Subversion and Surrealism in the Art of Honor?Sharrer

Honoré Sharrer (1920–2009) was a major art world figure in 1940s America, celebrated for exquisitely detailed paintings conveying subtly subversive critiques of the political and artistic climate of her time. This book offers the first critical reassessment of the artist: a leftist, female painter committed to figuration in an era when anti-Communist sentiment and masculine Abstract Expressionism dominated American culture. Her brightly colored, humorous, and distinctly feminine paintings combine elements of social realism and surrealism to seductive and disquieting effect. This publication is a timely reevaluation of an artist who pushed the boundaries of figurative painting with playfulness and biting wit.

Sarah Burns is the Ruth N. Halls Professor of Art History Emerita at Indiana University. Robert Cozzolino is the Patrick and Aimee Butler Curator of Paintings at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Anastasia Kinigopoulo is assistant curator at the Columbus Museum of Art. Michael Lobel is professor of art history at Hunter College, City University of New York. M. Melissa Wolfe is curator of American art at the Saint Louis Art Museum. Adam Zagorin, the artist’s son, is an investigative journalist for the Project on Government Oversight.