James Rosenquist: A Retrospective

New York, New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2003. Hardcover. VG- (Boards show mild shelfwear; DJ shows shelfwear; textblock has some blue smudging; interior is clean and tight.). Red cloth over boards with silver lettering; Color illustrated DJ with orange, white and black lettering; xxv, 415 pp.; 182 bw and color figures; 271 color plates. In 2003, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum mounted a major retrospective of James Rosenquist's works, which traveled to the Menil Collection, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Since the late 1950s, James Rosenquist has been creating an exceptional and consistently intriguing body of work. In the 1960s, following his early days as a billboard painter in the Midwest and New York City, he gained fame as one of the leaders of the American Pop art movement. Along with contemporaries Jim Dine, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, and Andy Warhol, Rosenquist drew on the iconography of advertising and mass media to conjure a sense of modern life. Rosenquist's paintings directly allude to the cultural and political tenor of the times in which they were created. From his renowned Pop canvases to his billboard-sized works and continuing with his recent use of abstract painting techniques, James Rosenquist: A Retrospective presents the artist's enduring interest in and mastery of texture, color, line, and shape that continues to dazzle audiences and influence younger generations of artists. The book features nearly 300 of the artist's most significant works-- Contents as follows: Essays. Connoisseur of the inexplicable / Walter Hopps -- James Rosenquist : collage and the painting of modern life / Julia Blaut -- Off the continental divide and other risky journeys / Ruth E. Fine -- Painting and sculpture : with texts on selected themes. Anonymity, celebrity, and self-promotion / Sarah Bancroft -- Modern issues and current events / Sarah Bancroft -- Rooms with a view : walk-in paintings / Chris Balsiger -- Flora and Florida : "crosshatched" paintings / Michelle Harewood -- Space and scientific phenomena / Sarah Bancroft -- An astronomer observes and feels James Rosenquist's art / Eugene E. Epstein -- Source collages -- Drawings -- Graphics and multiples -- Documentation. Chronology -- Exhibition history / compiled by Sarah Bancroft with Janice Yang -- Selected bibliography / compiled by Sarah Bancroft with Janice Yang.