An artful life

Artist and illustrator Barbara Nessim was one of the formative graphic stylists of the 1960s, she created memorable imagery that captured the spirit of the feminist upheaval of the 1970s, pioneered computer generated art in the 1980s and has continued to be an innovator ever since, exploring contemporary ideas of identity with fresh forms and techniques. What unifies this diverse body of work is her masterful drawing, skill as a colourist and conceptual intelligence: her graceful female figures dance off the page and into the mind. This book captures not only the work; ranging from the sketchbooks that are the wellspring of her art to prominent magazine assignments, like a Rolling Stone cover of John Lennon, to elaborate large scale projects, but also the life that carried her from New York's high Bohemia as a young artist to the world of cutting edge visual journalism. Like other artists whose work captured the mood of their times, such as Keith Haring, Milton Glaser, and Peter Max, Nessim's work arouses deep and pleasurable associations.