cover image Nancy Graves: Excavations in Print: A Catalogue Raisonne

Nancy Graves: Excavations in Print: A Catalogue Raisonne

Thomas Padon. ABRAMS, $49.5 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-8109-3391-0

American artist Nancy Graves (1940-1995) made astonishing prints that, like her painting and sculpture, freely cross boundaries of mediums, disciplines and eras. This catalogue of an exhibition that will tour nationally is filled with images of arresting beauty. Graves's poetic lithographs based on geologic maps of Lunar Orbiter and Apollo landing sites signal her preoccupation with how information is visualized and transmitted. She creates primal metaphors based on Paleolithic cave paintings and, in Quipu, a filigree depiction of an ancient Andean knotted-string counting device, reclaims the spirit of the past. Other prints exuberantly combine biomorphic forms, art-historical allusions, geometric patterns and historical figures in ways that celebrate the continuum of history and the links between cultures. In his illuminating essay, Padon, a director at the American Federation of Arts, New York, sensitively explores a body of work open to multiple readings. (Mar.)