In lively, forceful, and at times witty language, Michael Lieb has written an illuminating study of the figure of God as a literary character in the writings of John Milton.
Here he's applying Cubist facture to a landscape, there he's adding a blast of Matisse's color, in between he's rendering a more conventional study of the figure or a still life; veils of liquid hue are perhaps inspired by a new interest in the nature abstractions of Arshile Gorky.
The central section of the exhibition is devoted to carving, in particular studies of the figure in motion, ceremonial chairs and stools, various kinds of masks, and the horse-and-rider motif.
The books contain 1,045 drawings that span the artist's career and represent the range of styles and subjects he explored from deeply personal sketches of his wife, Phyllis, to studies of the figure, to grand landscape studies, to the development and maturation of Diebenkorn's signature style, a rich blending of figuration and abstraction.
Doig brought along several small, unfinished paintings to work on, one of which was an early study of the "Gasthof" figures.
In many ways, it is a study of the spiritual figures that inhabit the world, made visible by placing them on objects of nature.
The Life of David (2005) is a study of the biblical figure.
Take the screenprinted 1972 portrait of Richard Nixon, for example, a typically Warholian study of the photographed figure emblazoned with overlaid colour and an exaggerated, neon-piped outline.
This led to the second main development in his study of the female figure and the distortions he puppeteers in his images.
