Jack Bealjack Lives Oneonta

Through his portrayals of his wife in the nude, and through his images of flowers, still lifes and landscapes, the American painter Jack Beal reveals his love of visual beauty and projects emotional complexity. Beal, who turned from abstract expressionism to representation in the early 1960s, places his nudes amid complex settings and delights in juxtaposing dissimilar textures and patterns. In a different vein, The Sense of Sight , an allegory crowded with optical instruments, spectacles and cameras, revives a 17th-century Dutch tradition. History of Labor , a series of murals for the Labor Department building in Washington, D.C., follows Thomas Hart Benton's tradition of dealing unabashedly with popular issues. This copiously illustrated monograph by art historian Shanes, an authority on J.M.W. Turner, is the first book-length study of this interesting figurative artist. (May)