‘Complex, exhilarating and fiercely intelligent … it condenses a vast and complex subject into a readable book that does more than simply survey the field’ – Art Monthly

‘Invests the art-history textbook with an unprecedented degree of critical intensity and intellectual ambition … ’ – ArtForum

‘A rich, multiple-parallax view of the art of the last century … deserves to be counted among the key texts on the modern era, not only for its wealth of factual arcana and superb, miniature portraits of people and places, but also for its welcoming lucidity’ – Time Out

‘Outstandingly useful, well researched and well written … it is the nearest we are likely to get, for a very long time, to a comprehensive history of Modernism in Western art … 'Art Since 1900' is a noble memorial to Thames & Hudson’s distinguished art editor, Nikos Stangos’ – The Times Higher Education Supplement

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Art Since 1900 is a landmark study in the history of modern art and essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of art in the modern age.

Arguably the four most important and influential art historians of our time, Foster, Krauss, Bois and Buchloh have collectively transformed the study of modern art. Now, in this extraordinary book, they have come together to provide the most comprehensive critical history of art in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries ever published.

Groundbreaking in both content and presentation, Art Since 1900 will set the agenda for many years to come. With a clear and factual year-by-year structure, the authors present more than one hundred easy-to-follow articles, each focusing on a crucial event. All the key turning-points of modernism and postmodernism are explored in depth, as are the frequent antimodernist reactions.

The book’s flexible structure and extensive cross-referencing enable readers to plot their own course through the century and to follow any one of the many narratives that unfold – the history of a medium such as painting, the development of art in a particular country, the influence of a movement, or the emergence of a stylistic or conceptual body of work such as abstraction or minimalism.

Illustrating the text are reproductions of more than six hundred works, most reproduced in colour. Background information on key events, places and people is provided in highlighted boxes, while a comprehensive glossary and full bibliography add to the reference value of this outstanding volume.

Each of the authors has contributed an introduction exploring the methodologies that now govern art history, informing and enhancing the reader’s understanding of its practice today.
They have also taken part in two round-table discussions – one positioned at mid-century, the other at the end of the book – that consider some of the questions raised by the preceding decades and look ahead to the art of the future.

Hal Foster is Townsend Martin Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University.
Rosalind Krauss is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory at Columbia University.
Yve-Alain Bois is the Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Professor of Modern Art at Harvard University.
Benjamin H. D. Buchloh is Virginia B. Wright Professor of Twentieth Century and Contemporary Art at Barnard College/Columbia University.

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