Jim Shaw: Distorted Faces and Portraits, 1978-2007

by Alison M. Gingeras, Jim Shaw (Artist), Marc Blondeau (Editor)

Almost 16 inches tall and 12 inches wide and jacketed in a 53 x 37-inch foldout poster of Jim Shaw's deeply disturbing black-and-white oil painting of Ronald Reagan's distorted face (layered with smaller, ghostlike figures of American violence like Charles Manson and Rambo), this darkly riveting limited-edition artist's book contains works from five series of portraits made over the course of the artist's four-decade-long the Distorted Faces drawings (1978-85) and paintings (1986-2007); the Noir portraits of 1978; the sketches for Shaw's Giant Face paintings (1992) and other assorted faces from 1993-2006. The format and print quality of this one-of-a-kind publication truly allow Shaw's legendary graphic abilities to shine--particularly in the hyperreal Distorted Faces series. According to Alison M. Gingeras' catalogue essay, "The jingle-like language of Pop has been transformed into rambling, run-on sentences that describe fragmented ideas, associative thoughts and schizophrenic images. Too strange, too perverse, too lurid, too Shaw is an elusive character that defies categorization."

96 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2007