Edouard Manet s Le Dejeuner sur l herbe (1863) is generally cited as the first modern painting. The entry slide in art history lectures about modernism, the work remains among the 'most audacious painting[s] ever seen in France,' as Ross King described it in The Judgement of Paris (2006). As Manet did with Le Dejeuner sur l herbe, the most provocative painters today collapse the historical and the contemporary onto one plane. Jeffrey Deitch invited a group of these influential artists to create their own versions, combined here with historical responses to Manet s painting. The slim volume features these often biting and satirical works alongside essays discussing Le Dejeuner sur l herbe s enduring influence on contemporary figurative painting. ARTISTS INCLUDE: Nina Chanel Abney, Diane Arbus, Vanessa Beecroft, Cecily Brown, Caitlin Cherry, Joe Coleman, Robert Colescott, Somaya Critchlow, Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, Dominique Fung, Alain Jacquet, Kurt Kauper, Karen Kilimnik, Cindy Ji Hye Kim, Jeff Koons, Ella Kruglyanskaya, Liu Xiaodong, Tala Madani, Sophie Matisse, Paul McCarthy, Sam McKinniss, Jill Mulleady, Ariana Papademetropoulos, Naudline Pierre, Christina Quarles, Walter Robinson, Giangiacomo Rossetti, David Salle, Katja Seib, Tschabalala Self, Vaughn Spann, Mickalene Thomas, Salman Toor, John Wesley, Kehinde Wiley

"In celebration of Edouard Manet's seminal 1863 painting, the famed gallerist and provocateur Jeffrey Deitch enlists modern art stars to create their own versions (sly, worshipful, satirical) of the work." — NEW YORK TIMES

Jeffrey Deitch has helped to build the careers of some of many leading contemporary artists as a gallerist and curator. He is the former Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Aruna D'Souza writes about modern and contemporary art; intersectional feminisms and other forms of politics. Marina Molarsky-Beck studies twentieth-century art, with a focus on interwar photography and histories of gender and sexuality. Thomas E. Crow is an American art historian and art critic who is best known for his influential writing on the role of art in modern society and culture.