Ronald Garrigues: An Artistic Life (2020) – Limited Edition of 125 copies.
This definitive retrospective monograph reevaluates the legacy of Ronald Garrigues (1928–2015), offering new critical perspectives on the American artist’s contributions to postwar abstraction and public art. Published five years after his death, the expanded edition incorporates previously unpublished archival material, including studio journals and interviews with contemporaries like Ed Moses and Helen Lundeberg, shedding fresh light on Garrigues’ “structural expressionist” philosophy that bridged West Coast Hard-Edge painting and environmental sculpture.
The volume features 120 color plates spanning his entire career—from early figurative works influenced by his studies with Rico Lebrun to later large-scale steel installations such as Tidal Chroma (2008) at the Port of Los Angeles. New essays by art historians contextualize Garrigues’ work within 21st-century discourses on urban aesthetics and material ecology, while a comprehensive chronology details his 1964 Venice Biennale participation and controversial 1993 MacArthur Fellowship snub.
Notable additions to this edition include:
- Conservation studies of his signature enamel-on-steel techniques
- Photographic documentation of lost or destroyed public works
- Annotated preparatory drawings for the Ziggurat Variations series
- Critical correspondence with art critic Peter Plagens
The 2020 edition was published concurrently with the Getty Research Institute’s acquisition of Garrigues’ personal archives, cementing his place in Southern California art history. Limited to 125 copies.
For scholars, the updated bibliography incorporates doctoral dissertations and museum catalogues raisonnés published since the 2000 edition. The volume serves as an essential companion to the 2018 Pacific Standard Time exhibition that reintroduced Garrigues to a new generation.
