From James Rosenquist, one of our most iconic pop artists—along with Andy Warhol, Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg, and Roy Lichtenstein—comes this candid and fascinating memoir. Unlike these artists, Rosenquist often works in three-dimensional forms, with highly dramatic shifts in scale and a far more complex palette, including grisaille and Day-Glo colors. A skilled traditional painter, he avoided the stencils and silk screens of Warhol and Lichtenstein. His vast canvases full of brilliant, surreally juxtaposed images would influence both many of his contemporaries and younger generations, as well as revolutionize twentieth-century painting. Ronsequist writes about growing up in a tight-knit community of Scandinavian farmers in North Dakota and Minnesota in the late 1930s and early 1940s; about his mother, who was not only an amateur painter but, along with his father, a passionate aviator; and about leaving that flat midwestern landscape in 1955 for New York, where he had won a scholarship to the Art Students League. George Grosz, Edwin Dickinson, and Robert Beverly Hale were among his teachers, but his early life was a struggle until he discovered sign painting. He describes days suspended on scaffolding high over Broadway, painting movie or theater billboards, and nights at the Cedar Tavern with Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and the poet LeRoi Jones. His first major studio, on Coenties Slip, was in the thick of the new art world. Among his neighbors were Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Indiana, Agnes Martin, and Jack Youngerman, and his mentors Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Rosenquist writes about his shows with the dealers Richard Bellamy, Ileana Sonnabend, and Leo Castelli, and about colorful collectors like Robert and Ethel Scull. We learn about the 1971 car crash that left his wife and son in a coma and his own life and work in shambles, his lobbying—along with Rauschenberg—for artists’ rights in Washington D.C., and how he got his work back on track. With his distinct voice, Roseqnuist writes about the ideas behind some of his major paintings, from the startling revelation that led to his first pop painting, Zone, to his masterpiece, F-III, a stunning critique of war and consumerism, to the cosmic reverie of Star Thief. This is James Rosenquist’s story in his own words—captivating and unexpected, a unique look inside the contemporary art world in the company of one of its most important painters.

Painting Below Zero: Notes on a Life in Art

Dalton, David

Rosenquist, James

Humor & Entertainment

KNOPF

A beautifully illustrated and designed book of the important Pop artist's previously unpublished working studies This book sheds new light on the fascinating working processes of American Pop artist James Rosenquist. Using the techniques of billboard painting and the visual language of advertising, Rosenquist's paintings explore consumer culture, politics, war, and other themes through startling juxtapositions of powerful imagery, including of cars, women, celebrities, food, appliances, a fighter jet, and the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb. James Rosenquist: Collages, Drawings, and Paintings in Process presents previously unpublished preparatory work by the artist--quick sketches to capture ideas, detailed studies, color keys, source materials, and photographs--alongside the iconic paintings that resulted.

James Rosenquist: Collages, Drawings, and Paintings in Process (The Sketchbooks)

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Princeton University Press

James Rosenquist: A Retrospective

Lipsticks, automobiles, dishwashers, men in business suits, spaghetti, rockets, airplanes, hairdryers, ice cream cones and pigtailed girls. James Rosenquist has always known how to combine these seemingly disparate but always all-American elements into whirlwind, billboard-sized collages of airbrushed surreal euphoria, slamming colors, patterns and objects into one another with the eye of an advertising man and the heart of a Pop artist. This momentous catalogue, published to accompany the first in-depth survey of the artist's work since 1972, will give long-overdue, in-depth attention to Rosenquist's singular achievement in American art. Extensive illustrations cover major works in diverse media, including work on paper that reveals the artist's process, as well as extensive new and archival photography. Essays focus on areas that have only been superficially addressed in the literature to date, bringing the level of Rosenquist scholarship up to that of his Pop Art contemporaries. Curator Walter Hopps provides an overview of the artist's career; Julia Blaut considers the artist's source collages in the context of 20th-century collage; Ruth E. Fine addresses Rosenquist's prints; art collector and former aeronautics researcher Eugene E. Epstein relates the artist's work to scientific phenomena. Also included are a definitive biography, exhibition history and illustrated chronology.

Fine, Ruth

Bancroft, Sarah

Guggenheim Museum

Drawings while waiting for an idea

Lapp Princess Press

Introduction by Judith Goldman,32 pages, clothbound with jacket,11 color plates,12-1/4 x 9-3/4 inches

James Rosenquist: Paintings 1996-1999

Baldwin Gallery

With a giant, soft drum set by Claes Oldenburg, a white alphabet by Jasper Johns, a combine painting with radio attached by Robert Rauschenburg, a halved peach, Buick, naked lady (all together) by James Rosenquist, rows of Campbell's soup cans by Andy Warhol, pin-up girls by Mel Ramos, and a graphic explosion by Roy Lichtenstein, the works gathered here pack more of a big bang than a mere pop. With signature pieces by the movement's stars, the John and Kimiko Powers Collection of Pop Art is considered one of the most extensive in private hands. Accompanied by individual essays on each of the represented artists.

Pop Art: The John And Kimiko Powers Collection

DINE, Jim

Hickey, Dave

Shapiro, David

Johns, Jasper

Rauschenberg, Robert

Goldman, Judith

Rothkopf, Scott

OLDENBURG, Claes

Norden, Linda

RIVERS, Larry

Crone, Rainer

Schaesberg, Petrus Graf

Relyea, Lane

LICHTENSTEIN, Roy

Gilbert-Rolfe, Jeremy

Wesselmann, Tom

Ramos, Mel

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

GAGOSIAN GALLERY

James Rosenquist's Commissioned Works

Painters Posters

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rosenquist, James. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Rosenquist, James