The Great American Pop Art Store: Multiples of the Sixties

Book by Glenn, Constance W.

Glenn, director of the art museum at California State University, Long Beach, is to be commended for compiling an exhibit of more than 110 items that will be traveling to 11 cities around the country over the next three years. This first-of-its-kind show, and the accompanying catalog, strive to define the context for the emergence of "multiples" in the 1960s. In the art world, multiples operate in juxtaposition to the tradition of editioned prints; they are often sculptural, sometimes mass produced, and grow out of the Duchampian idea that every iteration is an original. In the greater society, these objects were an important facet of Pop's mission to bring affordable art to the masses. The catalog concentrates on Warhol and Oldenburg, who actually opened the storefront "gallery" of the title. A beautiful production of frenetic design, this appropriately inexpensive volume belongs in academic and large public libraries with art or cultural studies collections. The third edition of the catalogue raisonne of Warhol's prints, still edited by the codirector of Warhol's longtime gallery, has been greatly expanded. The general reader will be pleased by the addition of two informative essays; critic Arthur C. Danto places the prints in a greater social context, while curator Donna de Salvo carefully traces the artist's printmaking process throughout his career. Scholarly researchers and those trying to track the provenance of one of the thousands of prints in private hands will appreciate the expansion of the catalog portion to include early unofficial prints, privately commissioned prints, and unique and trial versions of the official "published" prints. The great number of Warhol prints and their importance to his career grants this book wider-than-usual appeal and recommends it for all academic and larger public libraries. Libraries holding earlier editions should update their collections.?Douglas McClemont, New York
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.