The more uncharted terrain of the art of the second half of the 20th century is the subject of this more recent volume from Modern specialists Learner and Crook. Focusing on the techniques of 10 important 20th-century painters, the authors have compiled a highly accessible look at the ways in which artists’ materials have been adapted, twisted, nudged, and abused during the past several decades. The published results of their exhaustive technical research form a valuable document and add to the already considerable archive of information about, for example, the little studied and unusual technique of American “stain” painter Morris Louis and about Andy Warhol’s eclectic sources of experimental techniques. Other artists whose techniques are scrutinised include Peter Blake, Patrick Caulfield, Richard Hamilton, David Hockney, John Hoyland, Roy Lichtenstein, Bridget Riley and Frank Stella. Almost all of these artist produced paintings whose media veer away from traditional drying oils in the direction of synthetics of one variety or another. The authors first explore the 20th-century evolution of synthetic media in a chapter called “Modern paints”, which succeeds in defining the bewildering array of acrylics, PVAs, alkyds available on the art supply market and in differentiating them from one another. The authors then proceed to illustrate the use of these various media by painters of the first order. With illustrations drawn from the rich holdings of Tate Modern paintings, The impact of modern paints makes the view through the microscope an immediate and understandable experience for even the least technically oriented reader.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Jo Crook and Tom Learner, The impact of modern paints (Tate Publications, London, 2000), 192 pp, 25 b/w ills, 160 col. ills, £16.99 (pb) ISBN 1854372874'