Published to accompany the 1994 exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, this book constitutes the most extensive survey of modern illustrated books to be offered in many years. Work by artists from Pierre Bonnard to Barbara Kruger and writers from Guillaume Apollinarie to Susan Sontag. An importnt reference for collectors and connoisseurs. Includes notable works by Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso.

"Over the last ten years this book has become the definitive text in an emergent field: teachers, librarians, students, artists, and readers turn to the expertise contained on these pages every day."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Preface and Acknowledgments / Thomas Krens -- The Genesis of a Museum: A History of the Guggenheim / Thomas Krens -- Frank Lloyd Wright and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum / Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer -- Paintings of Modern Life and Modern Myths: Late-Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Representations of Gender, Class, and Race in the Thannhauser Collection / Andrea Feeser -- 1912 / Lisa Dennison -- Technology and the Spirit: The Invention of Non-Objective Art / Michael Govan -- Peggy's Surreal Playground / Jennifer Blessing -- Art of This Century and the New York School / Diane Waldman -- Against the Grain: A History of Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim / Nancy Spector -- The Institution as Frame: Installations at the Guggenheim / Clare Bell.

"The Art Through the Century series introduces readers to important visual vocabulary of Western art."--Back cover.

"The book encompasses the visual arts in the broadest sense of the term. In addition to painting, sculpture and the new art forms of the postwar era, it covers architecture, photography, industrial design and video."--Bookseller's site.

Includes selections from major writers on various approaches to art theory, for example Freud, Jung, Marx, Heidegger.

KEYNOTE:More than 100 years of unschooled artistic genius is gathered in this wide-ranging survey that will delight and inform Outsider Art's rapidly growing audience. Visionary art, art brut, art of the insane, naïve art, vernacular art, "raw vision"--what do all these and many other categories describe? An art made outside the boundaries of official culture, first recognized more than a century ago by German psychiatrists who appreciated the profound artistic expression in the work of institutionalized patients. Promoted by brilliant museum curators like Alfred Barr and artists like Jean Dubuffet, such work became a wellspring of modern and contemporary art. This volume brings together works by twelve of the most influential self-taught artists to emerge during the past century. Each represents a facet of the outsider art phenomenon, from mental patients like Adolf Wölfli and Martín Ramírez, through vernacular masters like Bill Traylor and Thornton Dial, to artists who seem to be in touch with other worlds, such as Madge Gill and Henry Darger. Related artists are featured along with each key figure, allowing a fuller picture to emerge. This book presents a narrative of the history of outsider art, clarifies predominant theoretical issues, and draws comparisons with the modernist tradition. It brings into focus the enormous contributions self-taught artists have made to our understanding of creative genius and presents them in a book that will enthrall anyone interested in Outsider Art. AUTHOR: Charles Russell is Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies at Rutgers University, Newark. He is a contributing editor to Raw Vision, an international magazine of outsider art, and is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Self-Taught and Outsider Art. ILLUSTRATIONS: 180 colour