382-page hardcover book of works by artist John Currin (uncle of Dovie, in 5th Grade!), personally inscribed by the artist. Includes essays by Norman Bryson, Alison M. Gingeras, Dave Eggers; Edited by Kara Vander Weg with Rose Dergan.

John Currin was born in 1962 in Boulder, Colorado. He received a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and an MFA from Yale University. His ambitious paintings seduce, repel, surprise, and puzzle. With inspirations as diverse as Old Master portraits, pin-ups, pornography, and B-movies, Currin paints ideational yet challengingly perverse images of women, from lusty nymphs and dour matrons to more ethereal feminine prototypes. Consistent throughout his oeuvre is his search for the point at which the beautiful and the grotesque are held in perfect balance.

Currin’s work is represented in museum collections worldwide, including Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Art Institute of Chicago; Des Moines Art Center; Tate Collection, London; and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. His painting, Bea Arthur Naked, sold at Christie's on May 15, 2013 for $1,900,000.