The Not-so-still Life A Century of California Painting and Sculpture

"The wonderful reproductions in this book make it a page-turner, confirming that the genre of still life is alive and well in our own times. What amazing transformations the art form has taken over the course of the twentieth century! This book delights both the eye and the mind."--Wanda M. Corn, author of The Great American Thing: Modern Art and National Identity, 1915-1935

"This book offers a major rethinking of the still life as well as a survey of California still life work. 'Still life' is ingeniously extended to include three-dimensional objects as well as the objects in conventional still life painting. The essays are imaginative as well as scholarly, vivid as well as historically precise, and above all they make clear the sweep and depth of California creativity."--Donald Kuspit, Professor of Art History and Philosophy, State University of New York at Stony Brook

"This is the sort of book you don't know you need until you discover it. With their accounts of California still life in the time of the Impressionists and early twentieth-century modernism, William H. Gerdts and Patricia Trenton add invaluable chapters to the history of American painting. And, as she traces the remarkable expansion of still life during the past half century, Susan Landauer demonstrates the centrality of this once-humble genre."--Carter Ratcliff, author of The Fate of a Gesture: Jackson Pollock and Postwar American Art and Out of the Box: The Reinvention of Art, 1965-1975

"The most venturesome aspect of The Not-So-Still Life is its casual expansion of the genre to include sculptures, assemblages, and even kinetic and Internet art. Susan Landauer discusses with informed gusto not only important West Coast painters who brought new life to this old form, but also witty ceramic sculptors and funky, outspoken assemblage artists. William H. Gerdts and Patricia Trenton contribute authoritative accounts of some sixty-five artists active in California between the 1880s and World War II."--David Littlejohn, West Coast arts correspondent, The Wall Street Journal

"With impressive scope and rigorous scholarship, The Not-So-Still Life demonstrates that what was once the most conservative of genres has been transformed into one of the more radical contemporary forms of expression. The authors bring coherence to an incredible array of artistic outpourings--from Pop art to earthworks, Surrealist painting to electronic art--that illuminate the distinctive form still life has taken in California."--Dianne Macleod, author of Art and the Victorian Middle Class