John Currin

by Robert Rosenblum and John Currin Taka Ishii Gallery

Book Overview

John Currin's paintings sit at the crossroads where Old Master painting technique and 20th-century kitsch collide. His figurative paintings mix humour with traditional painterly skills and have earned him comparisons with artists ranging from Breugel to Rockwell. 1989.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0810991888
• ISBN13: 9780810991880
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
• Length: 120 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 9.3" x 11.4"
• Age Range: 13 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 8 to Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

great figures!

I already liked John Currin's work...but this book gave a lot more insight into it. In addition the images were Great.

An excellent monograph on an excellent painter.

I had the pleasure of picking up this volume at the opening of Mr. Currin's American retrospective in Chicago a few years back, and subsequently meeting Mr. Currin. He's a very quiet and gentle man but you can honestly sense his vast knowledge of painting and the psyche lying just underneath his guy next door-ness. Painting and the psyche is exactly what his work is about. He paints mainly women, in the lushest and most traditional manner you can think of. He paints them in his own twisted version of neo-mannerism using extremely traditional oil painting techniques. Indeed, he's probably the only painter on the contemporary art scene who's capable of painting in the manner that he paints, which recalls Raphael, Cranach, and Chardin to name a few. He has a sense of style and color that challenges the greatest masters, but he never runs too far with his talent, he has always maintained an effortless and subtle outrageousness. Imagine if Russ Meyer had let Martha Stewart helm his pictures and you have a John Currin painting. This book is a sublime example of what an artists monograph should be. A terrific and long interview with the artist, a landmark and rare essay by Rosenblum on his favourite topic of figurative painting, and the best colored plates you can imagine, fully recreating the color and freshness of Currin's paintings. I hate to touch this book because it's value will undoubtedly increase as the monograph becomes rarer, but I find this impossible because it's just so terrific and filled with Currin's imagery and information. This is the definitive John Currin book, and a MUST for any fan of his work.

No wonder

I hear modern art was beaten into him

The Tops!

The fruit never falls far from the tree.