Drawing From The Modern

by Andre Breton, Paul Gauguin, Georges Bataille, Jodi Hauptman, Hans Bellmer, Constantin Brancusi, Paul Cezanne, Marc Chagall, Giorgio De Chirico, Robert Delaunay, Andre Derain, Arthur Dove, Alexandra Alexandrovna Exter, Arshile Gorky, Juan Gris, Gustav Klimt, Wilfredo Lam, Filippo Marinetti, Joan Miro
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Editorial Reviews

Many of the key achievements in art of the last 125 years have been worked out on paper. From pictorial investigations that expanded the possibilities of vision to the invention of entirely new kinds of media, drawing has been the perfect laboratory for avant-garde experimentation. Drawing from the Modern traces such groundbreaking innovation through the unparalleled holdings of the drawings collection of The Museum of Modern Art. Drawing has historically been understood as a mark or line on paper--the record of a bodily gesture, an inscription of the action of the hand, an expression of the mind. Since the 1880s, however, artists have sought to interrupt these seemingly unbreakable links between mark, hand, and imagination. Defying long-held definitions of drawing and rejecting traditional materials, modern artists invented a host of practices, altering not only the field of drawing but artmaking in general. Examining masterworks from the Museum's collection of nearly 7,000 works on paper in three chronological volumes beginning in the 1880s and continuing through today, Drawing from the Modern reconsider artists' repudiation of traditional drafting methods, assault on the use of the single sheet of paper, and introduction of new materials. Going to the heart of avant-garde innovation, all three volumes showcase new formal strategies, including collage, abstraction, chance, and the integration of text and image, as well as new subject matter, including the urban experience, the body, and identity. Volume I, presented here, spans the period from 1880 to 1940, and includes work by such artists as Jean Arp, Hans Bellmer, Paul Cazanne, Arshile Gorky, Georgia O'Keeffe, Odilon Redon, and Kurt Schwitters. Volume II, available in Spring 2005, will cover 1940 to 1975, and Volume III, available in Fall 2005, will bring us from 1975 to the present day.

Customer Reviews

should have been better, 2007-09-13
by D. Manly (Ireland)
I purchased book 1 & 2 from Amazon. The illustrations are far too small to be a professionally represented art book from MOMA I've decided to save my money rather than pay out for the 3rd edition. It sounds a good buy from its description but I don't consider this trilogy to be very satisfactory.
Don't waste your money!, 2007-08-08
by Christian Karl (Los Angeles, CA USA)
This is not a good artbook. The images are way too small to be satisfying. This book could have been great, but falls way short of its potential. Don't buy it, you will be disappointed.
DRAWING from the MODERN, 2006-12-27
by Nancy Gutrich (Illinois, USA)
DRAWING from the MODERN is the first of a three part series published by MOMA as catalogue to accompany the chronologically arranged exhibitions of their drawing collection; in part, celebration of the seventy fifth anniversary of the founding of the Museum.

This first book looks at the late nineteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth. Care and preservation of these drawings dictate that they are displayed infrequently, paper being a delicate medium, subject to fading, discoloration and brittleness. The publication of this series then allows us to have at hand a history of drawings seldom seen, and a visual education demonstrating how problems of that era both evolved and worked themselves out.

The introduction by Jodi Hauptman is broad and well worth reading. Aside from her entertaining "end of art" stories, she addresses artists and process leading to the dissolution of prevalent notions: relationship of "mark" to "ground", took new form; spatial notions of an orderly page, questioned; the element of chance, explored as process; the ego relationship of an artist to work, dissolving. New imagery happened: collage, abstraction, grids, enhanced emotions, metaphors of feeling, the sublime re-imaged. New subjects explored brutalities of war, notions of "city", identity, the spiritual, and the abstract.

As perhaps with all process of art, the uncertainty of change brought forth much that is new. The 139 plates of drawings both demonstrate and give testimony by leading artists of the time to new era in process. Drawing as subject matter is fascinating. To be expected, the book is well printed. Of course, what is book one without book two and three?

Nancy Gutrich
 

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