Synopsis
From 1958 to 2004, Robert & Jane Mayerhoff assembled one of the greatest collections ever to focus on American painting of the postwar era. Built around 6 major figures—Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Brice Marden, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella, collection comprises of 300 works with half included here.
Library Journal
According to the foreword by Earl A. Powell III, the director of the National Gallery of Art, Washington (NGA), the Meyerhoff Collection "is one of the greatest collections ever to focus on American painting of the postwar era." It centers on works by modernists such as Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella; abstract expressionists like Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock; and contemporary artists including Howard Hodgkin. Instead of using one of the standard modes of organization (by artist, medium, or chronology), Cooper, the NGA's new curator of modern and contemporary art, arranged the exhibition and catalog according to ten themes and devices of modern art: scrape, concentricity, line, gesture, art on art, drip, stripe to zip, figure or ground, monochrome, and picture the frame. This fresh arrangement provides readers with a new lens through which they can see and appreciate art. VERDICT Colorful plates and concise, instructive essays make this an enjoyable, light read that American postwar-era art lovers must check out.—Jennifer Pollock, Univ of Cincinnati Lib.