Catalog notes

Description

Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, Sonoma, California, Published date: 2002. Softcover, printed paper wrappers; [30] pp (unpaginated); 26 cm. Catalog published in conjunction with the exhibition "In Smog and Thunder: Historical Works from the Great War of the Californias," held at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, June-August 2002. Illustrated throughout with full-color reproductions of paintings, drawings, and mixed media works. Text in English.

Condition & notes

In very good condition. Original black and illustrated paper covers with light shelf wear and mild edge wear with some light color loss along edges and spine; light bumping and creasing to corners and light overall scuffing. Binding sound. Interior pages clean and unmarked. The catalog documents Sandow Birk's ambitious satirical and allegorical body of work imagining a fictional late twentieth-century civil war fought across California. Drawing on visual traditions of history painting, wartime propaganda posters, and contemporary urban imagery, Birk reinterprets canonical battle scenes and political iconography through a distinctly Californian lens. Includes a curator's statement by Lia Bonagura-Transue, an introduction framing the fictional conflict and its cultural implications, and extensive illustrated entries for works in the exhibition, with captions identifying titles, media, dates, dimensions, and collection credits.