Sight & Insight: The Art of Burton Silverman

Sight & Insight: The Art of Burton SilvermanAuthor: Robert L. McGrath, Phillip Saietta, Paula GlickTitle: Sight & Insight: The Art of Burton SilvermanPublication: Madison Square PressEdition: FIRST THUSDescription: First Edition Thus, First Printing. Published by Madison Square Press, 1998. Quarto. Paperback. Book is like new, previous inscription on half title page. Seller ID: 309312Subject: Art

The proximate end of the 20th century affords a unique occasion to consider the art of Burton Silverman. His art may be seen as a kind of radical realism by virtue of its continuing devotion to a humanist vision that has survived the modernist dogmas of the fifties, as well as the austere, impersonal canons of judgment imbedded in the “new realism” of the eighties. At once “old” and paradoxically “new,” his art relates to traditions of European and American realism while updating that legacy with acute perceptions of contemporary experience.

This artistic legacy, which includes such major precursors as Degas, Eakins and America’s greatest urban painter, Edward Hopper, has been consciously reconceptualized through paintings that synthesize representational imagery with a late 20th century sensibility regarding the frailty of human existence in a techno-urbanized world. He brings to his deliberately unexceptional subject matter time honored techniques of craftsmanship and patient observation. For Silverman, form remains inextricably linked to meaning. Asserting itself throughout his painting is the fluid brushwork and natural coloration that informs the eye while eliciting, alchemically, a compassionate understanding of the human condition. In the final analysis, it is Silverman’s unflinching vision, together with his creative rethinking of tradition, that constitutes his most defiant and enduring artistic contribution. --Prof. Robert L. McGrath, Dartmouth College

This book is a collection of the past 25 years of work by this universally respected painter, illustrator and teacher, who has been increasingly regarded as one of America’s important realist artists. With essays by Prof. Robert McGrath, Phillip Saietta and a memoir by the artist, this profusely illustrated monograph chronicles a career rich in depictions of life and equally rich in a panoply of ideas about art. Silverman’s memoir, “Odyssey,” offers observations about his work, his goals and his controversial views of the art world today. A full-color catalog of the exhibitions held at the Butler Institute of American Art and the Brigham Young Museum complements the text and provides the reader with a moveable feast of this artist’s work to which they can return again and again.