Last Chance for Eden / Selected Art Criticism 1979–1994 / Christopher Knight

Appearing first in the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and now in the Los Angeles Times, Christopher Knight’s distinct brand of journalism combines a radical defense of images alongside an incisive critique of cultural institutions. Among the 129 essays and reviews collected here are individual writings on internationally important historical figures, such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Tung Ch'i Ch'ang, and Édouard Manet; contemporary American masters like Ed Ruscha and Mike Kelley; and significant artists virtually forgotten today, such as California's Henrietta Shore and Mexico's Hermenegildo Bustos. Articles address politically motivated attacks on the NEA; the sculpture commissioned as the Vietnam Women's Memorial; Ariana Huffington's cynical biography of Picasso; the emergence of Los Angeles, birthplace of America's distinctive suburban sprawl, as a cultural powerhouse; and a wide variety of museum exhibitions, both large and small. In 2020, Knight received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism and the Lifetime Achievement Award in Art Journalism from the Rabkin Foundation.

Published in 1995

440 pages, 78 illustrations, hardcover with jacket

ISBN 9780963726421