Choice Review
In this catalog of the exhibition of paintings by Stuart Davis organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the occasion of the centennial of Davis's birth, seven scholarly essays introduce the catalog proper, beginning with an overview of the art of Davis, followed by five essays each focusing on a decade of Davis's work, and concluding with an examination of Davis's use of words in his pictures. The catalog itself illustrates 175 works, most in color, and many with individual commentaries, and there is a detailed chronology, an extensive bibliography, and an index. This book clarifies Davis's place in the shifting realism/abstraction spectrum of 20th-century art in the US, and contributes to an understanding of the major position that Davis occupies in American modern art. It is the most comprehensive study of Davis's art to date, and is highly recommended to college libraries.-G. Eager, Bucknell University
Library Journal Review
Davis's ``amazing continuity'' emerges as the underlying theme of this volume, published to coincide with the first retrospective exhibition of the artist's work (175 pieces) in over 25 years, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Seven essayists trace Davis's propensity for continually reworking themes and motifs throughout his 55-year-long career. Aspects of his oeuvre that have received little scholarly attention, such as the early landscapes of 1909-20, the Paris paintings of the late 1920s, and works of the 1940s through the 1960s, are examined in the context of such concurrent movements as Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and color field painting. The ciphering and encoding that are integral to his work continue to challenge viewers. A major work on a major American artist.-- Russell T. Clement, Brigham Young Univ. Lib., Provo, Ut . (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.