Description:
Somehow this very little book--four by four-and-a-half inches--packs a hundred years of American art into nearly 300 pages, with nearly that many full- color reproductions. It is one of a score of such pocket-bulgers in the "Tiny Folio" series, which offers quickie courses on a range of art-historical themes and museum collections. All the icons of "the American Century" are here, including John Sloan's 1914 Backyards, Greenwich Village, Georgia O'Keeffe's 1936 Summer Days, Alexander Calder's circus toys from the late 1920s, Edward Hopper's 1960 Second Story Sunlight, Jacob Lawrence's 1942 Tombstones, and an early Philip Guston, Drawing for Conspirators, a 1930 work on paper in which sinister hooded figures prefigure his later imagery. And that's just the first quarter of the book. Chronological chapters include: American Modernism; American Scene and Surrealism; Abstract Art at Mid- Century; Into the Sixties; Minimalism, Post-Minimalism, and Conceptual Art; and The Seventies and Beyond, each delivered with a two-page capsule introduction. Surprisingly, it is the large works from mid-century and later--by Pollock, DeKooning, Warhol, DiSuvero, Hesse, Johns, and many others--that work best in this teensy format. Their simplified designs make them remarkably readable. And despite the book's art-lite look, the editors have taken pains to be up-to-date and inclusive, incorporating works by living artists Dan Graham, Nan Goldin, Alison Saar, and David Hammons along with the dead and famous. Although a book like this could drive the bifocal set mad, it is a perfect mnemonic device for a visit to the Whitney, where so little of the permanent collection is ever on view. --Peggy Moorman
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