Subversion and Surrealism in the Art of Honoré Sharrer

Honoré Sharrer (1920-2009) was a major art world figure in 1940s America, celebrated for exquisitely detailed paintings conveying subtly subversive critiques of the political and artistic climate of her time. This book offers the first critical reassessment of the artist who, despite a meteoric rise, has since receded from the public eye. Sharrer was a leftist, female figurative painter in an era when anti-Communist sentiment and the masculinist Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art dominated American culture. Her brightly colored, humorous, and distinctly feminine paintings combine elements of social realism and surrealism to seductive and disquieting effect. This publication is a timely reevaluation of an artist who pushed the boundaries of figurative painting with playfulness and biting wit.

Essays by Sarah Burns, Robert Cozzolino, Michael Lobel, M, Melissa Wolfe, and Adam Desmond Zagorin

Edited by M. Melissa Wolfe

Hardcover

175 pages