May Stevens

Smyth-sewn casebound with jacket, 12 x 9 1/4 in., 160 pp. More than 80 color images and 25 black-and-white photographs Author: Patricia Hills. Text: English

Patricia Hills' illustrated, intimate conversation with May Stevens gives us an in-depth look at an extraordinary artist, poet, teacher, and activist. Born in 1924 in the Boston suburb of Dorchester, Stevens studied art in Boston, New York and Paris. Today her major paintings are in many prestgious collections, including those of the Brooklyn Museum; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art etc. Through Hills' 'Converstaion' we learn about Stevens' childhood and het parents (her mother, Alice, is the suject of many of her paintings), her long and close marriage to artist Rudolf Baranik, and her current work and life in New Mexico. She explains the impetus behind her emergence as a committed political activist and artist focused on peace, human rights, and feminism. Patricia Hills provides interjectory text that supplies context for Stevens' words and an essay that further examines the significance of particular works and the artist's oeuvre as whole.