Books by Carol Troyen

John Singer Sargent: Murals in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Mfa Spotlight)

by Carol Troyen, Pamela Hatchfield, Lydia Vagts

Born in Italy, trained in Paris and a resident of London, John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) became Boston’s favorite painter in the 1880s. His commissions from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to decorate its new building’s grand staircase and rotunda resulted in one of Sargent’s last and most ambitious works. Sargent regarded the entire space as a giant canvas and brought together all the pictorial, decorative and architectural elements with a painter’s skill and vision. This compact volume offers a guide to the murals and their surroundings, elucidating their allegorical subjects drawn from classical mythology to emphasize the museum’s role as the guardian of fine arts.

Edward Hopper

by Edward Hopper, David Anfam, Carol Troyen, Judith Barter, Elliot Davis, Sheena Wagstaff, Brian O'Doherty

One of the most enduringly popular painters of the twentieth century, Edward Hopper produced many works now considered icons of Modern art. Canvases such as Drugstore, New York Movie, and the universally recognized (and often parodied) Nighthawks not only reshaped what painting looked like in America, but created a visual language for middle-class life and its discontents. This extensive new assessment of Hopper, which accompanies a major traveling exhibition, examines the dynamics of the artist's creative process and discusses his work within the cultural currents of his day--examining the influence not only of other painters, but also of such media as literature and film. And while most studies have tended to see Hopper as the great painter of alienation, this one takes a much broader, more nuanced, and ultimately more representative view. Spanning the entirety of Hopper's career, but with particular emphasis on his heyday in the 30s and 40s, Edward Hopper highli

Edward Hopper

by Edward Hopper, David Anfam, Carol Troyen, Judith Barter, Elliot Davis, Sheena Wagstaff, Brian O'Doherty

Edward Hopper (1882-1967) made the visual iconography of the American city his own. All-night diners, filling stations, motel rooms and office interiors take on the foreboding atmosphere of abandoned stage sets, onto which his isolated human protagonists seem to have wandered.
Fully illustrated in colour, with oils, etchings, drawings and watercolours from throughout his career, and with essays by leading authorities on American art, this is a comprehensive survey of one of the iconic artists of the twentieth century.

Edward Hopper

by Edward Hopper, David Anfam, Carol Troyen, Judith Barter, Elliot Davis, Sheena Wagstaff, Brian O'Doherty

Edward Hopper is as quintessentially American as Jackson Pollock or Andy Warhol. Like them, his imagery has reached far beyond the realm of art to impact on our culture in the broadest terms, so that we see early twentieth-century America through his work, as much as within it. The painter Charles Burchfield attributed Hopper’s success to his “bold individualism,” declaring that “in him we have regained that sturdy American independence which Thomas Eakins gave us.” Hopper’s art was profoundly of its time, both in its expression of the subtle melancholies of modern life and in its deeply cinematic qualities--perhaps Hopper’s greatest gift was his treatment of light--to which directors from Alfred Hitchcock to Wim Wenders have paid homage.
This volume presents a definitive Hopper monograph. Published for a massive retrospective at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, and the Grand Palais in Paris, it approaches Hopper’s relatively small oeuvre in two sections. The first covers the artist’s formative years from approximately 1900 to 1924, examining a selection of sketches, paintings, drawings, illustrations, prints and watercolors, which are considered alongside works by painters that influenced Hopper, such as Winslow Homer, Robert Henri, John Sloan, Edgar Degas and Walter Sickert. The second section considers the years from 1925 onwards, addressing his mature output through chronological but thematic groupings. Comprehensive in its scope, with a wealth of color reproductions, Hopper is the last word on the artist.

The Art of American Still Life Audubon to Warhol

by Bill Brown, Katie A. Pfohl, Carol Troyen, Mark DeSaussure Mitchell

An engaging survey of American still-life painting that reinterprets beloved works and introduces lesser-known ones, providing a compelling new synthesis of the subject

The Art of American Still Life reconsiders the development and cultural significance of still-life painting in America, exploring renowned treasures alongside recently discovered works--some previously unpublished--in unexpected ways.

Taking an innovative approach to the genre, this captivating survey newly divides American still life into four discrete eras, each characterized by a predominant form of vision: describing, indulging, discerning, and animating. Works are grouped in "conversations" and explored in accompanying texts to reveal wider cultural meaning. Introductory essays investigate the many interactions between still life and American culture, examining the close connections between still-life painting and other visual discourses, including natural history, illustration, and commercial photography; the roles objects have played in American literature and art; the Philadelphia region's defining and lasting impact on the genre; and the reception of still life in American art and art history.

The first major study of American still life in a generation, The Art of American Still Life is destined to become a standard reference on the subject.

Published in association with the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Exhibition Schedule:

Philadelphia Museum of Art
(10/27/15-01/10/16)