Eye Contact: Modern American Portrait Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery

EAN/UPC/ISBN Code 9780295982670


Fifty graphic masterpieces representing the American artistic tradition from 1880 to the present day are showcased in "Eye Contact". Reproduced as full-page color images, they range from portraits of Theodore Roosevelt by Charles Dana Gibson and W. C. Fields by Thomas Hart Benton, to Robert F. Kennedy by Roy Lichtenstein, and self-portraits by artists Mary Cassatt, Edward Hopper, Joseph Stella, and Jacob Lawrence. Among the other subjects of portraits are Alice B. Toklas, Paul Robeson, Igor Stravinsky, and James Baldwin. Essays discuss the nature and change of portrait drawings in the twentieth century and the external cultural changes that influenced artists" conceptualization of the figure. Wendy Wick Reaves is curator of prints and drawings at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Bernard F. Reilly Jr. is former director of research and access at the Chicago Historical Society.