James Howell
Will be published approx. on 19. November 2021
Book
Hardback
240 pages
978-1-911422-21-1 (ISBN)
Description
The first monograph on an American abstract artist of unparalleled subtlety.
James Howell (1935-2014) was an American abstract artist who used infinite variations of the colour grey to explore the fundamentals of light, space, time, and [kinesthetic] perception. He appreciated the colour's mystery, softness, simplicity, and capaciousness. His precise, systematic methods, developed over many years, yielded accomplished square paintings and works on paper. Their subtle revelations - absent of illusion, narrative, and symbolic references - expand in the viewer's consciousness. In this comprehensive first monograph, Alistair Rider traces Howell's artistic evolution, from the beginnings of his career in the early 1970s through the artist's greatest achievement - the group of abstractions called Series 10, which occupied the last two decades of his life. Rider's multi-faceted essay also chronicles Howell's biography, including his early studies and accomplishments in architecture, and offers several interpretive frameworks for Howell's oeuvre, notably a connection to East Asian philosophies. The beautifully produced book presents dozens of full-colour plates of artworks and exhibitions, and Rider's essay is thoroughly illustrated with archival images and documents from the James Howell Foundation. This publication makes a critical contribution to the reevaluation of an artist whose studies of light into shadow have for many years been in a dynamic conversation with recognised trends in contemporary art.
James Howell (1935-2014) was an American abstract artist who used infinite variations of the colour grey to explore the fundamentals of light, space, time, and [kinesthetic] perception. He appreciated the colour's mystery, softness, simplicity, and capaciousness. His precise, systematic methods, developed over many years, yielded accomplished square paintings and works on paper. Their subtle revelations - absent of illusion, narrative, and symbolic references - expand in the viewer's consciousness. In this comprehensive first monograph, Alistair Rider traces Howell's artistic evolution, from the beginnings of his career in the early 1970s through the artist's greatest achievement - the group of abstractions called Series 10, which occupied the last two decades of his life. Rider's multi-faceted essay also chronicles Howell's biography, including his early studies and accomplishments in architecture, and offers several interpretive frameworks for Howell's oeuvre, notably a connection to East Asian philosophies. The beautifully produced book presents dozens of full-colour plates of artworks and exhibitions, and Rider's essay is thoroughly illustrated with archival images and documents from the James Howell Foundation. This publication makes a critical contribution to the reevaluation of an artist whose studies of light into shadow have for many years been in a dynamic conversation with recognised trends in contemporary art.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
120 Illustrations, color
Dimensions
Height: 300 mm
Width: 260 mm
Thickness: 35 mm
Weight
1901 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-911422-21-1 (9781911422211)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Alistair Rider is Senior Lecturer in The School of Art History at the University of St Andrews. He writes about European and North American art from the 1950s to the present day, and has a special interest in abstraction, particularly Minimalist Art. He is the author of Carl Andre: Things in their Elements (London: Phaidon, 2011).