Robert Ryman [Hardcover]

Robert Storr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1993

Known as the "painter of white paintings", the American Robert Ryman is one of the foremost abstract artists of his generation. Catalogue entries for 81 works draw extensively on interviews with the artist. A detailed chronology places Ryman's work in the context of his major contemporaries.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Robert Ryman is a nonfigurative artist who makes white paintings. One might think, upon a cursory examination of these works, that Ryman was an academic type, fond of the rhetoric of abstraction. But Ryman is self-taught, self-effacing, and rather romantic. Storr, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, summarizes Ryman's quiet life and elucidates his passionate but methodical approach to painting with consummate narrative skills, supporting his commentary with excerpts from numerous interviews with the artist and, of course, a superb set of, yes, colorplates. Ryman's first medium was music. A bebop saxophone player, he took a day job as a guard at the Museum of Modern Art and scrutinized the masters for seven years until, suddenly, in 1953, he began to paint. He's been at it ever since. Ryman chose, early on, to work within strict limitations, hence the white paint, and has devoted himself to seeing "what visual riches can be coaxed from such slender means," a mission not unlike the improvisations of jazz. Curiously, like many jazz musicians of his generation, his work has been more highly regarded in Europe than in America, but a major traveling retrospective exhibition, and this fine volume, will increase his visibility and earn him the recognition he deserves. Donna Seaman

Product Details

• Hardcover: 236 pages
• Publisher: Tate Gallery Pubn; First Edition edition (October 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810937719
• ISBN-13: 978-0810937710
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 9.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,151,852 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally a comprehensive book on Ryman!, March 13, 2000

By 

Robert Spees - See all my reviews

This review is from: Robert Ryman (Hardcover)

Finally, the realist painter is looked into in depth and past due recogniton. The book is amazing- 81 colorplates of his paintings that start as early as 1958 all the way to 1993. Each plate includes a description of the painting, and some the artist's comments about the work. The back of the book even includes a cronology of Ryman's life, exhibitions, newspaper articles, and interviews. The book is a must for any fan of Ryman.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars His subject is painting, April 4, 2007

By 

Claude Reich (Florianopolis, Brazil and Paris, France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Robert Ryman (Hardcover)

The definitive study on Ryman. The first opportunity to see his work in depth and to understand how the act of painting is his only preoccupation.
Just as Frans Hals had infinite nuances of black, Ryman has infinite tones and textures of white and these are well rendered in the book thanks to wonderful illustrations. A penetrating text by one of the leading art critics of our time.
It is a hard-to-find book, but nevertheless indispensable in any self-respecting contemporary art library.