Richard Shiff
Richard Shiff is Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art and director, Center for the Study of Modernism, at the University of Texas at Austin.
Shiff, Richard
Shiff, Richard
United States of America
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Description: Barnett Newman: A Catalogue Raisonné
~To read Newman’s writings of the late 1940s is to become familiar with a certain vocabulary applied to a certain set of themes: he speaks repeatedly of terror, tragedy, and despair as the human content of art; of the need to act and the futility of acting; of the search for the self and the desire to become self-aware; and of the artist’s mission to...
PublisherYale University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.75-91
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00235.003
Description: Barnett Newman: A Catalogue Raisonné
He was trying to find out who he was,” Annalee Newman said. This was the “meta” beyond the physical materiality of Newman’s art
PublisherYale University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.44-74
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00235.002
Description: Barnett Newman: A Catalogue Raisonné
In its spatial and temporal senses, the prefix meta signifies “beyond”: situated after, past, above, underneath, or even behind something else. Applied to a concept or category, meta usually identifies a set of issues, operations, or objects that supersede or transcend whatever else corresponds to the type. The merely “beyond” becomes the...
PublisherYale University Press
Related print edition pages: pp.3-43
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00235.001
Description: Barnett Newman: A Catalogue Raisonné
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00235
Barnett Newman (1905–1970), one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, has captivated critics, scholars, and the general public for decades. This definitive catalogue raisonné presents Newman’s entire oeuvre—paintings, drawings, sculpture, graphics, an architectural model, lost and unfinished works, and ephemera. Featured elements include color reproductions; extensive provenance, exhibition, and publication histories; and a listing of the contents of the artist’s library at the time of his death.

In addition to the catalogue raisonné prepared by Heidi Colsman-Freyberger, the book offers revelatory essays on the artist, his career, and his working methods and features fascinating photographs of Newman, his studios, and his installations. Richard Shiff draws on new documentation to explain why Newman chose to create abstract art, how he achieved “fullness” in his paintings, and how his works exemplify the social functions of an artist. Carol C. Mancusi-Ungaro reveals extraordinary details about Newman’s studio practice and materials and techniques, information not available to the public before because Newman only allowed his wife to observe him at work. Mancusi-Ungaro also discusses the fate of works that were damaged while traveling to exhibitions or by vandals.

*The eBook is available exclusively on the A&AePortal*
Print publication date October 2004 (out of print)
Print ISBN 9780300101678
EISBN 9780300259780
Illustrations 451
Print Status out of print