Book Description

THE SCHILLER COLLECTION OF SOCIAL COMMENTARY ART is unequaled in America. Cohesive in theme and monumental in scope, it consists of over five hundred works that reflect the tumultuous eras that rocked our nation's history between 1930 and 1970: the Great Depression, World War II, McCarthyism, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Vietnam War.In The Eye of the Storm highlights seventy-one of the paintings, drawings, and prints collected by Philip J. and Suzanne Schiller over the past twenty years. The works in this volume embrace an astounding range of styles and subject matter. These range from social realism to magic realism and social surrealism by such masters as Ben Shahn, Philip Evergood, Jack Levine, Moses Soyer, Jacob Lawrence, Ivan Albright, Romare Bearden, Jared French, George Grosz, Rockwell Kent, Peter Saul and George Tooker, among others. As this century draws to a close, these images provoke discussion about our nation's recent past and suggest lessons on how to shape its future. Not a narrowly focused study of "political art," here the reach of social commentary is broad and open. Going beyond the immediate issues of the day, this four-decade overview reveals a unique perspective on both art and history in modern America.Frances K. Pohl examines the works in a chronological context, interweaving eloquent social history with incisive aesthetic criticism. Philip J. Schiller's introduction offers insight into the mind of a knowledgeable collector deeply committed to the work's humanist theme. Andrea Swanson Honoré's carefully researched biographies of the artists enhance this edition's value as an important scholarly reference.An exhibition organized by the American Federation of Arts featuring sixty-two of the works from the Schiller collection, selected by Ms. Honoré, begins touring the United States in October 1995.