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.
