The American dream : pop to the present / Stephen Coppel, Catherine Daunt, Susan Tallman ; with contributions from Isabel Seligman and Jennifer Ramkalawon.

Contributor(s):

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: London : Thames and Hudson, 2017.Description: 332 pages : illustrations (colour) ; 28 cmISBN:

9780500292822
0500292825

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

769.973 COP

Contents:

Piecing together the American dream / Stephen Coppel -- Irresistible: the rise of the American print workshop / Susan Tallman -- 1. Pop art -- 2. Three giants of printmaking: Johns, Rauschenberg, Dine -- 3. The print workshop: Laboratories of experimentation and collaboration -- 4. Made in California: the West Coast experience -- 5. Persistence of abstraction: gestural and hard-edge 1960s-1970s -- 6. Minimalism and conceptualism from the 1970s -- 7. Photorealism: portraits and landscapes -- 8. The figure reasserted -- 9. Politics and dissent -- 10. Feminism, gender and the body -- 11. Race and identity: unresolved histories -- 12. Signs of the times.

Summary: The American Dream: From Pop to present presents an overview of the development of American printmaking since 1960, paying particular attention to key figures such as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol. The 1960s was a period of change in the production, marketing and consumption of prints and the medium attracted a new generation of artists whose attitude towards making art had been conditioned by the monumentality and bold, eye-catching nature of popular imagery in postwar America, from advertising billboards to drive-in movies. Artists used to working on large canvases and huge sculptures created prints of an unprecedented ambition, scale and boldness in state-of-the-art workshops newly established on both the East and West coasts. Prints also became a means for expressing opinions on the great social issues of the day, from civil rights to the overt and covert role of government. This has continued, with feminism, gender, the body, race and identity, all topics represented in prints in a variety of stylistic approaches across the decades. The changing nature of American society provides a core element of the narrative, with prints offering a fascinating insight into contemporary thinking and attitudes.

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Copy number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Standard Loan	LSAD Library Main Collection	769.973 COP (Browse shelf(Opens below))	1	Available		39002100630871

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In the early 1960s, American printmaking experienced a dynamic resurgence that placed it at the heart of artistic practice. Such was the medium's attraction that by 1970 virtually every major American artists was exploring its creative potential in collaborative print workshops. Throughout the past six decades, as leading artists have experimented with different materials and new techniques, prints have continued to reflect their central concerns.

The American Dream: pop to the present presents an overview of this extraordinary vibrant period of American printmaking, from the moment pop art burst onto the New York and West Coast scenes in the early 1960s, through the rise of minimalism, conceptual art and photorealism in the 1970s, to the engagement with contentious matters such as race, AIDS and feminism right up to the present day. Particular attention is given to key figures such as Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Ed Ruscha as well as to more recent practitioners, including Jenny Holzer, Kiki Smith, Glenn Ligon and Julie Mehretu. The vital role of several print workshops is also discussed.

Fully illustrated with more than 200 key works by almost 70 artists, informative commentaries on the prints and concise biographies of the artists, this book reveals the unprecedented scale, boldness and ambition of American printmaking since the 1960s.

This publication accompanies the exhibition \'The American Dream: pop to the present\' at the British Museum from 9 March to 18 June 2017--Title page verso.

Contains bibliographic references (pages 321-325) and index.

The American Dream: From Pop to present presents an overview of the development of American printmaking since 1960, paying particular attention to key figures such as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol. The 1960s was a period of change in the production, marketing and consumption of prints and the medium attracted a new generation of artists whose attitude towards making art had been conditioned by the monumentality and bold, eye-catching nature of popular imagery in postwar America, from advertising billboards to drive-in movies. Artists used to working on large canvases and huge sculptures created prints of an unprecedented ambition, scale and boldness in state-of-the-art workshops newly established on both the East and West coasts. Prints also became a means for expressing opinions on the great social issues of the day, from civil rights to the overt and covert role of government. This has continued, with feminism, gender, the body, race and identity, all topics represented in prints in a variety of stylistic approaches across the decades. The changing nature of American society provides a core element of the narrative, with prints offering a fascinating insight into contemporary thinking and attitudes.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Susan Tallman is editor-in-chief of the journal Art in Print.

Stephen Coppel is curator of modern prints and drawings at the British Museum.

Catherine Daunt is Monument Trust project curator at the British Museum.