American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America

New York: Alfred A. Knopf; A Borzoi Book, 1997. Cloth, ix, 635 pages, illustrations (some colour); 26 cm. Tight, clean copy. Stated First Edition. Dust jacket protected in a mylar book cover. A fine copy of the first printing. OVERSIZE! No priority/air, except by special arrangement. With 363 illustrations, 323 in full colour. "Writing with all the brilliance, authority, and pungent wit that have distinguished his art criticism for Time magazine and his greatly acclaimed study of modern art, The Shock of the New, Robert Hughes now addresses his largest subject: the history of art in America. The intense relationship between the American people and their surroundings has been the source of a rich artistic tradition. American Visions is a consistently revealing demonstration of the many ways in which artists have expressed this pervasive connection. In nine eloquent chapters, which span the whole range of events, movements, and personalities of more than three centuries, Robert Hughes shows us the myriad associations between the unique society that is America and the art it has produced. / Robert Hughes was born in Australia in 1938. He has lived and worked in the United States since 1970. He has been art critic for TIME magazine for more than 25 years. His books include monographs on painters Lucien Freud and Frank Auerbach, a history of Australian art, Heaven and Hell in Western Art (1969), The Shock of the New (1981), The Fatal Shore (1987), a book of social criticism entitled The Culture of Complaint (1995), Barcelona (1992), and a collection of reviews, Nothing If Not Critical (1990). Hughes is the recipient of a number of awards and prizes for his work, most recently an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters." - Publisher.. 1st. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 4to. Collectible.