As an icon of beauty and an object of desire, the blonde has captivated the American public for nearly a century. In the 1950s, Hollywood began casting attractive blondes as figures
that combine chaste purity and sexual allure. Based on a forthcoming exhibition at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, The Blonde in American Art and Popular Culture, 1960–1990
critically examines representations of the female blonde during three formative decades of American cultural history.
Accompanied by essays that situate the artworks in their historical context as well as supplemental images from American mass media, this lushly illustrated volume investigates how
representations of blondeness in popular culture were appropriated and reexamined by American artists in painting, film, sculpture, and photography. Featuring work by John Baldessari, Lynn
Hershman Leeson, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, and other postmodern masters, The Blonde in American Art and Popular Culture,
1960–1990 will be an essential read for anyone interested in the juncture of high art and mass culture in the twentieth century.
