A timely survey on the new figuration and its origins in the painting of Ensor, Lassnig and Guston

In the 1990s, after a long period dominated by abstraction and conceptual approaches, painting saw a revival of figuration by artists whose work updated portraiture and history painting but remained rooted in the conventions of realism. Now, however, a new generation, coming to prominence in the new millennium, is distinguished by a radically different approach to the figure, in which bodies are fragmented, morphed, merged and remade but never completely cohesive.

Radical Figures brings together ten painters at the heart of this zeitgeist: Michael Armitage, Cecily Brown, Nicole Eisenman, Sanya Kantarovsky, Tala Madani, Ryan Mosley, Christina Quarles, Daniel Richter, Dana Schutz and Tschabalala Self. Presenting for the first time this new direction in painting, this fully illustrated catalog includes key works, as well as interviews with each of the artists.