This Is a Portrait If I Say So: Identity in American Art, 1912 to Today - Hardcover

Goodyear, Anne Collins; Walz, Jonathan; Campagnolo, Kathleen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300211937 ISBN 13: 9780300211931

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2016

Synopsis

The first in-depth exploration of the rise and evolution of abstract, symbolic, and conceptual portraiture in American art

This groundbreaking book traces the history of portraiture as a site of radical artistic experimentation, as it shifted from a genre based on mimesis to one stressing instead conceptual and symbolic associations between artist and subject.  Featuring over 100 color illustrations of works by artists from Charles Demuth, Marcel Duchamp, Marsden Hartley, and Georgia O’Keeffe to Janine Antoni, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Roni Horn, Jasper Johns, and Glenn Ligon, this timely publication probes the ways we think about and picture the self and others. With particular focus on three periods during which non-mimetic portraiture flourished—1912–25, 1961–70, and 1990–the present—the authors investigate issues related to technology, sexuality, artist networks, identity politics, and social media, and explore the emergence of new models for the visual representation of identity.
 
Taking its title from a 1961 work by Robert Rauschenberg—a telegram that stated, “This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so”—this book unites paintings, sculpture, photography, and text portraits that challenge the genre in significant, often playful ways and question the convention, as well as the limits, of traditional portrayal.

About this title

Book Description:

This beautifully illustrated book is the first to investigate the development and evolution of abstract, symbolic, and conceptual portraiture in American art.

About the Author:

Anne Collins Goodyear is co-director of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Jonathan Frederick Walz is curator of American art at the Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Kathleen Merrill Campagnolo is an independent curator and scholar. Dorinda Evans is professor emerita, art history, Emory University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0300211937
• ISBN 13: 9780300211931
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 264