From the many thousands of paintings, sculptures and constructions in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 150 outstanding examples have been chosen to indicate the quality and diversity of modern masters and movements from about 1885 to the early 1990s. A substantial revision of the original 1973 edition, this volume takes account of developments and Museum acquisitions in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Painters range from late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century pioneers of Modernism such as Degas, Cézanne, van Gogh and Seurat to late twentieth-century artists who challenge the very premises of Modernism itself. Sculptures vary from representations of the human figure by Rodin, Matisse and Moore, to an abstraction by Arp, a bird by Brancusi and a soft sculpture by Oldenburg. Among the constructions are works by Picasso, Calder and David Smith. This handsome and highly readable guide is accompanied by commentaries on each work, with quotations from the artists themselves and from the writings of distinguished critics.
