New British Art in the Saatchi Collection

This book highlights 22 British and British-based painters and sculptors, each a formidable talent, whose works are among the vast holdings of advertising mogul Charles Saatchi. The School of London painters represented here encompass a broad range of styles and subjects, from Frank Auerbach's heavily impastoed urban landscapes to Lucian Freud's disturbingly psychosexual nudes to Lisa Milroy's rhythmic repetitions of quotidian objects. A more unified aesthetic informs the work of the New London Sculptors, who all make extensive use of industrial materials. Tony Cragg's plastic lids, containers and other disposables compose a kind of mosaic that comments wryly on consumer society. Richard Deacon's steel and wood structures are unglamorous yet beguilingly sensual explorations of negative space. British art critic Hicks's brief but helpful text profiles each artist, discussing their general viewpoints and the specific works reproduced in more than 200 color illustrations. Overall, this is a satisfying introduction to contemporary British art. (June)