Ralph Goings: Essay/Interview

Chase, Linda; Goings, Ralph

ISBN 10: 0810910306 / ISBN 13: 9780810910300

Published by Harry N Abrams Inc, 1988

About this Item

Signed by Ralph Goings at Cooperstown for David on the half title page in 1988.

Seller Inventory # 188-RG1

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Ralph Goings: Essay/Interview
• Publisher: Harry N Abrams Inc
• Publication Date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0810910306
• ISBN 13: 9780810910300
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

Shows Goings' paintings of diners, street scenes, stores, garages, and pickup trucks, discusses his influence on the photo-realism movement, and includes the artist's comments on his work

Reviews

Few can actively dislike Goings's photorealist paintings of pickup trucks and fast-food joints, the homogenized landscape of small-town America. Glazed donuts, gleaming diner countertops and Coke machines convey a shock of recognition. But one questions whether these pictures capture "both the physical reality and spiritual essence of America," as art historian Chase rashly claims. The modest pleasures of the artist's crisp images are drowned out in artspeak as the author strains for comparisons to Vermeer, champions photorealism as a rebellion against the art estblishment and praises Goings as "one of our foremost twentieth-century realists." His renditions of lonely fast-food gorgers and desolate intersections have a kinship to the works of Edward Hopper, Chase's protests to the contrary notwithstanding. Goings's dilemma is that his obsessively detailed panorama of blue-collar workers tends to degenerate into a sort of American socialist realism.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.