A clear, swift-moving account of the visual arts in the past half century. All the most recent trends and artists are discussed including Minimal and Conceptual art, Arte Povera, the influence of Joseph Beuys, Neo-Expressionism, Neo-Conceptualism and the work of Feminist and Gay artists as aspects of Postmodernism. The emergence of the powerful work - until recently considered 'peripheral' - of African-American and regional American artists, and new trends in Latin American, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, modern African, Caribbean and Aboriginal art are all introduced and discussed, providing a world panorama of art at the end of the century. A full bibliography and for the first time comprehensive chronologies of key events from 1940 to the present make this book a unique guide to the main issues, concepts and players.

A review in which Edward Lucie-Smith discusses major subjects and issues such as Magic Realism, Expressionism and other concepts shared with Latin American literature; the great muralists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Jose Clemente Orozc; the interaction of politics, society and art; the continuing interest in folk art; and the dialogue between avant-garde European and North American movements and "indigenist" thinking in the styles of artists such as Wifredo Lam, Rufino Tamayo and Frida Kahlo. Many other artists are covered - including a large number of women, from the 1900s to the present day - in this introduction to a great body of original and imaginative work.


Symbolist Art

by Edward Lucie-Smith

Published 26 June 1972
Though the Symbolist heyday in Paris was short-lived, the movement had an influence on painting in both duration and geographical range. Important Symbolist painters were at work in places as remote from one another as Munch in Oslo, Klimt in Vienna, and the young Picasso in Barcelona. It is through Symbolism, too, that the relationship between the English painting of the later nineteenth century and what was taking place in Europe can be explained. Edward Lucie-Smith's important study throws light upon the origins of Modernism, and upon the development of painting and sculpture in the final years of the century. 185 illus., 24 in color.

Furniture

by Edward Lucie-Smith

Published 1 January 1979
In this illuminating history, text and illustrations combine to offer a view of furniture not as a succession of collectors' pieces, but as a statement about the society that created it. Edward Lucie-Smith offers insights into almost every period, from the prehistoric to the postmodern--from Neolithic tables to 1960s conversation pits, and from the ceremonial chairs of Egypt in the thirteenth century BC to the designs of John Makepeace.