Face Value: Portraiture in the Age of Abstraction

Reports of its death were exaggerated but persistent in the art world; in mid-twentieth century America, everyone seemed to agree that portraiture was finished as a progressive art form.

A groundbreaking reassessment of the reinvention of portraiture in America between 1945 and 1975—the period when the abstract expressionists reached international prominence—this new volume presents fifty-five innovative portrait paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures. It features works by Joan Brown, Alice Neel, Elaine de Kooning, Larry Rivers, Marisol Escobar, Alex Katz, Romare Bearden, Fairfield Porter, Jamie Wyeth, and Andy Warhol, amongst others.

Features a poem by leading New York School poet John Ashbery specially commissioned for this book.