Surrealists in New York
Atelier 17 and the Birth of Abstract Expressionism
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Thames & Hudson Ltd
Published:16th Mar '23
Should be back in stock very soon
An absorbing group biography revealing how exiles from war-torn France brought Surrealism to America, helping to shift the centre of the art world from Paris to New York and spark the movement that became Abstract Expressionism.
In 1957 the American artist Robert Motherwell made an unexpected claim: ‘I have only known two painting milieus well … the Parisian Surrealists, with whom I began painting seriously in New York in 1940, and the native movement that has come to be known as “abstract expressionism”, but which genetically would have been more properly called “abstract surrealism”.’
Motherwell’s bold assertion, that Abstract Expressionism was neither new nor local, but born of a brief liaison between America and France, verged on the controversial. Surrealists in New York tells the story of this ‘liaison’ and the European exiles who bought Surrealism with them – an artistic exchange between the Old World and the New – centring on taciturn printmaker Stanley William Hayter and the legendary Atelier 17 print studio he founded. Here artists’ experiments literally pushed the boundaries of modern art. It was in Hayter’s studio that Jackson Pollock found the balance of freedom and control that would culminate in his distinctive drip paintings.
The impact of Max Ernst, André Masson, Louise Bourgeois and other noted émigrés on the work of Motherwell, Pollock, Mark Rothko and the American avant-garde has for too long been quietly written out of art history. Drawing on first-hand documents, interviews and archive materials, Charles Darwent brings to life the events and personalities from this crucial encounter. In so doing, he reveals a fascinating new perspective on the history of the art of the twentieth century.
'I couldn’t believe the book hadn’t been written' - Robert Storr, art historian and ex-MoMA curator
'Charles Darwent’s Surrealists in New York shows that Surrealism, not Expressionism, was the European mode that was truly abstracted in New York ... Darwent’s book … tells the real story' - Literary Review
'It is a bold claim that the most influential abstract expressionist was an English geologist, but one he [Darwent] proves persuasively, using detail laced with drollness' - Sunday Times
'A very readable and accessible account of a hitherto unexplored area of mainstream art history ... an important book on two counts: for its welcome reassessment of Hayter, and for the light it sheds on the links between the Surrealists and the Abstract Expressionists. Certainly it subtly alters the landscape of modern American art. Darwent writes authoritatively, marshalling a wide range of entertaining anecdotes and quotations to sustain his thesis' - The Spectator
'Diverting' - World of Interiors
'Absorbing … Drawing on first-hand documents, interviews and archive materials, Charles Darwent brings to life the events and personalities from this crucial encounter. In so doing, he reveals a fascinating new perspective on the history of the art of the twentieth century' - .Cent
'Ambitious … [Darwent’s] account contributes significant biographical detail to the downtown network that saw mid-war Manhattan supersede Paris as the artworld capital … His consistently engaging narrative paints a fuller portrait of the conversations that propelled some of the seismic shifts in canonical modern art: from automatism to formalism, Surrealism to abstraction, Paris to New York' - Art Review
'This admirably lucid and carefully researched book makes a compelling case for Hayter’s role in the revolution that took place in American painting during the 1940s. It is also a stark reminder that art history remains a work in progress' - The Art Newspaper
'Eight gripping chapters, across 180 pages, uncovers a largely hitherto unexplored epoch; the tail-end of French Surrealism, merging with the beginnings of American Abstract Expressionism' - Printmaking Today
'Well-researched and richly illustrated … [Darwent] provides a fascinating insight into the New York art scene in the 1940s' - British Museum Magazine
ISBN: 9780500094266
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 600g
264 pages