Susan Rothenberg [Paperback]

Joan Simon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2000

Susan Rothenberg is recognized as an innovative painter and was a key figure in the revitalization of painting in the 1970s. This book represents a monograph of her life and work.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Though Susan Rothenberg is perhaps best known for her paintings of horses, the subjects of her paintings are in fact quite varied--abstract portraits, landscapes, and atmospheric expressionist canvases round out her oeuvre. This book is the first comprehensive monograph of Rothenberg's work, offering the reader a broad view of both her paintings and her life. Born in upstate New York, Rothenberg spent her early years studying art and dance before moving to Manhattan for college. There, she became involved in the conceptually oriented art world of 1960s New York City. As Rothenberg began to individuate herself and her work from that movement, her canvases became one of the forces that reinvigorated American painting in the 1970s. Rothenberg later headed to the Southwest, inspiring the incorporation of themes culled from her desert environment into her continually evolving painting style. This volume is filled with excellent reproductions of her work, accompanied by Rothenberg's own comments about her ideas and inspirations that provide excellent insight into both her work and her character. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 206 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (March 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810927489
• ISBN-13: 978-0810927483
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 10 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #650,076 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A major artist, an insightful text, but poor reproductions., November 17, 2008

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Claude Reich (Florianopolis, Brazil and Paris, France) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Susan Rothenberg (Paperback)

This book is undoubtedly the best available on Susan Rothenberg, even though it is far from perfect and stops at the year 1990. The text is a detailed appraisal of her career, with focuses on the critical reception, on her working process and on her sources of inspiration. Overall, this introduction is a high-quality text obviously written by a critic who knows and loves the work. However, the many illustrations (most of them in color) are at best average. A few fold-outs (for the horse paintings of the mid seventies) do stand out, but the book is devoid of any close-ups and therefore the reader does not get a chance to appreciate the artist's brushwork and the texture of the paintings. Slightly disappointing in this respect, maybe because the book was published 17 years ago and has not been updated since.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dances with Images, August 16, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Susan Rothenberg (Paperback)

SUSAN ROTHENBERG's animals are recognizable and simply drawn on flat but energetically worked surfaces to capture movement and spirit: they in particular link the impulsively figurative Abstract Expressionism of Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock with the geometrical Minimalism of Barnett Newman and Ad Reinhardt. In fact, she sees art as needing a maker to change a familiar object into something other than itself: her horse paintings call up the direct, subtle imagery and tonality of cave paintings on abstractly lush surfaces; "Mukuhara" shows a sprightly single bound in midair and midfield with a hinted vertical divide in the overall sienna surface, and "Flanders" barely details black figure and ground within white outlines. But when she starts talking about landscapes and portraits, it means that she is putting a stop to serializing her images: bikers; dancers "Holding the floor" by firmly grounding an arabesque and countering with a sweeping arm gesture, jugglers, spinners, and vaulters "Vaulting" in the one continuously steady step-by-step movement of Marcel Duchamp's "Nude descending a staircase"; hands and heads; horses; and U-turns. Her "Grandmother" portrait is the first time that she has two separate figures relating to each other in her art. Her daughter "Maggie's cartwheel" portrait is one of my favorites, partly because it makes me think of the artist's hoop performance in a beach piece by friend Joan Jones. Her "Mondrian" charcoal on paper portrait is the first time that she brings an art-historical figure into her work and that she paints after drawing instead of her usual turning a drawing into a painting. I particularly like the work that she does in blue: "The blue chair," which author Joan Simon describes as Matisse-wise in the sitter giving off comfort, composure and containment while looking toward the unknown; my two favorite landscapes, "Blue frontal," with upturned white horse legs framing a blue-black field with a blue horse, and "Foxes on a hill," with the asymmetrically symmetrical composition on a deep blue with black field; and "Blue woman," "Buddha with bamboo," and "Folded Buddha" in Giotto-style blue. The book's beautiful illustrations and clear text do justice to the artist and her work: it leaves no doubt about how she fits it with THE IMPACT OF MODERN PAINTS by Jo Crook and Tom Learner, MATISSE, by Lawrence Gowing, LEE KRASNER by Robert Hobbs, and PIET MONDRIAN by Hans Ludwig C. Jaffe.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars YUMMY!, December 4, 2007

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N. Mccormick "dragon1" (earth, milky way) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Susan Rothenberg (Paperback)

This is a great book for an artist....HEAVY on the images, LIGHT on the words. Reproductions are wonderful both in color and in size. If you're a painter, I absolutely recommend this book!