Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art
Edited by Courtney J. Martin. Introduction by Mary Schmidt Campbell. Text by Chris Bedford, Joost Boosland, Mark Bradford, Alexis Clark, Nicholas Cullinan, Mark Godfrey, Norman L. Kleeblatt, et al.
The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art is widely recognized as one of the most significant collections of modern and contemporary work by African and African Diasporan artists, and Four Generations draws upon the collection's unparalleled holdings to explore the critical contributions made by black artists to the evolution of visual art in the 20th and 21st centuries. Extensively illustrated with hundreds of works in a variety of media, and featuring scholarly texts by leading artists, writers and curators, Four Generations gives an essential overview of some of the most notable artists and movements of the last century, up to and including works being made today. Four major new scholarly essays provide touchstones for the unifying themes of the collection, and provide historical background on the struggles, innovations, communities and questions that have driven the development of African American and African arts—including a new text by Joost Bosland on the reception of contemporary African art after 1989; Susan and Elihu Rose Chief Curator of the Jewish Museum’s Norman L. Kleeblatt on the pioneering achievements of Norman Lewis; Tate Modern Senior Curator Mark Godfrey on black artists in the 1960s and 1970s; as well as a crucial look at contemporary art and practice by the book's editor Courtney J. Martin, Assistant Professor of the History of Art and Architecture at Brown University. Short essays on single artists and significant works punctuate each historical chapter, including texts and interviews by noteworthy writers such as Thelma Golden, Philippe Vergne, Thomas J. Lax, Lawrence Rinder, Christopher Bedford and others, on artists like Kara Walker, Mark Bradford, Lorna Simpson, Norman Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Theaster Gates, Clifford Owens, Jennie C. Jones, Julie Mehretu, and more. The catalogue is further illustrated with major works by artists from throughout the last century, such as Beauford Delaney, Jacob Lawrence, Alma Thomas, David Hammons, Sam Gilliam, Lauren Halsey, Oscar Murillo, Jayson Musson, Robin Rhode, Zander Blom, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and many others. Filled with countless insights and treasures, Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art is a journey through one of the most exceptional collections of art in America, and through the momentous legacy of African and African Diasporan art from the last hundred years.
Shinique Smith, "No Key, No Question" (2013) is reproduced from 'Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art' published by Gregory R. Miller and distributed by ARTBOOK | D.A.P.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
The Economist
It is a chance to contemplate a wider, more complex and exciting narrative: how African-American artists show a different version of America, and how some, like Mr Gilliam, have changed the language of art itself.
The New York Times
Ted Loos
When art collectors publish a book on their treasures, they often include a glamour shot of themselves surrounded by myriad works. But in “Four Generations: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art,” edited by Courtney J. Martin and published last month by Gregory R. Miller, there is no picture of Ms. Joyner anywhere. Instead, there are academic essays by curators and writers, with only a short “question and answer” segment with Ms. Joyner and her husband, Alfred J. Giuffrida.
W Magazine
Rob Haskell
...It would not be a stretch to call the Joyner-Giuffrida collection an uprising in its own right.
Bookforum
Michael Miller
By bringing together the disparate efforts of an impressive range of artists, curators, and scholars, this compendium goes a long way toward…upsetting the the reductive narratives and false dichotomies that so often accompany work by black artists.
New York Review of Books
The catalog Four Generations: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art (2016), edited by Courtney J. Martin, shows that a history of blacks in American art can be told through means other than the representational or narrative.
ARTISTS INCLUDE
Zander Blom
Mark Bradford
Beauford Delaney
Theaster Gates
Sam Gilliam
Lauren Halsey
David Hammons
Jennie C. Jones
Jacob Lawrence
Norman Lewis
Glenn Ligon
Julie Mehretu
Oscar Murillo
Jayson Musson
Clifford Owens
Robin Rhode
Lorna Simpson
Alma Thomas
Kara Walker
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Alma Thomas’ “Pink Dogwoods and Azaleas" (1971) is reproduced from Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art, the stupendous companion publication to the Nasher Museum’s current exhibition of modern and contemporary work by artists of African descent. In his catalogue essay on Thomas, Thomas J. Lax quotes Josef Albers: “If one says ‘red’—the name of a color—and there are fifty people listening, it can be expected that there will be fifty reds in their minds. And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different.” Lax concludes, “Nearly a half century after Thomas laid down her brushstrokes, the meaning of color, both racial and painterly, has shifted several times over in our mind’s eyes. Nevertheless, her colors continue to mark the interface between our immediate surroundings and the limits of the imaginable world.” continue to blog
Mark Bradford's 2012 mixed media canvas "Lead Belly" is reproduced from Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art, Gregory R. Miller's extraordinary new book of modern and contemporary work by African and African Diasporan artists from the phenomenal collection spearheaded by Pamela J. Joyner. Spanning from the 1940s Modernist abstract paintings of Norman Lewis to the moody 2013 portraits of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, this critically acclaimed volume includes work by Alma Thomas, Charles Gaines, Jack Whitten, Julie Mehretu, Theaster Gates and Robin Rhode, to name only a fraction. Read more in the New York Times. continue to blog
