Visual Poetry - The Drawings of Joseph Stella

Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990. Book. Very Good. Hardcover. 4to - over 9¾ - 12" tall. Teal colour cloth with title in gilt on spine. Condition: Very good, non inscriptions. Dustjacket condition: Very good, with light shelfwear.166pp. Many colour and b/w illustrations. This book was published to accompany the touring exhibition of work by the Italian born American futurist painterJoseph Stella (1877-1946). The exhibition commenced at the Ammon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas from 23 February to 22 April 1990 and then toured to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the National Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. Joseph Stella is best known for his depictions of industrial America, especially his images of the Brooklyn Bridge. He is also associated with the American Precisionist movement of the 1910s-1940s. This exhibition focused on his drawings, which range from small, quick sketches of his surroundings to precise renderings of natural objects to exercises in abstraction and studies for paintings. The drawings are a kind of "visual poetry", a symbolic language of form through which Stella exercises fantasies, visions, and dreams..