A retrospective on the life and art of this renowned Cuban-American artist, acclaimed for his refined and thought-provoking paintings with fantastical, Surrealist overtones. One of the most important contemporary painters to emerge from Latin America, Julio Larraz (b. 1944, Havana) creates powerful, dreamlike paintings that reflect the influence of painters from Velázquez to Sargent and Hopper, and Surrealist artists like Dalí and Magritte. A unique visionary, Larraz produces work that has been described by some as mind-bending and playful, using a refreshingly wide range of subjects from still life to Cuban cultural imagery, such as bullfights, men in white linen suits, and maritime scenes. He reveals imaginary worlds, with deeply satirical, ambiguous, and multilayered themes, in which he often alludes to political corruption, class structure, and human foibles. This is the largest and most comprehensive book to date, with 200 paintings, 50 works on paper, and 10 sculptures, ranging from the 1960s to the present, accompanied by an essay by David Ebony that situates Larraz’s work within the Latin American painting tradition.

November 24 - December 30, 2006

A collection of 12 plates containing pictures of artwork by artist Julio Larraz.

A master of realism, Julio Larraz stands out strongly on the American contemporary art scene. Throughout his artistic career he has indefatigably pursued a line of expressive and thematic research out of which an unmistakable style has gradually emerged. Deaf to the allure of fashions and the blandishments of critics, Larraz has never abjured his figurative vocation, recreating it freely in every picture. Fruit of the tension between creative autonomy and a vast and heterogeneous pictorial culture, his work cannot be ascribed to any particular current, even though it does not fail to reflect tendencies in contemporary art and is always making ironic references to the colours and motifs of the Caribbean. Through a series of splendid illustrations, this book examines Larraz's thirty-year dialogue with painting, making it an indispensable means of understanding the work of a leading exponent of contemporary art.

Cuban-American super-realist painter's mystical still lifes, landscapes, figure subjects.

“The people from the extraordinary New York milieu amongst whom I was living and working had no way of knowing that the years between 1977 and 1982 were enchanted, endangered, and unrepeatable,” explains photographer Marcia Resnick. It was a time and place populated by icons, iconoclasts, and antiheroes whom Resnick documented with a unique and evocative eye. Here, her photographs of the “enfants terribles” reflect this unique time in the worlds of jazz, rock and roll, literature, art, and film—an era that remains highly influential. Rockers Johnny Thunders, Joey Ramone, James Brown, Iggy Pop, David Byrne, Brian Eno, and Mick Jagger; beat poets William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Gregory Corso; and provocateurs and raconteurs John Waters, Steve Rubell, Gary Indiana, Abbie Hoffman, Norman Mailer, Andy Warhol, and the incomparable John Belushi are included here, along with text by Victor Bockris and contemporary writings that create a context for Resnick’s photography from this inimitable era.

Arranged in alphabetical order, these 5 volumes encompass the history of the cultural development of America with over 2300 entries.