Overview

Outside the United States, the British Museum has the most comprehensive collection of American prints of the first half of the twentieth century. American Prints from Hopper to Pollock reproduces 147 outstanding prints by 74 leading American artists, including George Bellows, Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Louise Bourgeois and Jackson Pollock, providing an overview of American printmaking before the rise of the big print workshops of the 1960s and 1970s. The first half of the 20th century was a period of great change in America, and this publication examines American society and culture through the prints produced by some of the most important artists of the time. It opens with John Sloan's Ashcan School etchings in the 1900s and concludes with Jackson Pollock and the triumph of Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s. Many of the images in the intervening period explore the changing urban landscape of New York, the onset of the Depression, the romanticized visions of the American heartlands by the Regionalists, and the response to the rise of Fascism in Europe and America's entry into the Second World War. A substantial introductory essay presents a historical overview of American printmaking during this period, and looks at the artistic and institutional framework within which printmakers operated. Biographies of the artists are also included, as well as commentaries on their work. With its compelling illustrations and illuminating text, this is a book that raises the profile of American printmaking at a dynamic time in America's history.

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9780853319924

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Reviews

'an attractive survey ... the illustrations are stellar as well, frequently full-page. For readers unfamiliar with these artists, this is a superb, beautifully illustrated overview. Highly recommended for all art collections' Library Journal '...an attractive catalogue...a useful resource for students of printmaking and for readers interested in a progressive era of American art...Highly recommended.' Choice

Author Information

Stephen Coppel is Assistant Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum. Jerzy Kierkuc-Bielinski obtained his doctorate on Polish and American conceptual art of the 1970s from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, in 2005, and is a freelance art historian and writer.

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