Robert Barnes has been called the "most famous unknown painter in America." Picking up where his 1985 mid-career retrospective left off, this gorgeous catalog surveys Barnes's work from the past 30 years. Often identified as a Chicago School artist because of his training at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his representation by several major Chicago area galleries, Barnes’s style defies simple categorization. In addition to 18 largescale paintings from his major series―including The Sources of Power, Silkies, Blood and Perfume, The Ogham, Jettatura, and Paradise―this stunning collection includes 20 of Barnes’s works on paper.

Grand Allusions: Robert Barnes―Late Works 1985-2015

Arts & Photography

Rooks, Michael

History & Criticism

Indiana University Press

A handsomely illustrated look at the landscape paintings of a contemporary American master Over the course of a seven-decade career, American artist Alex Katz (b. 1927) has conveyed his singular vision of the world through paintings that fuse realism and abstraction, allowing details to dissolve into bold swaths of color. Though perhaps best known for his portraits, Katz has consistently painted the natural world throughout his career, particularly over the past decade. This beautiful publication takes a fresh look at his landscape paintings through the themes of nature, perception, the passage of time, and contemporary notions of the sublime. These works reveal the American painter’s virtuosic control of materials and the absolute clarity and power of his vision, made evident by stripping away unnecessary information to capture the essence of his subjects. Featuring works of art from the 1950s to today, Alex Katz, This Is Now is the most extensive look at Katz’s treatment of landscape in nearly 20 years. The book includes essays by curator Michael Rooks, art critic Margaret Graham, and David Salle—an artist whose own work is influenced by Katz—and poems by John Godfrey and Vincent Katz, who is an art critic as well as the artist's son, providing a timely and important new assessment of the work of this renowned artist.

Alex Katz: This Is Now

Godfrey, John

Salle, David

Katz, Vincent

Graham, Margaret

High Museum of Art

H.C. Westermann

The irony and antic sense of humor that animate the work of H. C. Westermann (1922–1981) and make it so accessible are evident on every page of this volume, the first comprehensive study of the artist in over 20 years. Published to accompany a major traveling exhibition of Westermann’s sculpture, the book looks at how defining themes central to 20th-century America—the horror and disillusionment of war, the mythology of the American utopia, and Hollywood and mass media—shaped his thought and his art. 
Magnificent color illustrations accompany essays by Robert Storr, who evaluates Westermann in the context of 20th-century art; Lynne Warren, who looks at his years in Chicago in the 1950s; Dennis Adrian, a longtime friend, who surveys the artist’s entire oeuvre; and Michael Rooks, who examines his most elaborate achievement, the house and studio in Connecticut that the artist designed and built by hand from 1969 to 1981.

Adrian, Dennis

Individual Artists

Harry N. Abrams

The catalogue raisonné consists of the entire exhibition catalogue described above, as well as 400 entries with full scholarly documentation, resulting in an invaluable resource for scholars, dealers, and collectors.

H.C. Westermann: Exhibition Catalogue and Catalogue Raisonne of Objects

Warren, Lynne

Dreaming of a Speech Without Words: the Paintings and Early Objects of H. C. Westermann

The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu

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Books by Rooks, Michael