James Rosenquist

de Walter Hopps, Sarah C. Bancroft

In 2003, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum mounted a major retrospective of James Rosenquist's works, which traveled to the Menil Collection, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Since the late 1950s, James Rosenquist has been creating an exceptional and consistently intriguing body of work. In the 1960s, following his early days as a billboard painter in the Midwest and New York City, he gained fame as one of the leaders of the American Pop art movement. Along with contemporaries Jim Dine, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, and Andy Warhol, Rosenquist drew on the iconography of advertising and mass media to conjure a sense of modern life. Rosenquist's paintings directly allude to the cultural and political tenor of the times in which they were created. From his renowned Pop canvases to his billboard-sized works and continuing with his recent use of abstract painting techniques, James Rosenquist: A Retrospective presents the artist's enduring interest in and mastery of texture, color, line, and shape that continues to dazzle audiences and influence younger generations of artists. The book features nearly 300 of the artist's most significant works. - Publisher.