Richard A. Born

Accompanying an exhibition at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art, this book is the definitive introduction to Chicago’s first artistic movement, the Monster Roster. The volume includes an overview of the artists involved, such as Leon Golub, June Leaf, Seymour Rosofsky, and Nancy Spero; an introduction to the historical context surrounding the group’s emergence in the 1950s; and a discussion of Monster Roster prints. In addition, key texts can be found reprinted here, such as Jean Dubuffet’s 1951 lecture “Anticultural Positions” and Franz Schulze’s 1972 essay “Chicago: The Setting and the Group.” Containing full-color reproductions of many Monster Roster works, ephemera, and historical photographs, as well as a detailed chronology and exhibition history, Monster Roster is a long-awaited history of one of the most essential Midwestern contributions to American art.

"From Blast to Pop: Aspects of Modern British Art, 1915-1965" charts the complex trajectory of modernism in Britain, from the 1914 Vorticist manifesto published in the short-lived journal "Blast" to the emergence of British Pop art in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This catalogue of an exhibition shown at the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, includes entries by Richard A. Born on 100 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures; and an essay by Keith Hartley of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.