Portraits Book

The chief art critic for The New York Times gives a painter's-, sculptor's-, and photographer's-eye view of art as he explores museums with some of today's most important artists.Cezanne said: "One can only speak properly about paintings in front of paintings". In Portraits, Michael Kimmelman talks about art with artists in some of the world's great museums and elsewhere. This informal and revealing collection of profiles provides an insider's vision of art and artists, past and present. Here is the chance to go on a 3:00 A.M. trip to London's National Gallery with Lucian Freud, visit the Louvre with Henri Cartier-Bresson, and the Met with Brice Marden. Balthus, Cindy Sherman, Roy Lichtenstein, Francis Bacon, and Elizabeth Murray are among the other artists who reveal themselves in the works they are drawn to. Michael Kimmelman has the rare ability to deliver opinions about art that are sharp, smart, and entertaining. "New art is a running commentary on the past", he writes, and in this fresh and vital book we see "a historical continuum that goes from cave paintings through Picasso to now".