Richard Pousette-Dart

Published on the occasion of the landmark exhibition curated by Joanna Pousette-Dart, Richard Pousette-Dart: 1950s Spirit and Substance examines the many through-lines than run through the artist’s multivalent output.

Over the course of his career, Richard Pousette-Dart sought to express universal significance through a lexicon of biomorphic and totemic forms that provided rich visual and symbolic sources, forging his own path into abstraction. In the 1950s, when he moved his studio away from New York City, his visual language developed cadences of the Gothic and Byzantine, with many of his paintings rendered in white.

Richly illustrated with a conversation between Joanna Pousette-Dart and Lowery Stokes Sims, this volume provides a detailed look at the artist's work from that decade, spanning painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography. Extensive archival material—images of Pousette-Dart in his studio, newspaper clippings, notebook pages, announcements, and more—along with a detailed chronology immerse the reader in the artist's world, illuminating his diverse influences and prolific practice. Reproduced in full for the first time is his "Talk Given at the Boston Museum School" from 1951.