American Workman: The Life and Art of John Kane

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Product Details
Price
$40.00  $37.20
Publisher
University of Pittsburgh Press
Publish Date
Pages
308
Dimensions
7.09 X 9.29 X 1.1 inches | 2.2 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780822947042

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About the Author
Maxwell King (Author)
Maxwell King is the former editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and president of the Heinz Endowments. He is the author of the poetry collection Crossing Laurel Run and the New York Times-bestselling Mister Rogers biography The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers. King also served as chairman of the board of the national Council on Foundations. His most recent job was president of The Pittsburgh Foundation.

Louise Lippincott (Author)
Louise Lippincott is a historian and former curator specializing in American and European art from the Enlightenment to the modern era. She focuses on artists outside the mainstream, and the historical contexts that give meaning to their work. As curator of fine arts at Carnegie Museum of Art, she managed the largest John Kane collection in the United States. Previously she occupied curatorial positions at the J. Paul Getty Museum and Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Reviews
An exhaustive biography as well as a deep critical appreciation of Kane's art, American Workman should bring new attention to this artist's remarkable work.-- "Pittsburgh Magazine"
American Workman asserts that everything we thought we knew about Kane is probably wrong.-- "ARTnews"
American Workman, the first new account of Kane's life and work in fity years, is gorgeous . . . King presents a thoughtful account that shuns the contemporary tactic of inventing scenes and dialogue . . . [and] Lippincott also offers bracing art-historical detective work and well-grounded speculation about Kane's motives and aims.-- "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette"
Lippincott should be applauded for the deep research in her half of the book, which focuses exclusively on Kane's art. . . . While Kane's work may still be a fixture at MoMA, maybe it's time he's broken out of that stuffy Masters of Popular Painting gallery. American Workman may provide the groundwork for doing just that.-- "ARTnews"
This reassessment of the life and art of John Kane (1860-1934) sets a new standard for art scholarship. . . . Illustrations make this book a rich experience.-- "Maine Antiques Digest"
When Andy Warhol first hit the art world, he was only the second most famous painter to come out of Pittsburgh. John Kane, steelworker and housepainter, had garnered his own headlines in the 1920s, when museums discovered his 'primitive' oils. Almost a century later, Maxwell King and Louise Lippincott are giving Kane the attention he deserves. They do a lovely job on both life and art, and the amalgam Kane forged from the two.--Blake Gopnik, author of Warhol: The Definitive Biography of the Pop Artist
John Kane saw beauty where others saw a tortured industrial landscape. His artistic eye saw the can-do spirit of Pittsburgh, often filtering out the gritty ugliness that other observers could not see through. Maxwell King and Louise Lippincott have achieved something quite remarkable with their insightful and balanced examination of a most extraordinary man whose talent enabled him to elevate fleeting moments of ordinary life to works of art for the ages.--Andrew E. Masich, president and CEO, Senator John Heinz History Center
American Workman is a long-overdue reexamination of the first self-taught American painter to be taken up by the modern art establishment. As Louise Lippincott notes, there are many parallels between our twenty-first century reality and Kane's Depression-era Pittsburgh--among them, a glaring divide between economic haves and have-nots, and an art world hungry for the next big thing. . . . This is not, however, a rags-to-riches story, but something more trenchant. Although John Kane died in poverty, he left an artistic legacy that both spoke to his time and transcended it.--Jane Kallir, president, Kallir Research Institute