Artists of Invention

This volume presents a vivid portrait of the Bay Area art scene over the past century. More than 100 color illustrations of work by a wide range of artists are featured, including the renegade plein-air painters Society of Six, production ceramist Edith Heath, Bay Area figurative painter Richard Diebenkorn, studio ceramist Peter Voulkos, Minimalist John McCracken, conceptualist Dennis Oppenheim, photorealist Robert Bechtle and cultural commentator Squeak Carnwath. The book is further enriched by a contemporary section dedicated to work produced in the last 20 years by Kota Ezawa, Larry Sultan and Liz Cohen, among others. Published in celebration of the centennial anniversary of the California College of the Arts, the book accompanies an exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California. It includes artist biographies, essays by Nancy Boas, Glen Helfand, Tara McDowell and Peter Selz and texts by critic Arthur C. Danto and curator Matthew Higgs, among others.