David Humphrey

The first monograph on the heterogeneous postmodernist painting of David Humphrey, blending figuration and abstraction, pop and expressionism

The acclaimed American painter David Humphrey (born 1955) has been exhibiting his work internationally since the 1980s when he first burst upon the New York art scene. His compositions often feature human figures, animals and objects interwoven into abstract passages to create complex narratives that reckon with the dynamics of human relationships, gender, the environment and race, all while resisting any one interpretation.

This is the first comprehensive monograph surveying the totality of the artist’s 40-year career. Edited by Davy Lauterbach in close collaboration with the artist, it includes over 200 full-color reproductions of Humphrey’s painting and sculptural work from the early 1980s to today. The plates are complemented by a selection of archival and detail photographs, and essays by Lauterbach, Wayne Koestenbaum and Lytle Shaw, plus a lively and far-reaching conversation between Humphrey and the painter Jennifer Coates, his frequent artistic collaborator.