Review by Choice Review
This handsome book is basically a catalog of a traveling exhibition of Murray's paintings that were produced in a period of ten years. Each work is beautifully illustrated in color, with commentary by the painter. It becomes clear, as one studies the words and the works, that the painter has consciously drawn upon several 20th-century themes in the visual arts: synthetic cubism (still lifes of cups and beer glasses) but with a rejection of the traditional rectangular canvas; neoexpressionist color with personal connotations; and cartoons (balloon shapes and Mickey Mouse ears). She also explores traditional feminine/domestic subjects (babies and kitchens) but without becoming overtly feminist. The essay by Roberta Smith is helpful in understanding Murray's development, the 1985 interview by Sue Graze and Kathy Halbreich is enlightening-but the paintings make the real statement. Highly recommended for art history and women's studies majors.-G.S. Kashdin, University of South Florida
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
For the last eight years, Elizabeth Murray's characteristic work has been executed on differently shaped pieces of paper or canvas put together not always contiguously into other, nonrectilinear shapes. The forms she fashions within these odd picture fields are abstractions of easily recognized objects heads, hands, bodies, tables, windows, chairs, cups, spoons, books. They conjure distinguishable, usually domestic scenarios she further suggests with titles such as Can You Hear Me? and More than You Know, and they pulsate with emotional life because of their intense colors and the odd thrusts and swoops of their edges. Roberta Smith's introduction to this exhibition catalog provides insight into Murray's artistc development and the narrative and ideational content of her imagery. Murray gives her own perspective through an interview and comments on every picture in the exhibition now in Dallas and traveling to Boston, Los Angeles, Des Moines, Minneapolis, and New York. A handful of pictures not in the show are also accorded full-page colorplates. Biochronology, selected exhibition list, selected bibliography, and index to plates. RO. 759.13 Murray, Elizabeth Exhibitions [CIP] 86-17297
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