"I have been chasing the idea of the unit, as the plastic underpinning of abstract painting, for the past 50 years," painter Jack Whitten is quoted in Four Generations,Gregory R. Miller's extraordinary new catalog of the Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Modern and contemporary abstract African diasporan art. "Norman Lewis knew about the unit and spoke of it as a single gesture or point. My early 1960s visits to Norman Lewis' studio on 125th Street [were] a highlight of my life as a young artist. We spoke about painting, and we spoke about 'The Problem.' His insistence on the Black artists' freedom to investigate pure abstraction without the intervention of social narrative continues to nourish my commitment to abstract painting. His mentorship was a gift of cosmic proportions." Featured image is Lewis's 1969 oil painting, "Afternoon." Read more in the New York Times. continue to blog
"I began 'Majesty' (pictured) after my first trip to Iceland, during which I went glacier walking and experienced the northern lights. The aurora borealis and the primordial landscape, the fairy-tale-like energy of the place, were within me when I started it. Fuschia and green were there when I closed my eyes, so I started with those colors and allowed myself to be swept up by a feeling of awe." – Shinique Smith, in conversation with Jen Mergel, Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art, a staff favorite for Black History Month and the companion publication to Solidary & Solitary, on view at the Nasher Museum in Durham, North Carolina, through July 15. continue to blog
Drawn from the world renowned Joyner/Giuffrida Collection of modern and contemporary abstract African diasporan art, Solidary & Solitary opens this week at the Nasher Museum in Durham, North Carolina. “Places to Love For” (2013) is by the British-Ghanaian writer and painter Lyentte Yiadom-Boakye, whose paintings of imaginary characters, often ballet dancers, took the art world by storm last year during a one-person exhibition at the New Museum. In her New Yorker profile of the artist, Zadie Smith noted Yiadom-Boakye's ability to “create the effect of wholly realized figures while simultaneously confounding so many of our assumptions about the figurative. The type of questions prompted by, say, Holbein (What kind of a man was Sir Thomas More?) or Gainsborough (What was the social status of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews?), or when considering a Lucian Freud (What is the relation between painter and model?), are all short-circuited here, replaced by an existential query not much heard in contemporary art: Who is this?” continue to blog
TONIGHT from 6-8PM, Arezoo Moseni and the NYPL present a panel discussion on Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art. Published by Gregory R. Miller & Co., this critically acclaimed volume celebrates of one of the most exceptional collections of art in America. Esteemed panelists Christopher Bedford, Mary Schmidt Campbell, Thomas Lax, and Fred Wilson will discuss the collection in the context of the momentous legacy of African and African Diasporan art from the last 100 years. Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Sheena Wagstaff will moderate. Book signing to follow. continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 8 x 10.25 in. / 336 pgs / 270 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $55.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $72.5 GBP £50.00 ISBN: 9781941366103 PUBLISHER: Gregory R. Miller & Co. AVAILABLE: 9/27/2016 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: WORLD
Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art
Published by Gregory R. Miller & Co.. Edited by Courtney J. Martin. Introduction by Mary Schmidt Campbell. Text by Chris Bedford, Joost Boosland, Mark Bradford, Alexis Clark, Nicholas Cullinan, Mark Godfrey, Norman L. Kleeblatt, et al.
The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art is widely recognized as one of the most significant collections of modern and contemporary work by African and African Diasporan artists, and Four Generations draws upon the collection's unparalleled holdings to explore the critical contributions made by black artists to the evolution of visual art in the 20th and 21st centuries. Extensively illustrated with hundreds of works in a variety of media, and featuring scholarly texts by leading artists, writers and curators, Four Generations gives an essential overview of some of the most notable artists and movements of the last century, up to and including works being made today.
Four major new scholarly essays provide touchstones for the unifying themes of the collection, and provide historical background on the struggles, innovations, communities and questions that have driven the development of African American and African arts—including a new text by Joost Bosland on the reception of contemporary African art after 1989; Susan and Elihu Rose Chief Curator of the Jewish Museum’s Norman L. Kleeblatt on the pioneering achievements of Norman Lewis; Tate Modern Senior Curator Mark Godfrey on black artists in the 1960s and 1970s; as well as a crucial look at contemporary art and practice by the book's editor Courtney J. Martin, Assistant Professor of the History of Art and Architecture at Brown University.
Short essays on single artists and significant works punctuate each historical chapter, including texts and interviews by noteworthy writers such as Thelma Golden, Philippe Vergne, Thomas J. Lax, Lawrence Rinder, Christopher Bedford and others, on artists like Kara Walker, Mark Bradford, Lorna Simpson, Norman Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Theaster Gates, Clifford Owens, Jennie C. Jones, Julie Mehretu, and more.
The catalogue is further illustrated with major works by artists from throughout the last century, such as Beauford Delaney, Jacob Lawrence, Alma Thomas, David Hammons, Sam Gilliam, Lauren Halsey, Oscar Murillo, Jayson Musson, Robin Rhode, Zander Blom, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and many others.
Filled with countless insights and treasures, Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art is a journey through one of the most exceptional collections of art in America, and through the momentous legacy of African and African Diasporan art from the last hundred years.
