Caroline Hayes— Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) was a groundbreaking painter whose often-overlooked place in modernism forces us to reconsider our understanding of art in the early twentieth century. Modersohn-Becker was the first artist to paint herself nude, as well as mothers and children nude, and in doing so, challenged traditional representations
Follow @yaleARTbooks The exhibition Matisse: In Search of True Painting explores Matisse’s practice of producing pairs of paintings, and the ways in which this practice influenced his development as artist. Academically trained, Matisse learned composition and technique by copying older master paintings. This practice was not considered an empty, rote
Follow @yaleARTbooks In the century and a half since the Civil War, more than 75,000 books have been published about the war and its legacy. The figure speaks to the magnitude of its impact on American politics, economics, and culture. However, few of these books have examined how American art
Follow @yaleARTbooks Caroline Hayes— Upon visiting two exhibitions currently on display in New York City on the subject of the Japanese Rinpa aesthetic—at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Designing Nature: The Rinpa Aesthetic in Japanese Art and at the Japan Society, Silver Wind: The Arts of Sakai Hōitsu (1761-1828)—I noticed
Invention and bold experimentation are the legacy of Robert Rauschenberg’s legendary art career. On May 12, 2008, he died of heart failure in his Florida home and studio. Considered a man of many talents, he had his hand in every thinkable artistic medium, and his notoriety stems from his ability
Two reviews of Yale Press titles appeared in the April 17th edition of the New York Review of Books. Andrew Butterfield reviewed Poussin and Nature: Arcadian Visions, edited by Pierre Rosenberg and Keith Christiansen. Butterfield praises the “ravishingly beautiful exhibition, … one that attempts to renew our understanding of the
In Marsden Hartley and the West: The Search for an American Modernism, Heather Hole examines the artist’s relationship with the American West. Hartley’s connection to the West increases to this day as MetroActive, an online weekly newspaper based out of California’s Silicon Valley, favorably reviewed Hole’s recent book. The reviewer