I don’t know about you but I never really get excited about an exhibition of drawings – compared to oil paintings, installation, video, they never seem to grab me but in book form amazing and this book is just lovely and big enough to appreciate the skill of drawing.
The act of drawing has long been considered the foundation of an artistic education, and the life class essential to the formation of an artist’s style and technique. Yet in the contemporary art world drawing is increasingly regarded as a medium in its own right, and the figure as a subject for ongoing exploration well beyond the sketchbook.
Drawing People: The Human Figure in Contemporary Art by Roger Malbert is published by Thames & Hudson, 20 April 2015, £29.95 (www.thamesandhudson.com).
Drawing People is a thoughtful and beautifully illustrated survey of the most compelling and inventive drawings of the human form being produced today. An introduction places the medium of drawing in its historical context, discussing its intersection with photography, painting, collage and illustration.
Chapters on Body, Self, Personal Lives, Social Reality and Fictions include short introductions outlining each theme, followed by commentaries on individual artists exploring their style, ideas and techniques, accompanied by finely reproduced images of their recent work.
Roger Malbert is Senior Curator, Hayward Touring at the Hayward Gallery, London. He has been a judge for the Jerwood Drawing Prize, and his writing on Art has featured in The Independent, Art Monthly, Times Literary Suplement, The Art Newspaper and Modern Painters.
