Books for Arab American Heritage Month
In honor of Arab American Heritage Month in April, we are sharing books by Arab and Arab American authors that share their culture, history, and personal lives.
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"You want beauty? I'll give you beauty!"—Mary Heilmann
Mary Heilmann is one of the most important abstract painters of her generation. Her distinctively fluid, humorous, and bright canvases combine the modes of Abstract Expressionism with a vibrant Pop sensibility. Heilmannn's 1979 painting in hot pink and black, evocatively titled Save the Last Dance for Me, marked a shift in the artist's perspective. Heilmann describes it: "Now the work came from a different place. Instead of working out of modernist non-image formalism, I began to see that the choices in the work depended more on content for their meaning." This beautifully illustrated study of Save the Last Dance for Me explores the development of Heilmann's work, and the way it continues to engage us—psychologically, sensually, and socially.
The three bright pink rectangles in Heilmann's painting seem to dance off the edge of the canvas, through a black field that seems dark as a nightclub after midnight—or perhaps the three are actually one pink rectangle, seen in a blissfully formal time lapse, moving across the dance floor/canvas. These definitively modernist geometric forms coexist with a sense of movement in real time. For many, abstraction may have been dancing its last dance in 1979, but Heilmann's bright pink rectangles boogie on.
"You want beauty? I'll give you beauty!"—Mary Heilmann
Mary Heilmann is one of the most important abstract painters of her generation. Her distinctively fluid, humorous, and bright canvases combine the modes of Abstract Expressionism with a vibrant Pop sensibility. Heilmannn's 1979 painting in hot pink and black, evocatively titled Save the Last Dance for Me, marked a shift in the artist's perspective. Heilmann describes it: "Now the work came from a different place. Instead of working out of modernist non-image formalism, I began to see that the choices in the work depended more on content for their meaning." This beautifully illustrated study of Save the Last Dance for Me explores the development of Heilmann's work, and the way it continues to engage us—psychologically, sensually, and socially.
The three bright pink rectangles in Heilmann's painting seem to dance off the edge of the canvas, through a black field that seems dark as a nightclub after midnight—or perhaps the three are actually one pink rectangle, seen in a blissfully formal time lapse, moving across the dance floor/canvas. These definitively modernist geometric forms coexist with a sense of movement in real time. For many, abstraction may have been dancing its last dance in 1979, but Heilmann's bright pink rectangles boogie on.
In honor of Arab American Heritage Month in April, we are sharing books by Arab and Arab American authors that share their culture, history, and personal lives.
For National Poetry Month in April, we are sharing poetry collections and books about poetry by authors who have their own stories to tell. These poets delve into history, reimagine the present, examine poetry itself—from traditional poems many know and love to poems and voices that are new and original. Find a full collection of
