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Reports of its death were exaggerated but persistent in the art world; in mid-twentieth century America, everyone seemed to agree that portraiture was finished as a progressive art form.
A groundbreaking reassessment of the reinvention of portraiture in America between 1945 and 1975—the period when the abstract expressionists reached international prominence—this new volume presents fifty-five innovative portrait paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures. It features works by Joan Brown, Alice Neel, Elaine de Kooning, Larry Rivers, Marisol Escobar, Alex Katz, Romare Bearden, Fairfield Porter, Jamie Wyeth, and Andy Warhol, amongst others.
Features a poem by leading New York School poet John Ashbery specially commissioned for this book.
"A unique, beautifully produced, gap-filling work of inspired curating and art history"—Donna Seaman, Booklist Online
Wendy Wick Reaves, curator of prints and drawings, is Interim Director of the National Portrait Gallery. Reaves established the graphic arts department at the National Portrait Gallery in 1974. The collections she has developed include fine-art prints and drawings, rare books and illustrated journals, posters, caricatures and cartoons. Reaves is the curator of numerous exhibitions for the Portrait Gallery on subjects ranging from the 18th to the 20th century. Her books include “Reflections/Refractions: Self Portraiture in the Twentieth Century” (2009) and “Ballyhoo! Posters as Portraiture” (2008), “Eye Contact: Modern American Portrait Drawings” (2002) and “Celebrity Caricature in America” (1998). Reaves has also served as one of the curators of the ongoing “Portraiture Now” series which celebrate progressive forms of portrayal in contemporary art. She is currently working on an upcoming exhibition titled “Face Value: Portraiture in an Age of Abstraction,” which will examine mid-20th century portraiture.
David C. Ward is an historian at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian institution where he has curated exhibitions on Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln, and 2010’s award winning “Hide/Seek. Difference and Desire in American Portraiture.” His poetry has been published in PN Review and other venues; his little collection Internal Difference was published by Lintott/Carcanet in 2011.
Illustrated Essay 1 by David Ward
Illustrated Essay 2 by Brandon Brame Fortune and Wendy Wick Reaves
Catalogue of the Exhibition by Fortune, Reaves, and Ward, consisting 65 images, each with 300-400 word captions (and notes)
Selected Bibliography of general primary sources, general secondary sources, and short bibliographies for each artist, arranged alphabetically
Acknowledgments
Index
Photography/copyright Credits