Oct 22

Set Oct 11

Jh/mjm

HUDSON HILLS RELEASES NEW EDITION OF MASTER PAINTING IN THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

NEW YORK CITY – “The works contained in Master Paintings reflect the vision and ambition – shaped and maintained by Chicago collectors and museum curators, directors, and trustees – that have helped the Art Institute grow, since its founding more than a century ago, form an outpost of culture on the Midwestern prairie to one of the world’s great museums.” – James N. Wood

Master Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago was originally published in 1988. In 1997 Hudson Hills Press undertook trade distribution of the book and it was selected by Book-of-The-Month Club as a Featured Dividend (along with a companion volume, The Art Institute of Chicago: Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture).  Publishers Weekly’s review remarked that the book “demonstrates the collection’s breadth and vital beauty.” Now, after the success of several printings of the original edition, a second, substantially revised edition is being published.

About one-fifth of the masterpieces in the new edition entered the museum’s collections after the first edition was published. Others represent new “discoveries” within the museum’s historic holdings. While more than 100 works are repeated from the original edition, many are presented with revised texts that reflect recent scholarship. Altogether, 149 paintings spanning six centuries are reproduced, organized, like the Art Institute itself, into three divisions, European, American, and Twentieth Century.

Earlier European paintings range from jewel-like Renaissance panels to works by El Greco (his “Assumption of the Virgin” is considered by many to be the greatest single work in the museum), Rubens, Rembrandt, Boucher, and Fragonard. This section culminates in selections from the Art Institute’s world-renowned collection of Impressionist painters, including Monet (“Arrival of the Normandy Train,” “Gare Saint-Lazare”), Monet, Renoir (“Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando”) Van Gogh (“The Bedroom”),  Cézanne, and Seurat (“A Sunday on La Grade Jatte”). New additions include works by Van der Weyden, Greuze, Goya, Monet, Moreau, Ensor, Vuillard, Renoir, and Claude.

The selection of American paintings captures the unique flavor and variety of the art of the growing nation, from Colonial portraits and rustic landscapes to memorable pictures by Homer (“The Herring Net”),  Whistler (“Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Southampton Water”), Remington (“The Advance Guard”), and Cassatt (“The Child’s Bath”). Added to this section are works by Peale, Johnson, Hassam, Bierstadt, and Whistler.

The Twentieth Century paintings illustrate the vast territory encompassed by the art of our century, from Picasso (“The Old Guitarist”), Miro, Modigliani, Hopper (“Nighthawks”), Magritte (“Time Transfixed”),  O’Keeffe, Hartley, and Grant Wood (“American Gothic”) to Pollock, Lichtenstein, Warhol, and Kiefer. New recent masterworks are by Feininger, Dali, Lawrence, Miro, Matta, Pollock, Mitchell, Still, Richter, Close, Polke, and Freud.

Master Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago includes an introduction by James N. Wood describing the origins of the museum and the development of its collections; Wood has been director of the Art Institute since 1980. The texts accompanying the colorplates newly added to this edition are by Sally Ruth May. A native of Pittsburgh, May now resides in Chicago and is also author of The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide (1993). The texts repeated from the original edition are by Catherine Bock-Weiss, Courtney Donnell, Thomas Frederickson, Jean Goldman, Mary Gray, Ann Morgan, Dennis Nawrocki, Terry Ann R. Neff, Susan F. Rossen, Steve Sennott, Thomas L. Sloan, Malcolm Warren, Martha Wolff, and James Yood.

For further information contact the Hudson Hills Press on 122 East 25th Street. Telephone 212/674-6005.