Ed Moses: A Retrospective of Paintings and Drawings, 1951-1996 [first edition]

Ed Moses (b. 1928) is widely considered to be one of the central figures in the rich and complex history of postwar West Coast art. Like Richard Diebenkorn and Sam Francis, his work has been greatly influenced by the brilliant light of Southern California. Modernism and European and American abstract art are also echoed in Moses's work, and the vitality of his diverse oeuvre radiates throughout this first major retrospective of his paintings and drawings.Although he attended art school, Ed Moses is an autodidact who has labored to overcome his inability, as he put it, "to draw three dimensionally." And drawing has been central to his work, the spine from which all of his art extends. From his egg tempera paintings in the early 1950s to the "ror shock" paintings and drawings of the early 1990s, he has found ways to investigate the relationship between spontaneity (the legacy of abstract expressionism) and control and balance (inherited from Mondrian and the Russian constructivists). Moving decisively from abstraction to figuration, and from monochrome to tonality and color, Moses, like de Kooning and Pollock, has consistently turned away from the predictable and has sought new ground. In his bold exploration of forms and methods, Ed Moses has avoided the label of a particular tradition and, instead, continues to reinvent himself.With over seventy paintings and drawings that span his career, this is the most comprehensive book on Ed Moses available today."I felt as though these paintings were not something I created; they were something I discovered."—Ed Moses