Robert Storr

In the past few decades, several major exhibitions and scholarly publications have revisited the distinguished career of American painter Philip Guston (1913-1980), a fellow at the American Academy in Rome in 1949 and a resident there in 1960 and again in 1971. Once known as "Abstract Expressionism's odd-man out," a respected, but often misunderstood, member of the New York School, Guston is now celebrated for his magisterial paintings of the late 1960s and 1970s. Combining painterly virtuosity and narrative power, they cast a long shadow over the current landscape of contemporary art. In light of both a profusion of recent scholarship and the lasting currency of Guston's vision among artists working today, the time appears right to take stock of his career. To that end, the American Acaedmy in Rome organized a two-day conference with an international roster of critics and art historians to discuss the significance and critical fortunes of Guston's work, paying special attention to his life-long attentiveness to Italian art and culture. Emerging out of that symposium are the texts in "Go Figure " They reflect a wide variety of perspectives, including reflections from leading specialists and several of Guston's longtime friends and collaborators, as well as those by younger scholars, who have paved new ground in recent studies of Guston's work. A conversation between Robert Storr and the artist Chuck Close, hosted by the Phillips Collection in 2011, yields further insights. This volume opens new avenues of inquiry complicating the conventional narrative about Guston's purportedly dramatic shift from abstraction to figuration unveiled at the Marlborough show in 1970. More than one hundred years after his birth, Guston continues to fascinate and challenge artists and scholars alike, perhaps more than ever before. Contributors include David Anfam, Dore Ashton, Bill Berkson, Chuck Close, Kosme de BaraNano, Barbara Drudi, Susan Behrends Frank, David Kaufmann, David Lewis, Ara H. Merjian, Achille Bonito Oliva, Christoph Schreier, and Robert Slifkin. The book includes 53 color and black and white images.

Alex Katz is a towering figure in contemporary painting, a key New York-based artist since the early 1960s. Katz is best known for his distinct portraits of sophisticated, irresistible women, masterfully painted using precise, broad areas of colour Alex Katz first emerged on the New York art scene during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism and before the birth of Pop art, but always worked independently of these movements. Katz is best known for his distinctive portraits of sophisticated, irresistible women, masterfully painted using precise, broad areas of colour. Alongside these unmistakably ‘Katzian’ female portraits are pictures of men, groups, landscapes and interiors, rendered in paint on canvas or metal cut-outs as well as drawing and collage. All attest to the artist’s attention to detail, economy of means and consummate technique. Larger-than-life paintings such as The Black Dress (1960), Blue Umbrella (1972), Red Coat (1982) and White Visor (2003) have entered the collective consciousness as the epitome of a particular, late twentieth-century feminine ideal. A major touring retrospective was organized by New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art in 1986, and Katz has exhibited widely all over the world. His works are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate, London; the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; and the Nationalgalerie, Berlin, among many others. A leading world expert on Katz, distinguished New York art critic Carter Ratcliff writes the definitive, comprehensive Survey, following Katz’s work from the 1950s to the present. In the Interview New York-based curator and critic Robert Storr discusses in detail with the artist his practice and technique in the context of a changing art world. Curator Iwona Blazwick enters in her Focus the silent world of Sylvia (1962-63), a classic Katz portrait that resonates with the urban landscape occupied by both artist and sitter. For Artist’s Choice Katz has selected nine works by New York School Poets, all of whom share a particular, often personal connection to his work. Artist’s Writings range from an early text from 1959 on Katz’s dislike of the term ‘academy’ to a recent text that reflects on his beginnings as an artist. Key interviews with some of the of the twentieth century’s most prestigious art figures – including critic David Sylvester and artists Francesco Clemente, Jane Freilicher and Richard Prince – are also included.

Often simple in composition, the art of Waltercio Caldas invites a host of complex questions about perception and space. Caldas challenges not only the way we look at his objects in the moment, but also our perspectives on art more generally. For decades he has been a central figure in Brazilian art. While his influence extends across much of the art world, he has remained largely underrecognized in the United States. To make this exceptional artist more widely known to the U.S. audience, the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin and the Fundação Iberê Camargo, a premier art organization in Porto Alegre, Brazil, have organized the exhibition The Nearest Air: A Survey of Works by Waltercio Caldas.The exhibition catalog Waltercio Caldas is the first illustrated English-language publication to fully explore Caldas’s four-decade artistic trajectory, his influences, and his impact. The catalog includes essays by the exhibition’s curator, Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, director of the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros; leading art critic Robert Storr, Dean of the Yale University School of Art, who investigates Caldas’s work in relationship to that of his international peers and its importance in the history of art; and renowned art historian Richard Shiff, modern and contemporary art professor at the University of Texas, who discusses key Caldas works that epitomize his investigation of the history of art. The catalog also includes a selected chronology of the artist’s career and a selected bibliography.

The accompanying volume to an exhibition of Robert Rauschenberg’s personal collection, held at Gagosian Gallery, New York. Expanding upon the exhibition at Gagosian Gallery in New York (2011), this book doubles as an accompanying "reader" and features works by over sixty-five artists from Rauschenberg’s collection, including Joseph Beuys, Mathew Brady, Alexander Calder, Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Brice Marden, Henri Matisse, Ed Ruscha, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol. Art historian and scholar Robert Storr contributes an essay focusing on Rauschenberg’s inspirations, friendships, and affinities as well as their myriad of interrelations. Biographies of each artist written by Mimi Thompson complement the illustrations of artworks and rare archival photographs, and show the influence of the artist’s work within Rauschenberg’s unique collection.