CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 5/16/2014

Bruce Kurland: Illusion and the Little World

Bruce Kurland's 1975 oil painting, "Petunias," is reproduced from Illusion and the Little World, Avocet's exquisite new monograph on the artist, who died just before it was published, in 2013. In her essay, Lisa Jarnot writes, "Awe is the word that comes to mind—an awe that originated in childhood reveries on marshes in Long Island and evolved through adolescent Coast Guard duty and hunting and homesteading in upstate New York. Awe in the original sense of the word: a reverential dread and wonder. In Bruce's paintings I hear the words he spoke when we were awestruck by nimble legged shore birds, CNN's visceral Baghdad fireworks, or Francis Bacon paintings of screaming popes. 'Look at that,' he'd whisper breathlessly, and sometimes he'd add, 'It's beautiful.'"