Jane Livingston

Jane Shelton Livingston (born 12 February 1944) is an American art curator. She is the author and co-author of numerous books and catalogs.

Life and work

Livingston was born in Upland, California.

From 1967 to 1975, she was curator of 20th-century art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She was editor of the Richard Diebenkorn Catalogue Raisonné and as of 2011 was working as an independent curator.[1]

In 1975 she became associate director and chief curator at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, but resigned in 1989, prompted by the Corcoran's cancellation of a show of work by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.[2][3] Livingston had been on sabbatical, writing a book under a Guggenheim Fellowship when the exhibition was cancelled;[4] when she returned, she made it clear that she would not have cancelled the show.[5] Livingston had arranged the installation, which was financed in part by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).[6]

She organized a major museum exhibition of Chicano art,[7] and, together with Marcia Tucker, the first major museum exhibition of Bruce Nauman.[1] Other exhibitions include her show of National Geographic, "illustrative" photography.[8] She and curator John Beardsley also curated an exhibition of black outsider artists in 1982.[9] This show "marked an explosion of interest in the work of African American artists."[10] Livingston's The New York School of Photography (1992) has been described as a "path-breaking study", first identifying the titular subject.[11] Livingston curated a show of John Alexander's works at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2008.[12]

Livingston's work on The Art of Richard Diebenkorn (1997) helped produce a book that collected the most important works of Richard Diebenkorn, who had been under-represented in publishing.[13] The catalogue raisonné she compiled on the artist appeared in 2016.

Publications

• Livingston, Jane (1972). Bruce Nauman: Work from 1965 to 1972. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art. ISBN 9780875870519.
• Livingston, Jane; Beardsley, John; Perry, Regenia (1982). Black Folk Art in America, 1930–1980. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. OCLC 564711070.
• Livingston, Jane (1984). Ad Reinhardt. Washington, D.C.: Corcoran Gallery of Art. OCLC 563138463.
• Livingston, Jane; Krauss, Rosalind E.; Adès, Dawn (1985). L'Amour Fou: Photography & Surrealism. New York: Abbeville Press. OCLC 560453860.
• Livingston, Jane; Elderfield, John; Fine, Ruth (1997). The Art of Richard Diebenkorn. Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520212572.
• Livingston, Jane (1992). The New York School: Photographs, 1936–1963. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang. ISBN 9781556702396.
• Livingston, Jane (1994). The Art of Photography at National Geographic. Köln: Evergreen/Benedikt Taschen. ISBN 9783822893111.
• Livingston, Jane; Nochlin, Linda; Lee, Yvette Y. (2002). The Paintings of Joan Mitchell. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520235687.
• Livingston, Jane; Greene, Alison de Lima (2008). John Alexander–A Retrospective. Houston: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. ISBN 9780300125061.
• Cohen, Mark; Livingston, Jane (2015). Frame—A Retrospective. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 9781477303726.
• Livingston, Jane (2016). Richard Diebenkorn: The catalogue raisonné. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300184501.

References

1. "Modern Art in Los Angeles: Women Curators in Los Angeles". The Getty Research Institute. 2011. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
2. Lewis, Jo Ann (December 14, 1992). "Portrait of a curator: Life after the Corcoran". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
3. Parachini, Allan. "Chief Curator at Corcoran Resigns". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
4. "Chief Curator at Corcoran Resigns". L.A. Times. Retrieved 17 November 2018.^[dead link‍]
5. Lewis, Jo Ann (14 September 1998). "Corcoran Gallery's Longtime No. 2 Resigns". The Washington Post. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
6. Gamarekian, Barbara (14 September 1989). "Curator for Mapplethorpe Show Resigns Corcoran Posts". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
7. Kimmelman, Michael (9 June 1989). "30 Hispanic Artists at Brooklyn Museum". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
8. Richard, Paul (4 June 1988). "The Magnificent 'Odyssey'; At the Corcoran, Geographic's World, Up Front & Up Close". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 5 May 2016. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
9. Smith, Roberta (8 March 2002). "'A Return to January 1982' -- The Corcoran Show Revisited". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
10. Amaki, Amalia K. (2006). "The Power of Color in the Art World". The Crisis. Archived from the original on 2016-05-05. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
11. Moore, Deborah Dash (March 2013). "After Weegee: Essays on Contemporary Jewish American Photographers. By Daniel Morris". American Jewish History (review). 97 (1): 93–94. doi:10.1353/ajh.2011.0012.
12. Breal, Jordan (May 2008). "A Dark Visionary". Texas Monthly. Retrieved 28 March 2016 – via GALE.
13. Hurley, Patricia (June 1998). "A Neglected Master". The Art Book. 5 (3): 11–12. doi:10.1111/1467-8357.00095.