Jennifer Farrell – författare

Richard Brown Baker (1912–2002) began collecting works by emerging artists in the 1940s, becoming one of the first collectors to embrace both Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. He eventually amassed a collection of more than 1,600 works from the postwar period, including works by such groundbreaking American artists as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Chuck Close, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Morris, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, and James Rosenquist, as well as European and Asian artists such as Alberto Burri, Jean Dubuffet, Georges Mathieu, and Kurt Schwitters.  Baker bequeathed the majority of his collection to the Yale University Art Gallery, and the balance to the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design. Highlighting 130 works, this is the first complete history of Baker's important collection. Essays by renowned art historians contextualize each of the five decades of Baker's collecting efforts, while entries on individual artists illustrate the remarkable scope of Baker's holdings. Throughout the publication, firsthand accounts from Baker's extensive personal journals describe his collecting activities within the dynamic New York art scene of the day.Distributed for the Yale University Art Gallery

Through paintings, sculptures, drawings and more, John Wilson's work foregrounds the human experience and refuses invisibilityAmerican artist John Wilson was not only a master draftsman, printmaker, painter and sculptor active for over seven decades, but he was also a keen observer and social activist. In his representations of Black Americans in particular, he sought to pay homage to the beauty and truths of ordinary Black people in such a way that all viewers, across race and culture, might see themselves reflected. His multidisciplinary works include unflinching representations of racial violence and war, tender family portraits, monumental bronze heads and landmark commissions such as the bust of Martin Luther King, Jr., which stands in the United States Capitol.The first major retrospective of the artist’s work, Witnessing Humanity sheds light on Wilson’s life and artistic evolution. Reproductions of artworks and photographs accompany critical essays and personal reflections, including analyses by art historians, interviews with Wilson’s peers, remembrances from fellow Black creatives and a full chronology by the late artist’s gallerist. The varied voices which resonate through this catalog illustrate that it is long past time to recognize Wilson’s art—to celebrate his lifelong dedication to depicting what he described as the "reality of being Black in this impossible world."John Woodrow Wilson (1922–2015) was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Tufts University. He lived in Mexico for five years and became a friend and colleague of artist Elizabeth Catlett. Wilson taught fine art at Boston University from 1964 until 1986.