Painting Today

Painting Today is a comprehensive overview of the last 30 years of painting, presenting work by celebrated figures like Gerhard Richter and Neo Rauch alongside emerging artists like Jumaldi Alfi and Ingrid Calame. Photo-realism, landscape, still-life, portraiture, neo-expressionism, installation painting and the Leipzig school are just some of the areas of this thriving art medium explored by Tony Godfrey. Organized by themes, Painting Today showcases the broad range of styles, materials and methods that comprise contemporary painting. Insightful and accessible, Painting Today?s approach will appeal to scholars and newcomers to the subject alike.

Library Journal

Extending the tradition of Phaidon's landmark Art Today, this lavishly illustrated, oversized publication by Godfrey (Conceptual Art) provides a worldwide survey of contemporary painting from the early 1970s to the present. By means of 16 thematic chapters, the author guides readers through the movements and themes of painting and painters over the last 40 years, examining how people experience painting and discussing hundreds of works by more than 250 artists from 30 countries. Godfrey proves that contrary to what critics and others have said, the medium of painting is alive and thriving in the contemporary art world. He presents a broad range of styles, methods, and materials, including chapters covering the global scene, Western traditions, neoexpressionism, photographic painting, pure abstraction, ambiguous abstraction, figurative painting, painting space, landscape, history painting, still-life painting, installation painting, the Leipzig school, and more. VERDICT Authoritative, challenging, and insightful, this book is nicely presented and well written throughout, with value-added features such as a bibliography, a chronology, and brief artist biographies. For general readers, newcomers, students, scholars, professionals, and everyone in between.—Cheryl Ann Lajos, Free Lib. of Philadelphia

Tony Godfrey is Director of Research at Sotheby's Institute of Art. He studied at Leeds University and has taught in various art schools in England. He has worked at Sotheby's Institute since 1989, and since 2006 he has also been a Professor of Fine Art at Plymouth University. An expert in the field of contemporary art, his publications include The New Image: Painting in the Eighties (1986), Drawing Today (1990), and Conceptual Art (1998, also published by Phaidon).