Objects of Desire: The Modern Still Life

New York: The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1997. Softcover. VG. Blues & pictorial wraps. 232 pp. 16 bw, 131 color plates. Issued in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, May 25-Aug. 26, 1997, and the Hayward Gallery, London, Oct. 9, 1997-Jan. 4, 1998. This book is "an incisive exploration of the still life genre as artists have rediscovered and reshaped it in the twentieth century. The innovative purpose of so much of the art of these years has led to a sense of the period as quite hostile to older aesthetic conventions, many of which were widely attacked and abandoned; yet from the century's first decade to the present day, from Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse through to Cindy Sherman and Charles Ray, artists of many schools have made of the still life a vital opportunity for invention." (back cover) Presents 131 items, as well as explanatory commentary.