Joan Snyder
by Hayden Herrera
Category: Art

Although Joan Snyder's compelling paintings are often placed under various art-movement umbrellas - Abstract Expressionism, Neo-Expressionism, and Feminist Art - her work has always been difficult to categorize. In the first major book on this influential artist, Hayden Herrera brings new insight to Snyder's mixed-medium works and their combination of female imagery, dynamic brush strokes, and accomplished formalism. Through rich illustrations and illuminating text, Joan Snyder details the complex evolution of the artist's works, from her evocative brush strokes in Symphony and Summer Orange, which drip with 'rivulets of feeling,' to her slow progression toward the formal structures of grid landscapes like Symphony III, to her bold historical and political works like Women In Camps. Since the 1980s, Snyder's paintings have taken on an autobiographical and often deeply personal tone, as expressed in Love's Pale Graves. Her latest paintings, such as the majestic Women Make Lists, represent a culmination of the grief, jubilation, and, finally, transcendence that reside in the heart of Snyder's work.