The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis [Hardcover]

Michael Rush (Author), David Anfam (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2009

The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University possesses one of the most extraordinary collections of any academic institution, spanning the last century in Western art, from the early European and American Modernists up to the 21st century. This catalogue of its holdings demonstrates the breadth of the collection.

Early purchases from the 1960s dominate the core of the collection, including works by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Willem De Kooning, and Andy Warhol. Contemporary works by artists such as Nam June Paik, Richard Prince, Matthew Barney, and Gregory Crewdson add to its luster. Essays on individual periods by Brandeis faculty, alumni, and distinguished critics put the collection into perspective.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael Rush is the Director of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. A widely published author, art critic and theater and video artist, he has written books on new media and video art, curated exhibitions at Miami Art Basel and the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art (PBICA) and been featured at the Centre Pompidou (Paris), Kunsthaus (Zurich) and Whitney Museum (New York).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Abrams; 1 edition (October 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810955741
• ISBN-13: 978-0810955745
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 9.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,025,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I hope they sell the book,not the collection..., October 2, 2009

By 

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

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This review is from: The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis (Hardcover)

This wonderful book documents one of the hidden gems of the museum scene in the United States: the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. It was published in anticipation of the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the museum (in 2011), but also at a crucial time for the museum itself, since some "wishful thinkers" are currently contemplating the idea of selling off ("deaccessioning" as they say) part of this wonderful collection of modern and contemporary art.

The book divides the collection into 6 distinct sections: European and American modernism (Cézanne, Braque, Dix, Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley...), Social Realism and Surrealism (Baziotes, Bellows, Dali, Ernst, Magritte...), postwar American art and Abstract Expressionism (which is where the most beautiful treasures of the collection lie, such as a seminal De Kooning of 1961, a fantasmagoric Guston of 1947, a typically grey Jasper Johns of 1957...), Pop art and Minimalism (Jim Dine, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Judd, Andre,Ruscha...), photography and photorealism (Estes, Goings, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Walker Evans...)and cutting-edge contemporary (Bleckner, Barney, Mendieta, Winters...). Of course, this division may at times seem arbitrary (Grosz among the "social realists" and Dix among the "modernists", Staël among "abstract expressionists", Pop art thrown into the same section as minimalism, among other debatable pigeonholings...)but it provides a great overview of an irreplaceable and ever-growing collection.

A book which I highly recommend, especially considering the uncertain fate of the collection.

All the illustrations are full-page and of a very high quality.