In the hierarchy of art, painting has always been at the top of the heap. The medium lends itself to the depiction of life, death, and desires, as well as to the investigation of imaginary, abstract forms. Two new Phaidon Press tomes, Painting Today and Painting Abstraction: New Elements in Abstract Painting, offer an exciting overview of painting in every conceivable genre — from ambiguous abstraction to hybrid pictures.
Painting Today presents an international roundup of the best painters of the past 40 years. Written by Tony Godfrey, a 20-year veteran at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, the volume begins with a look at the Global Scene, which includes Australian aboriginal painter Uta Uta Tjangala, Korean abstractionist Lee Ufan, and the Colombian portrayer of fat-figured people Fernando Botero. The next chapter examines Western Traditions in contemporary painting, featuring Richard Prince’s riffs on Willem de Kooning’s abstract women, Bridget Riley’s op-art patterns, and Alex Katz’s formal figurative studies, among others.
