Twentieth-Century Artists on Art

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Cooper Union professor Ashton, art critic for the New York Times from 1955 to 1960 and author of Modern American Sculpture, About Rothko, American Art Since 1945, etc., has collected here statements by more than 200 artists from 25 countries. Excerpted from magazines, manifestos, letters, lectures, radio interviews, symposiums and exhibition catalogues, the entries are divided into three chronological sections that are subdivided by country, a sometimes awkward arrangement. Each statement fills a page at most and is prefaced by a biographical note. In mapping this century's ``artistic landscape,'' as painter Jim Dine phrases it, Ashton updates Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves's Artists on Art (which was limited to pre-1890 artists) and produces an equally indispensable collection. Illustrations not seen by PW. February