Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past, book cover.
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Walton Ford will sign copies of his new books Calafia and Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past at Gagosian Shop, New York, New York.
Thursday, November 30, 2017, 6PM ET.
Gagosian is pleased to announce a book signing with Walton Ford and Zoë Lescaze to celebrate Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past published by Taschen in September 2017. To attend the event, RSVP to waltonford@gagosian.com.
Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past is a brilliant survey of an often overlooked art historical genre depicting prehistoric life between 1830 and 1980. Images of the prehistoric past have shifted over time, as scientific thought has influenced scholarly conceptions of natural history. These modern visions of prehistory, including paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, mosaics, and murals, mingle scientific discovery with unbridled fantasy. The collection of works studied provides an unprecedented treatment of this often overlooked area of art history, showing how artists, when charged with imagining extinct creatures, often project their own aesthetic whims onto the past, portraying primordial history through the visual lexicons of Romanticism, Impressionism, Japonisme, Art Nouveau, Fauvism, and beyond.
With a preface by Ford, an essay from Lescaze, and four magnificent fold-outs, the lavishly illustrated book showcases a stunning collection of artworks collected from natural history museums, archives, and private collections, and includes new photography of key works, including Charles R. Knight’s seminal paintings in Chicago and little-known masterpieces such as A. M. Belashov’s monumental mosaic in Moscow. Inspiring fear and fantasy, curiosity and empirical observation, Paleoart is a celebration of prehistoric animals in art, and a novel chance to understand our favorite extinct beasts through an art historical lens.
Walton Ford’s “Calafia” is currently on view at Gagosian Beverly Hills through December 16, 2017. Advance copies of our newly published exhibition catalogue Walton Ford: Calafia will be available for purchase.
About the Book
Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past
Texts by Walton Ford and Zoë Lescaze
Published by Taschen in 2017
Format: Hardcover with 4 fold-outs
Size: 11 × 14 3/4 inches (27.9 × 37.5 cm)
Pages: 292 pages
ISBN: 978-3-8365-5511-1
Price: $100 USD
Walton Ford (born 1960) grew up in the Hudson Valley and lives and works in New York. Ford Studied filmmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design, and is renowned for his large-scale narrative watercolors. His work has been widely exhibited, including solo exhibitions at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin and Brooklyn Museum, New York.
Zoë Lescaze is an art critic and journalist based in New York City, where she was born. She studied art history at Bowdoin College, and has worked as an archaeological illustrator in Cameroon. Her writing has appeared in ARTnews, Artforum, and Even.
Gagosian Shop
Designed by Selldorf Architects, Gagosian Shop offers an exclusive and extensive selection of artists’ books, scholarly monographs, catalogues and limited editions. Gagosian’s unparalleled publishing program, featuring books on artists exhibited at Gagosian’s worldwide galleries, is the central focus of the Shop.
For further information please contact the gallery at shop@gagosian.com or at +1.212.796.1224. All images are subject to copyright. Gallery approval must be granted prior to reproduction.
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