Roger Malbert
Drawing People: The Human Figure in Contemporary Art
New release! Drawing People is the year’s best survey of contemporary figurative drawing and an essential guide to the latest developments in the field. An important teaching tool, Drawing People features work by 70 of today’s most compelling international artists, including:
Francis Alÿs, Charles Avery, Louise Bourgeois, Francesco Clemente, Adam Dant, Marlene Dumas, Dr. Lakra, Paul McCarthy, Nalini Malani, Wangechi Mutu, Raymond Pettibon, Rosemarie Trockel, Tal R, Marcel Dzama, Barry McGee, Amy Sillman and Kara Walker, among many others.
The act of drawing has long been considered the foundation of an artistic education, and the life class essential to the formation of an artist’s style and technique. Yet in the contemporary art world drawing is increasingly regarded as a medium in its own right, and the figure as a subject for ongoing exploration well beyond the sketchbook. Drawing People is a thoughtful and beautifully illustrated survey of the most compelling and inventive drawings of the human form being produced today by 70 artists from around the world.
An introduction places the medium of drawing in its historical context, discussing its intersection with photography, painting, collage and illustration, as well as its ability to intimately express thought, personality and emotion. Five chapters—Body, Self, Personal Lives, Social Reality and Fictions—include short introductions outlining each theme, followed by generously illustrated profiles on individual artists exploring their style, approach to the medium and the ideas, narratives and inspirations that lie behind their mark-making. A selection of finely reproduced images highlights the latest work by each artist. Drawing People features a representative roster of artists working with pencil, ink, watercolor, charcoal and crayon. Together, their drawings and sketches, illustrations and animations bring to life one of the most creatively rich and emotionally powerful forms of art being made today.
Rogert Malbert is head of Hayward Touring at the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London. He has organized and co-curated many exhibitions, including Rhapsodies in Black: The Art of the Harlem Renaissance (1987), CoBrA (2003), The End of the Line: Attitudes in Drawing (2009), and Curiosity: Art and the Pleasures of Knowing (2013), and is responsible for an innovative series of artist-curated exhibitions. He has written catalogue essays on the work of Matta, Francisco Goya, Richard Wentworth, Marco Valdivia, Tacita Dean and others, and on a range of themes in contemporary art including the still life, graphic satire, fetishism and the carnivalesque. Malbert’s writing has also appeared in the Independent, Times Literary Supplement, The Art Newspaper and Modern Painters.
Drawing People: The Human Figure in Contemporary Art
Published by D.A.P. / Distributed Art Publishers
Edited and with text by Roger Malbert
Flexibound, 9.5 x 13.5 inches
256 pages, 275 color images
ISBN 9781938922688, 45 USD
Distributed by ARTBOOK | D.A.P.