Artists Unframed

September 15, 2015

Everyone knows snapshots (or their current manifestations, Instagrams), having taken and been included in thousands. These casual pictures convey an unrehearsed truthfulness that formal portraits do not, and form an archive of our lives. This is the appeal and the value of the snapshots of 20th-century artists in this title, gathered from the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art by independent curator and writer Foresta. Foresta's work is in line with a trend among art historians and curators exploring the snapshot aesthetic and snapshots as archival material. The images are organized in four broad categories: work; play; family and friends; and portraits and self-portraits. Although covering the entire 20th century and the early 2000s, the majority of images date from the early to mid 1900s. A 1945 day at the beach with Jackson Pollock is a standout, while pictures of undergrad Andy Warhol hanging out with fellow students at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (1948) surprise and intrigue. VERDICT This fun browse for fans of modern art will suggest new avenues of research for students and scholars.

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