William Klein's Never-Before-Seen Fashion Photos Exposed in New Book

Artist William Klein, who arrived in Rome in 1956 and wandered around the city with film director Federico Fellini, poet Pier Paolo Pasolini, novelist Alberto Moravia, and other avant-garde Italian writers and artists, masterfully photographed images of the city and the fashionable men and women who inhabited Rome. Klein's visual displays were published in an a book that featured the artist's observations and descriptions (via extended captions) as well as quotes and statements about Rome by some of the world's most famous writers.

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Rome book's 1959 release, the Aperture Foundation and Contrasto are collaborating to publish a revised version. The new edition includes two volumes of many never-before-seen fashion photos that Klein had taken while in Rome and text updated by the artist. The book introduces society's newest generation of photography lovers to Klein's daring and experimental work (which, during the 1950s and 60s, shocked the art world) and today still captivates viewers and inspires creative thinking.

To read the ArtDaily article associated with this post, click here.

"Six Decades" of Kazuo Shiraga at McCaffrey Fine Art

McCaffrey Fine Art is currently displaying Japanese artist Kazuo Shiraga's first ever solo show in the US. The exhibition, titled "Six Decades," shows paintings by the distinguished artist who uses the style of "foot painting" in his work.

A style often associated with artists who cannot use their hands (or whose hands have been amputated or otherwise destroyed), Shiraga says he first experimented with this method in order to go beyond (the already complex) style of Abstract Expressionism. He has used foot art since the 1950s (hence the title of the exhibition).

The avant-garde artist sought inspiration from Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Yves Klein and Jackson Pollock during the 50s - but developed his own unique methods of placing large sheets of paper on the floor, then sliding, spinning, and swirling his feet into heaps of boldly colored oil paint and letting his feet and mind create masterful paintings.

Although the artist's work has been included in various museums' surveys of Japanese Art throughout the United States in the past few decades, he has remained largely unknown in the American Art World until now. The current exhibition at McCaffrey Fine Art also accompanies the first in-depth publication on Shiraga's work in English.



To read more about the artist, his influences, and past exhibitions, click here.