Product Description

In the late 1940s, several prominent artists of the New York School--among them Robert Rauschenberg, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko and Frank Stella--were intently studying the color black. That work, interrelated but not collaborative, resulted in an astonishing number of almost monochromatic black paintings, which today are considered treasures of many major collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art's. For the first time, Black Paintings gathers all of the best of the title artist's black works together: textured black, striped black, blue-black, brown-black, black-black. In thorough illustration and thoughtful analysis, it sheds light on the differences between these postwar works as well as their commonalities. For Frank Stella and Robert Rauschenberg, black was a way to disappear into something new, a way to a new artistic vocabulary. For Mark Rothko, it stood for emptiness and nothingness; it asked the spectator to reflect back on it. For Ad Reinhardt, it offered denial and invisibility. Each artist's black portfolio reflects a breakthrough or transition in his own work, and, combined, they represent a larger moment of transition. The Black Paintings marked both a beginning and an end: the end of painting as illusion, as a window onto the world, and the beginning of painting as the mode for the creation of self-sufficient perceptual objects--a change that granted new roles to both artist and viewer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #648887 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-01
• Released on: 2007-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 204 pages

Review
Munich: Haus der Kunst, 09/16/06-01/15/07

Customer Reviews

Black is Light
Black Paintings offers a unique view of the creative process of image making among some of the prominent painters of our time. The book has an unusual format - the font used and layout of the text, almost as though it was done on a typewriter.
The quality of the reproductions is very good although some of them require taking a hard look to see the nuances of tonal differences within the dark shades of black.
I highly recommend this book to anyone seriously interested in the art of painting.