Norman Bryson

A catalogue of new work by American artist John Currin, one of the world’s foremost figurative painters. John Currin’s work draws upon a broad range of cultural influences that include Renaissance oil paintings, 1950s women’s magazine advertisements, and contemporary politics. Labeled as mannerist, caricaturist, radical conservative, or satirist, Currin continues to confound expectations and evade categorization. While his virtuosic technique is indebted to the history of classical painting, the images engage startlingly contemporary ideas about the representation of the human figure. Currin paints challengingly perverse images of female subjects, from lusty doe-eyed nymphs to more ethereal feminine prototypes. With his uncanny ability to locate the point at which the beautiful and the grotesque are in perfect balance, he produces subversive portraits of idiosyncratic women in conventional settings.… (mais)

One of the leading figurative painters of his generation, Currin's influences range from Italian and Northern Renaissance paintings to popular illustrations from the mid-20th century. Whether portraits of older women, buxom girls, nudes with elongated bodies, or group scenes of domestic life, his works are characterized by baroque gestures, loose brushstrokes, unorthodox palettes, and detailed backgrounds that startle the viewer into a reconsideration of the tradition of painting. His "old master" techniques and individual style have earned him accolades from critics and collectors worldwide.… (mais)

A recent Vermeer show (well, three out of the scores of paintings on display were Vermeers) in Tokyo reminded me how little I know about painting, especially painting from before the twentieth century. I wished I had an educated, observant, and articulate friend to guide me through it. I wish, in fact, that I'd walked through it with Norman Bryson, whose Looking at the Overlooked: Four Essays on Still Life Painting is an absolutely essential guide to a genre that has been, as he notes, overlooked. All four of the essays are essential, and intelligently linked to each other, but the final essay, "Still Life and 'Feminine' Space," is brilliant in its consideration of just why still life painting has been marginalized (and yes, it's partly because the home, and particularly the kitchen, has been defined as a feminine domain, but that's not all there is to it). Looking at the Overlooked is Criticism at its finest.… (mais)