Customer Reviews

John Currin

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I had the pleasure of picking up this volume at the opening of Mr. Currin's American retrospective in Chicago a few years back, and subsequently meeting Mr. Currin. He's a very quiet and gentle man but you can honestly sense his vast knowledge of painting and the psyche lying just underneath his guy next door-ness. Painting and the psyche is exactly what his work is about. He paints mainly women, in the lushest and most traditional manner you can think of. He paints them in his own twisted version of neo-mannerism using extremely traditional oil painting techniques. Indeed, he's probably the only painter on the contemporary art scene who's capable of painting in the manner that he paints, which recalls Raphael, Cranach, and Chardin to name a few. He has a sense of style and color that challenges the greatest masters, but he never runs too far with his talent, he has always maintained an effortless and subtle outrageousness. Imagine if Russ Meyer had let Martha Stewart helm his pictures and you have a John Currin painting. This book is a sublime example of what an artists monograph should be. A terrific and long interview with the artist, a landmark and rare essay by Rosenblum on his favourite topic of figurative painting, and the best colored plates you can imagine, fully recreating the color and freshness of Currin's paintings. I hate to touch this book because it's value will undoubtedly increase as the monograph becomes rarer, but I find this impossible because it's just so terrific and filled with Currin's imagery and information. This is the definitive John Currin book, and a MUST for any fan of his work.

Was disappointed to find that my favorite picture - Stanford After-Brunch 2000, was split between two pages so that you were unable to get a look at it and really apprecaite it. May want to let other buyers know that the cover that is shown is not the cover that is actually on the book - Wish a viewer could peak inside and actually see if it is what they are looking for. Other than that it is what one would expect to find in any other art book.

John Currin's name is one that is frequently mentioned when conversations about figurative art today arise. He made his name with his well crafted paintings of buxom women - near distortions of chesty gals that made many viewers think about Pop Art. Some critics considered these quasi-comic book images as illustration for the voyeur and that idea about Currin's art is difficult to shed. Until books such as this magnificent volume produced by Rizzoli!

In this volume that spans John Currin's career we are introduced to his early works of still lifes and head portraits and then the book proceeds into the realm of his famous semi-nude female tropes and the question arises: are these women a subtle mockery of the female form or are they a celebration of sensual, at times shallow, beauties delivered to the hungry eye of the male viewer? The authors of the essays provide fine insights as to the 'Rake's Progress' and lead the viewer through the very sensitive domestic views of both male couples and male/female couples while continuing to offer the facial portraits of women and men that make the viewer alter perception of just how fine a painter Currin is. John Currin may jolt the eye now and then but he also proves to be one of the more sensitive examiners of our current lifestyle. This book is a well designed, generous compendium of the work of the at times misunderstood painter John Currin. It will set the art history dialogue straight. Grady Harp, September 11

This is a small book with a fairly limited selection of pictures of his work. Also one of his best works Stanford-after-brunch 2000 is slit on two pages. Don't pay over 20.00 for a new copy.

I already liked John Currin's work...but this book gave a lot more insight into it. In addition the images were Great.

I hear modern art was beaten into him

The fruit never falls far from the tree.