“ Man as Art “ from his Travels in New Guinea, by Malcom Kirk
MAN AS ART: NEW GUINEA, Malcolm Kirk's large-format hardcover book, documenting the islanders’ visually stunning tribal body decorations and carved masks, was the culmination of 13-years of travel in that area of the South Pacific. It was first published in 1981 in the USA, the UK, France, Germany and Italy, and subsequently reprinted in a smaller, redesigned paperback edition. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, referring to the hardcover version, wrote that she considered it "one of the most beautiful books I have seen in my life."
Malcolm Kirk arrived in New York, in December 1964 and commenced his career as an assistant to Irving Penn. ICONIC FIGURES began as a project to record notable artists then working in the city, amongst whom were Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, Willem De Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, Tom Wesselman, Jim Dine, Robert Whitman and Saul Steinberg. The portraits of Richard Feynman, Arthur C. Clarke, Claude Levi-Strauss and other prominent scientific figures and writers are from later magazine commissions. Malcolm’s iconic image of Warhol, subsequently translated by the artist into a series of silk-screened 'self-portraits', hangs in major museums throughout the world.
Thanks Spencer Byles
