Books like Ad Reinhardt

Loved Ad Reinhardt by Ad Reinhardt? Here are 7 books with the same pull, and why each one fits.

7 books

1Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Gregory White Smith
A long biography of another American abstract painter that places his work within the life and the New York art scene around him.
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2Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
James E. B. Breslin
A biography of a New York abstract painter that follows his development alongside his theories about painting and color.
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3Agnes Martin
Agnes Martin
Nancy Princenthal
A study of a painter whose pared-down grids and quiet surfaces share some ground with Reinhardt's later work.
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4The Originality of the Avant-garde and Other Modernist Myths
The Originality of the Avant-garde and Other Modernist Myths
Rosalind E. Krauss
A set of essays on modern art's claims to originality and its theories, useful for reading the critical debates Reinhardt took part in.
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5The Shock of the New
The Shock of the New
Robert Hughes
A broad survey of modern art from the late nineteenth century onward that gives context for the abstract movements of Reinhardt's time.
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6Duchamp
Duchamp
Calvin Tomkins
A biography of the artist whose ideas about what counts as art shaped the generation Reinhardt worked in.
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7The Age of the Avant-garde
The Age of the Avant-garde
Hilton Kramer
A critical history of the avant-garde in the decades around the mid-twentieth century, when Reinhardt was developing his mature style.
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Jackson Pollock