Books by Esther Adler
Charles White: A Retrospective
by Sarah Kelly Oehler, Esther Adler
A revelatory reassessment of one of the most influential American artists of the 20th century
Charles White (1918–1979) is best known for bold, large-scale paintings and drawings of African Americans, meticulously executed works that depict human relationships and socioeconomic struggles with a remarkable sensitivity. This comprehensive study offers a much-needed reexamination of the artist’s career and legacy. With handsome reproductions of White’s finest paintings, drawings, and prints, the volume introduces his work to contemporary audiences, reclaims his place in the art-historical narrative, and stresses the continuing relevance of his insistent dedication to producing positive social change through art.
Tracing White’s career from his emergence in Chicago to his mature practice as an artist, activist, and educator in New York and Los Angeles, leading experts provide insights into White’s creative process, his work as a photographer, his political activism and interest in history, the relationship between his art and his teaching, and the importance of feminism in his work. A preface by Kerry James Marshall addresses White’s significance as a mentor to an entire generation of practitioners and underlines the importance of this largely overlooked artist.
Distributed for the Art Institute of Chicago
Exhibition Schedule:
The Art Institute of Chicago
(06/08/18–09/03/18)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
(10/07/18–01/13/19)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
(02/17/19–06/09/19)
Copies
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Joseph E. Yoakum: What I Saw
by Esther Adler, Mark Pascale, Edouard Kopp
The extraordinary life of a captivating American artist, beautifully illustrated with his dreamlike drawings
Much of Joseph Elmer Yoakum’s story comes from the artist himself—and is almost too fantastic to believe. At a young age, Yoakum (1891–1972) traveled the globe with numerous circuses; he later served in a segregated noncombat regiment during World War I before settling in Chicago. There, inspired by a dream, he began his artistic career at age seventy-one, producing some two thousand drawings over a decade. How did Yoakum gain representation in major museum collections in Chicago and New York? What fueled his process, which he described as a “spiritual unfoldment”? This volume delves into the friendships Yoakum forged with the Chicago Imagists that secured his place in art history, explores the religious outlook that may have helped him cope with a racially fractured city, and examines his complicated relationship to African American and Native American identities. With hundreds of beautiful color reproductions of his dreamlike drawings, it offers the most comprehensive study of the artist’s work, illuminating his vivid and imaginative creativity and giving definition and dimension to his remarkable biography.
Distributed for the Art Institute of Chicago
Exhibition Schedule: The Art Institute of Chicago
(June 12–October 18, 2021)
Museum of Modern Art, New York
(November 28, 2021–March 18, 2022)
Menil Collection, Houston
(April 22–August 7, 2022)
Copies
No copies available.
American Modern: Hopper to O'Keeffe
An authoritative overview of American modernism American Modern presents a fresh look at The Museum of Modern Art’s holdings of American art made between 1915 and 1950, and considers the cultural preoccupations of a rapidly changing American society in the first half of the twentieth century. Organized thematically and featuring paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and sculpture, the publication brings together some of the Museum’s most celebrated masterworks, contextualizing them across mediums and amidst lesser-seen but revelatory works. The selection of works by artists such as Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Sheeler, Charles Burchfield and Stuart Davis includes urban and rural landscapes, scenes of industry, still-life compositions and portraiture. Although varying in style and specifics, they share certain underlying visual and emotional tendencies. Cityscapes and factories are shown eerily emptied of the crush of residents that flocked to them, becoming both a celebration of clean modern forms and technological advances, as in Sheeler’s paintings and photographs, and a reflection of anxiety about increasingly urban lifestyles and their consequences for the American individual, as in Hopper’s iconic “Night Windows.” Equally silent rural scenes are no less haunting, but perhaps reflect a nostalgia for seemingly simpler times, and a celebration of early American traditions and values. Featured still lifes are as diverse: Stuart Davis’ bright, angular compositions marry fractured form with logos and patterns taken from modern advertising, while Charles Demuth’s rich watercolors of fruits and vegetables celebrate agricultural bounty and his mastery of the medium. Works by Arthur Dove, Alfred Stieglitz and Andrew Wyeth, among others, suggest different possibilities in portraiture, and the diverse ways artists have thought about the figure and its absence as a way to capture their subject. This volume is a focused look at the strengths and surprises of MoMA’s collection in an area that has played a rich and major role in the institution’s history.
Copies
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