"Few living persons have served the Metropolitan Museum of Art-indeed, the entire world of art and art museums-longer, or with more distinction, than Roy Neuberger. A man of taste, passion, persistence, and generosity, he has shared much of his great private collection with the public, and for generations has supported activities that bring people to museums, and motivate them to return again and again. Now, this giant of a man has recorded eighty years of his life-and the result is entertaining, illuminating, and, like the tireless gentleman himself, inspiring." -Philippe de Montebello, Director, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Equal to his passion for investing is Roy Neuberger's love for art-which he has collected and encouraged for eight decades. In The Passionate Collector: Eighty Years in the World of Art, you'll follow this fascinating financial figure and great patron of the arts from the streets of 1920s Paris to the museums of New York as he develops the eye of a connoisseur and begins to collect great contemporary art. Vivid detail puts you in the center of the action as Neuberger collects the brilliant artists of his time-Milton Avery, Jackson Pollock, Ben Shahn, Edward Hopper; works with legendary art dealers Paul Rosenberg, Betty Parsons, Sidney Janis, and Leo Castelli; and befriends avid collectors, including the incomparable Duncan Phillips. You'll follow Neuberger as he strives to further the cause of contemporary American artists by exhibiting, lending, and donating from his growing collection, and becoming an activist for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney. You'll also see how the Neuberger Museum of Art was created at the urging of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and how it continues to fascinate art enthusiasts today. Part personal memoir, part history of art, The Passionate Collector offers a unique view of twentieth-century American art from a man who has lived it.

Between 1952 and about 1963 Romare Bearden created a large body of abstract watercolors, oil painting, and collages. Some titled, some not, they range in height from over seven feet to just under three inches. Exhibited with success at the time of their execution, these artworks are little know today, yet they directly inform the collages for which he is now best known and that he begain creating in the mid-1960's, such as Melon Season. This essay is not intended to be biographically comprehensive but rather to establish a chronology for the period during which Bearden produced the abstractions, to fill in missing factual information, and to bookend this decade of his production, front and back. Romare Bearden : Abstraction tells the story of a historically neglected but extraordinary and critically important period of time and body of work. -- from author.

This illustrated publication, the first in the artist's career, accompanies the exhibition "Art Got into Me" The Work of Engels the Artist. It includes fifty-four color plates, an interview with the artist by curator Patrice Giasson, and texts by scholar Julian Kreimer and artist Tom Otterness. For Engels, the canvas is a limited space that requires subversion, inversion, expansion, or containment. He engages in a sort of metonymic game, whereby the container becomes the contained, and the support becomes the object itself. The fabric of the canvas, the wood of the stretcher, and the metal staples are part of his iconography. Abstract and poetic, his sculptural paintings are both aesthetically appealing and profoundly meaningful. "The strict economy of line and texture, the use of everyday objects, and makeshift elegance recall my grandmother's home in Port-au-Prince, which against all odds had splendor," says the artist. The purity and the balance found in each work stand in contrast to the presence of torn and broken parts, and thick paint stains. They ultimately bring to mind wounds and stitches, breaking and repairing, inside and outside, the visible and the hidden, and, ultimately, life and death. While Engels's art is in dialogue with European and American art traditions such as abstraction, arte povera, conceptual art, and minimalism, to name a few, his work also contains spiritual elements and tackles Haitian historical and social themes. One of the key works in the exhibition, Cotton Pearl (2017), reflects the historical tension that accompanied the colonization of the Americas. The word cotton refers to the slaves who were brought from Africa to work the cotton fields, while pearl signifies Haiti in colonial times, when, because of its natural beauty and rich soil, it was considered the "pearl of the Caribbean." The apparently calm surface of Engels's white Cotton Pearl hides a world of conflict as the large wall sculpture is in fact made of broken parts and seems about to explode.

A new examination of the art and influence of artist John Graham and his circle, whose works and ideas contributed to the advancement of American modernism in the interwar period The enigmatic and charismatic John Graham (1886-1961) was an important influence on his fellow New York artists in the 1920s through 1940s. Graham and his circle, which included Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, and Willem de Kooning, helped redefine ideas of what painting and sculpture could be. They, along with others in Graham's orbit, such as Jackson Pollock and David Smith, played a critical role in developing and defining American modernism. American Vanguards showcases about eighty-seven works of art from this vital period that demonstrate the interconnections, common sources, and shared stimuli among the members of Graham's circle. Three essays by notable scholars investigate the complex relationships among Graham and his New York artist-colleagues during this formative period. William C. Agee positions Graham and his circle within the movement of New Classicism, which drew upon classical and Renaissance examples in an attempt to overcome the devastation of World War I. Irving Sandler focuses on the social, political, and intellectual dynamics among Davis, Gorky, Graham, and de Kooning in the mid-1930s. Karen Wilkin discusses the circumstances that brought these artists together, their common commitment to modernism, and the fascinating artistic cross-fertilization evident in their work. This critical reconsideration sheds new light on the New York School, Abstract Expressionism, and the vitality of American modernism between the two world wars. Published in association with the Addison Gallery of American Art Exhibition Schedule: Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY (01/29/12-04/28/12) Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX (06/09/12-08/19/12) Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA (9/21/12-12/31/12) San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA (02/01/13-06/02/13)

This fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University's exhibition Nina Chanel Abney: Royal Flush.