Like many readers, I have in my library a small group of monographs that qualify as neither fish nor fowl. Although they are not books I revisit frequently for reference, they are not quite books I can ignore and consign to the attic when I need more space. Usually the product of devoted research into less-well-documented figures—for which their mere existence makes them welcome—these studies fail to provide the sort of revelatory experience I find in more successful explorations of artists’ lives and works. Yet since these books frequently offer the only attempts at serious discussion of artists whose work deserves greater renown, I keep them, even if I rarely return to them.
I will probably stash John T. Hill’s ambitious new volume, Norman Ives: Constructions & Reconstructions, in this little corner. It is a tremendously frustrating book, but one I can’t entirely dismiss.
On the surface, there is plenty of interest here. Ives (1923–78) was an accomplished graphic designer whose commercial work grew out of and remained closely bound to his practice as a fine artist. Despite a comparatively short career, he achieved considerable success in a variety of disciplines and substantial influence as an educator.
Ives had the good fortune to study with Josef Albers in the storied department of design at the Yale School of Art. Adapting the instructional model of the Bauhaus, Albers and the faculty at Yale concocted a course of study that mixed intellectual rigor with wide-ranging experimentation,
