A trip to Currin-land is like a science-fiction movie, in which familiar things-Old Master works by Bruegel and Courbet, the Rococo idylls of Boucher and Fragonard, girly photos from 1960s men's magazines, and cheerful ads for wholesome American products-are transformed into figurative paintings that border on the freakish. In John Currin's universe, everything looks both commonplace and fantastic, like Norman Rockwell paintings as seen through a fun-house mirror.

Esteemed art critic Robert Rosenblum reviews Currin's output of the past 10 years in this choice monograph-the first major book on Currin's white-hot career. Seventy-five provocatively titled colorplates exemplify the artist's trademark collision of classical technique and 20th-century kitsch. Currin has already caught the attention of Vogue, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times. And what reader wouldn't be curious to see Bea Arthur Naked (1991)?


Catalogue of 2003 Exhibition at Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago