Nancy Grimes

Being a selection of the paintings of a mid-20th century out-of-his-time painter whose art has resemblances to Symbolism and Surrealism, but with a greater emphasis on human figures than those movements do. His figure painting is an odd conflation of an older Renaissance sensibility and a slightly cartoonish post-modernity. An interesting artist, to be sure.

This a very slim but large, almost square format publication, with a brief well illustrated introduction covering about fourteen pages, discusses the artist and his background, his work and progression. The remainder of the book is devoted to the colour plates followed by a chronology and exhibition record. There is no bibliography.

The colour plates which take up the major portion of the book amount to 36 in total (this in addition to the illustrations in the introduction). They are full show more page, or rather they occupy a page each if they do not exactly fill the page, with the exception of one double page spread, and another page containing three related pictures. They appear on the right hand page and are tastefully presented with the facing page entirely in a muted grey containing the title and very brief facts neatly centred. The quality of the images is good, they do appear a little muted, but not having had the privilege of seeing them in the flesh (none appears to be on view in the UK) that may well be an accurate representation. What is without question is the quality of the French's work, making this a very desirable volume. show less

Jared French (1905-1988)
hardback in dust-jacket