Research Catalog

Title

Donald Sultan : the disaster paintings / edited by Alison Hearst ; with an essay by Charles Wylie ; interview with the artist by Alison Hearst, and meditation by Max Blagg.

Publication

Fort Worth, Texas : Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, in association with DelMonico Books, 2016.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Sultan, Donald
• Hearst, Alison
• Wylie, Charles
• Blagg, Max
• Lowe Art Museum, host institution
• Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, host institution
• Smithsonian American Art Museum, host institution

Description

151 pages : color illustrations; 29 cm

Summary

A critically important series in the oeuvre of American painter, sculptor, and printmaker Donald Sultan, The Disaster Paintings were created between 1984 and 1990. These works feature imposing, man-made structures, whose industrial qualities are reinforced by Sultan's preferred media, Masonite tiles and tar. The paintings' resulting sense of robust permanence is offset by the catastrophes Sultan includes therein, which provoke a jarring sense of fragility, impermanence, and transience. Such unexpected juxtapositions are privileged by the artist's process itself, which merges the industrial materials of Minimalism with representational painting, stylistically combining figuration and abstraction and making simultaneous reference to high and low culture. Painted on a large scale (the majority of the works in this series measure 8' x 8'), The Disaster Paintings embody great physicality in their process, subject matter, and finished form. They also reify the modern experience of industrialized societies with images of fire, accidents, and industrial mishaps, daring us to forget that calamities and adversity are woven into the very fabric of our existence. It is a timely moment in history to reconsider and reassess The Disaster Paintings. - Published to accompany the exhibition of the same name held at Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, Florida, 29th September-23rd December 2016; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, February-April 2017; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, May 26-September 4, 2017.

Alternative Title

Disaster paintings

Subjects

• Disasters in art > Exhibitions
• Exhibition catalogs
• Sultan, Donald > Exhibitions

Genre/Form

Exhibition catalogs.

Note

• Published to accompany the exhibition of the same name held at Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, Florida, 29th September-23rd December 2016; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, February-April 2017; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, May 26-September 4, 2017.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 137-147).

Contents

Foreword and acknowledgments / Marla Price and Alison Hearst -- Mirrors in the landscape: Donald Sultan's 1980s Disaster paintings / Charles Wylie -- Interview with Donald Sultan / Alison Hearst -- Plates -- Symptoms of apocalypse: the Disaster paintings of Donald Sultan / Max Blagg -- Selected exhibition history and bibliography / Sarah Hymes.

Call Number

JQF 17-31

ISBN

• 9783791355740 (hbk.)
• 3791355740 (hbk.)

LCCN

2016943500

OCLC

962073800

Title

Donald Sultan : the disaster paintings / edited by Alison Hearst ; with an essay by Charles Wylie ; interview with the artist by Alison Hearst, and meditation by Max Blagg.

Publisher

Fort Worth, Texas : Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, in association with DelMonico Books, 2016.

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 137-147).

Added Author

Sultan, Donald. Paintings. Selections.

Hearst, Alison, editor, interviewer.

Wylie, Charles, writer of added commentary.

Blagg, Max, editor.

Lowe Art Museum, host institution.

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, host institution.

Smithsonian American Art Museum, host institution.

Research Call Number

JQF 17-31