Joseph Stella

Library Journal

While the Whitney Museum's more avant-garde exhibitions have come in for a good deal of criticism recently, their shows of established modern masters regularly display intellectual acuity. In this work, the catalog for a recent exhibition at the Whitney, Haskell goes beyond the best-known works of a painter whose artistic appeal is proving as durable as the Brooklyn Bridge he celebrated. Haskell's scholarship is investigative in its tone and illuminating in its revelations. Because there have been remarkably few publications on this important American artist, this catalog doubles as a significant survey of Stella's entire "oeuvre," including book and journal illustrations. Haskell is effective in explaining Stella's place in modern art and showing that the painter's involvement in Futurism was a step along a road of visual exploration that encompassed many viewpoints. Complete with good-quality illustrations and the requisite chronology and exhibition history, this book is a worthy acquisition for academic art collections and those building strengths in 20th-century modernism.-Paula A. Baxter, NYPL