, as in Hopper's iconic Night Windows. Equally silent rural scenes are no less haunting, but perhaps reflect a nostalgia for seemingly simpler times, and a celebration of early American traditions and values. Rather than an encyclopedic view of American art of the period, this volume is a focused look at the strengths and surprises of MoMA's collection in an area that has played a rich and major role in the institution's history.