Clifford Ackley

ACTIVE BACKLIST

JIM DINE PRINTMAKER: LEAVING MY TRACKS
Text by Clifford S. Ackley, Patrick Murphy.
MFA PUBLICATIONS
ISBN: 9780878467778 | US $55.00
Pub Date: 3/31/2012
Active | In stock

SPLENDOR AND ELEGANCE
Text by Clifford S. Ackley, Horace W. Brock, Martin P. Levy.
MFA PUBLICATIONS
ISBN: 9780878467389 | US $55.00
Pub Date: 2/1/2009
Active | In stock

RHYTHMS OF MODERN LIFE
Text by Clifford S. Ackley, Stephen Coppel, Thomas E. Rassieur, Samantha Rippner.
MFA PUBLICATIONS
ISBN: 9780878467242 | US $60.00
Pub Date: 1/10/2008
Active | In stock

TERRY WINTERS: PRINTS & SEQUENCES
Essay by Clifford S. Ackley. Foreword by Sharon Corwin.
COLBY COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART, WATERVILLE, MAINE
ISBN: 9780972848442 | US $20.00
Pub Date: 1/1/2006
Active | In stock

REMBRANDT'S JOURNEY
Essays by Clifford S. Ackley, Ronni Baer, Thomas E. Rassieur and William W. Robinson.
MFA PUBLICATIONS
ISBN: 9780878466771 | US $60.00
Pub Date: 11/2/2003
Active | Awaiting stock

Clifford Ackley

Jim Dine Printmaker: Leaving My Tracks

Text by Clifford S. Ackley, Patrick Murphy.
Published by MFA Publications

Best known for his monumental images of bathrobes, tools and hearts that became icons of Pop art during the 1960s and 70s, Jim Dine remains one of the most inventive and prolific printmakers of our time. His prints currently number some 1,000 items, and at age 75, he continues to produce new works with remarkable zest and boundless energy. Dine’s prints are rooted in the spontaneous, gestural aesthetic of American Abstract Expressionism. Intensely physical in execution, they celebrate the artist’s touch. He supplements his energetic, full-body strokes not only by hand coloring but also by collaging with nontraditional media. He may also subtract, scratching or even gouging his surfaces, sometimes with power tools. The results show his great joy in working with the thick paper and rich inks and colors, or in the artist’s words, his love for “leaving my tracks.” Jim Dine Printmaker: Leaving My Tracks explores Dine’s etchings, woodcuts, lithographs and illustrated books from the last 50 years, drawing from the prints at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where the artist has created an archive of his life’s work. Some 160 lush full-color images, along with text based on conversations between the artist and MFA curator Clifford S. Ackley, offer an intimate look into Dine’s deeply personal approach to his favorite subject matter.

Splendor and Elegance

European Decorative Arts and Drawings from the Horace Wood Brock Collection

Text by Clifford S. Ackley, Horace W. Brock, Martin P. Levy.
Published by MFA Publications

The collection of the prominent American economist Dr. Horace "Woody" Brock spans from the decorative arts (most notably French and English objects from the eighteenth century) to Old Master drawings and paintings. Brock's interests encompass the philosophy of science, moral philosophy and aesthetics--concerns that directly inform his personal collecting strategy. Virtually every object in this volume has been selected according to Brock's highly original theory of beauty in design, which is brilliantly elucidated here. Splendor and Elegance celebrates Brock's particular vision of European art, showcasing some 150 objects in a variety of media. Highlights include a spectacular Flemish turtleshell cabinet-on-stand; one of the earliest long-case clocks by André-Charles Boulle; major examples of Chelsea, Meissen and Sèvres porcelain; a powerful anatomical study by Peter Paul Rubens; and a fine group of eighteenth-century Venetian drawings, including Tiepolo's dramatic "Resurrection of Christ." An essay by antiques specialist Martin P. Levy identifies themes running through the decorative-arts collection, while MFA Boston curator Clifford S. Ackley highlights the collection's most remarkable drawings and paintings.

Rhythms of Modern Life

British Prints, 1914-1939

Text by Clifford S. Ackley, Stephen Coppel, Thomas E. Rassieur, Samantha Rippner.
Published by MFA Publications

It is little known that interbellum Britain hosted a generation of Modernist artists who absorbed the wealth of Continental avant-garde idioms and adapted them to their own unique ends. Some of this work was done under the rubric of Vorticism, the Neofuturist movement spearheaded by Wyndham Lewis, while other artists were closely associated with London’s Grosvenor School of Art (and so came to be known collectively as the Grosvenor School), breaking new ground in the practice of linocut. Rhythms of Modern Life examines the impact of Cubism and Futurism on British printmaking in the years between the First and Second World Wars, focusing in particular on the dynamic imagery of 13 artists, including C.R.W. Nevinson, Paul Nash, Edward Wadsworth and David Bomberg, all early followers of Italian Futurism and British Vorticism, and on the works of Grosvenor School artists Claude Flight, Sybil Andrews, Cyril Power and Lill Tschudi. All of these artists coined styles that addressed the velocity of modern life, espousing industry, speed and an optimism for the century ahead. This book, the first survey of its kind, features more than 100 lithographs, etchings, woodcuts and linocuts, ranging from geometric abstractions to forceful impressions of the first fully mechanized war, Jazz Age images of sporting events, speed trials and other contemporary diversions. Clifford S. Ackley’s introduction takes stock of the art historical moment and is followed by discussions of the prints, an overview of the history and technique of the modern linocut and short biographies of the artists.

Terry Winters: Prints & Sequences

Essay by Clifford S. Ackley. Foreword by Sharon Corwin.
Published by Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine

The Colby College of Art is the sole repository of Terry Winters's entire archive of prints. Prints & Sequences presents selections from that collection, spanning two decades and a variety of media including lithography, etching, aquatint, woodcut, linoleum cut and Mixografia. Serial practice is at the core of Winters's art, and Prints & Sequences offers insight into the artist's diverse printing techniques as well as a perspective on his serial processes within individual groupings. The catalogue essay by Clifford S. Ackley, Chair, Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, and Ruth and Carl Shapiro Curator of Prints and Drawings, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, offers an insightful account of Winters's printmaking within the history of the medium.

Rembrandt's Journey

Painter, Draftsman, Etcher

Essays by Clifford S. Ackley, Ronni Baer, Thomas E. Rassieur and William W. Robinson.
Published by MFA Publications

Rembrandt changed the course of art history not only as a painter but also as a draftsman and printmaker. His output of some 300 etchings and drypoints represents a lifelong commitment to printmaking unequaled by any other seventeenth-century painter and comparable only to Picasso in our own time. Rembrandt's Journey unfolds the richness and diversity of Rembrandt's career as an etcher in the context of his paintings and drawings. Illustrated with nearly 200 works in all three media, this book traces the remarkable evolution of Rembrandt's art over four decades, from the robust physical energy of his early productions to the breadth, simplicity and meditative beauty of his later work. It establishes new and important connections among these works and among the three media that the artist explored throughout his career. It encompasses the wide range of his vision, from the tragic and spiritual to the earthy and comic. And it gives full due to Rembrandt's narrative sensibilities, showing how he endowed his figures (particularly in biblical scenes) with unprecedented psychological nuance and vividness. Published to accompany the first comprehensive American survey of his work in decades, Rembrandt's Journey offers a fresh, authoritative view of this endlessly familiar, yet still unknown, artist.