Writings on art from 1941 to 1988.

"Robert Motherwell was not just a great painter, he was a brilliant thinker. As the founding editor of The Documents of Twentieth-Century of Art, he decisively shaped our understanding of modernism. This new and expanded selection of Motherwell's criticism provides an essential guide to the art of the high modern period, both American and European."—Pepe Karmel, author of Picasso and the Invention of Cubism "In the past two decades Abstract Expressionism has become one of the most dynamic subjects in art history; sometimes the reading is so dense it is like swimming through peanut butter. But, cutting through to the essential questions that generated the movement, the writings of Robert Motherwell are a treasure. Written at the same time he was painting, Motherwell's texts make me feel like a witness to the philosophical curiosity that generated one of the most powerful art movements of the twentieth century."—Michael Auping, author of Abstract Expressionism: The Critical Developments “This book is essential reading for anyone thinking about the uneasy clash of modernism and postmodernism in postwar America; Motherwell’s writing played a decisive role and this volume is an admirably full account of it.”—Jonathan Fineberg, author of When We Were Young: New Perspectives on the Art of the Child

The first collection of Mark Rothko's writings, which range the entire span of his career While the collected writings of many major 20th-century artists, including Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, and Ad Reinhardt, have been published, Mark Rothko's writings have only recently come to light, beginning with the critically acclaimed The Artist's Reality: Philosophies of Art. Rothko's other written works have yet to be brought together into a major publication. Writings on Art fills this significant void; it includes some 90 documents--including short essays, letters, statements, and lectures--written by Rothko over the course of his career. The texts are fully annotated, and a chronology of the artist's life and work is also included. This provocative compilation of both published and unpublished writings from 1934--69 reveals a number of things about Rothko: the importance of writing for an artist who many believed had renounced the written word; the meaning of transmission and transition that he experienced as an art teacher at the Brooklyn Jewish Center Academy; his deep concern for meditation and spirituality; and his private relationships with contemporary artists (including Newman, Motherwell, and Clyfford Still) as well as journalists and curators. As was revealed in Rothko's The Artist's Reality, what emerges from this collection is a more detailed picture of a sophisticated, deeply knowledgeable, and philosophical artist who was also a passionate and articulate writer.

Presents a collection of essays, manifestos, and illustrations that provide an overview of the Dada movement in art, describing its convictions, antics, and spirit, through the words and art of its principal practitioners.

Art History as Social Praxis: The Collected Writings of David Craven brings together more than thirty essays that chart the development of Craven’s voice as an unorthodox Marxist who applied historical materialism to the study of modern art. This book demonstrates the range and versatility of David Craven’s praxis as a ‘democratic socialist’ art historian who assessed the essential role the visual arts play in imagining more just and equitable societies. The essays collected here reveal Craven’s lifelong commitment to exposing interstices between western and non-western cultures by researching the reciprocating influences between First- and Third-World artists, critics and historians.