Controversial Artists of the Twentieth Century

Three Books on Artists that Shocked the World

Aug 27, 2008

Reading books on artists is second-best to seeing their exhibits. These three texts trace the biographies and work of some of the world's most controversial artists.

To truly discover and explore the world of art, one should see the work in person. However, traveling around the world to great museums and galleries is out of the average art lover's budget. Reading well researched books, full of clear reproductions of the artist's work, is one's next-best option.

There are many artists whose style and vision changed the shape of art today, creating controversy as they shaped new subject matter, colour, technique or ideologies. Egon Schiele, Edvard Munch and the Surrealists are powerful examples of how art can alter the world.

A thorough biography of the controversial artist's life with 151 illustrations, 20 of which are in colour. Beginning by painting a picture of life in Vienna during the decline of the Habsburg Empire, Whitford then situates Schiele in his times. Alternating between biographical facts: Egon's father went mad and died from syphilis, Egon was precocious as both a boy and an artist, Egon's 1912 arrest on pornographic charges and his death from the Spanish flu at 28 years old in 1918, and descriptions of his pieces, this history is a compelling one.

He includes quotations from letters and essays on him by art critics like Roessler, and doesn't shrink from the occasional psychological reading of Schiele's motivations. The text is well-organized and highly readable.

Another history of a key Expressionist, this tome covers the period and details of this great Norwegian artist's life. Born prior to Schiele but outliving him by many years (d. 1944), Munch also suffered from the deaths of a parent and a sibling. Such an awareness of transience led him to imbue his works with intense emotion, captured in rapid brushstrokes and a generous perspective.

Munch was controversial for his refusal, akin to Schiele though in a less erotic fashion, to prettify his subjects. He showed the horror of existence, whether in The Scream or in The Vampire. Hodin excerpts Strindberg's assessment of Munch's dark vision and psychological accounts of his mother fixations and fraught love life. Covering Munch's exhibitions, his breakdowns and his travels, Hodin also includes 168 plates, 30 in colour.

Surrealism originated in the Dadaist movement of 1916-1920 and lasted until the death of one of its founders, Andre Breton, in 1966. It aimed, as a controversial vision of creation, to liberate the subconscious mind and enable acts of imagination and fancy. Focusing on surrealism as a revolutionary force, Alexandrian traces the movement from painting to architecture and from France to the US.

He shows the deep influence of Giorgio de Chirico on later artists like Rene Magritte and Yves Tanguey. Games such as The Exquisite Corpse, collages, found objects, dreams, the theatre and illogical combinations of language are elaborated on as primary motivators for the fantastic images of Surrealism. Other key practitioners discussed are:

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