An absorbing group biography revealing how exiles from war-torn France brought surrealism to America, sparking the movement that became abstract expressionism. 
In 1957 the American artist Robert Motherwell made an unexpected claim: "I have only known two painting milieus well … the Parisian Surrealists, with whom I began painting seriously in New York in 1940, and the native movement that has come to be known as 'abstract expressionism,' but which genetically would have been more properly called 'abstract surrealism.'" 
Motherwell’s bold assertion, that abstract expressionism was neither new nor local, but born of a brief liaison between America and France, verged on the controversial. Surrealists in New York tells the story of this "liaison" and the European exiles who bought Surrealism with them―an artistic exchange between the Old World and the New―centering on taciturn printmaker Stanley William Hayter and the legendary Atelier 17 print studio he founded. Here artists’ experiments literally pushed the boundaries of modern art. It was in Hayter’s studio that Jackson Pollock found the balance of freedom and control that would culminate in his distinctive drip paintings. 
The impact of Max Ernst, André Masson, Louise Bourgeois and other noted émigrés on the work of Motherwell, Pollock, Mark Rothko, and the American avant-garde has for too long been quietly written out of art history. Drawing on first-hand documents, interviews, and archive materials, Charles Darwent brings to life the events and personalities from this crucial encounter, revealing a fascinating new perspective on the history of the art of the twentieth century. 93 illustrations / 52 in color

Surrealists in New York: Atelier 17 and the Birth of Abstract Expressionism

Arts & Photography

Darwent, Charles

History & Criticism

Thames&Hudson

The first full-scale biography of the great 20th-century artist, craftsman, and thinker Josef Albers, whose influence is still felt today. 
Drawing on extensive unpublished archival writings, documents, and illustrations, this is the first full-scale biography of one of the 20th-century’s great artists.
In his accessible study of the “whole” Albers, Charles Darwent combats the fables while telling the fascinating story of an artist, friend, and intellectual.
Among Albers’s unpublished papers are letters from friends John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra, and Eva Hesse, as well as fans and collectors ranging from the composer Virgil Thomson to the cartoonist Saul Steinberg. If his network of influence was surprisingly wide, so too, were his interests. He started life at the Bauhaus as a glass-maker and went on to create fonts, to run their famous wallpaper workshop, and to make furniture whose designs are still in production eighty years later. He pioneered the study of color at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, and chaired the design department at Yale University. While books have been written about Albers for specialist audiences, this new volume fulfills the clear need for a more general study.

Josef Albers: Life and Work

Individual Artists

Working outside the usual traditions and subject matter of the genre, Neil Gall is best known for his 'S&amp;M sculpture paintings' which conjure the flotsam and jetsam of everyday life into stunted, contorted and amputated characters. This book is a thought-provoking exploration of this exciting artist.

Shelf Life: Neil Gall

Malt, Johanna

Groom, Simon

Black Dog Publishing

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Books by Darwent, Charles