Unrepentant Ego: The Self-Portraits of Lucas Samaras

Description

One of the most innovative artists of his generation, Lucas Samaras (b. 1936) studied art with such figures and artists as Meyer Schapiro, George Segal, and Allan Kaprow. Throughout his remarkably prolific forty-year career, Samaras has produced a heterogeneous and highly textured body of work. Samaras' innovative approach and use of different media have earned him a significant place in contemporary American art history, and his work has exerted significant, yet under-recognized, influence on younger artists. This catalogue, which accompanies a major exhibition, offers a timely reevaluation of Samaras' life's work and his invaluable contributions to contemporary art. This fall, the Whitney Museum of American Art will mount a major exhibition of the work of Lucas Samaras. This will be the first exhibition of Samaras' work in an American museum in fifteen years, and the first major consideration of the artist's work in New York since 1972. No major Samaras exhibition has focused on his self-portraiture, although self-depiction is arguably the driving force of Samaras' entire oeuvre. The catalogue and exhibition will survey his career from the mid-1950s to the present, and will trace the self-portrait leitmotif throughout various media, including drawings, photo transformations, boxes, mirrored environments, and film.

Marla Prather is curator of postwar art at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Her publications include History of Modern Art; Willem de Kooning: Paintings; and Alexander Calder, 1898-1976.