We are pleased to feature a selection of original drawings by illustrator, author and publisher Leanne Shapton, our Featured Artist for the months of February and March. Taken from Shapton's graphic novel Was She Pretty? the exhibition of these unique illustrations coincides with the novel’s release in paperback by Montreal publisher Drawn & Quarterly.
Was She Pretty? received wide acclaim in 2006 when first published, and continues today to hold a subtle power with its vulnerable, candid and intimate vignettes of ex-lovers. Traversing a cloudy terrain between the real and imagined, Shapton pairs elegant ink drawings with fractured ruminations on what was. Poignant and fragile, yet detached and context-less, the brief impressions read like a “folk taxonomy of former lovers” (Bookforum).
Leanne Shapton, b. 1973, is a Canadian author, artist and publisher based in New York City. She is the co-founder, with photographer Jason Fulford, of J&L Books, an internationally- distributed not-for-profit imprint specializing in art and photography books. Shapton’s Swimming Studies won the 2012 National Book Critic’s Circle Award for autobiography, and was long listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2012. Her works have appeared in diverse newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times, The Paris Review, and The New Yorker. Shapton was part of the 2018 Man Booker Prize jury.
Feb 23rd 2016