NEW YORK, NY.- Best known for having written and produced some of the seminal records of American pop culture, from “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” “Rag Doll,” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You,” for Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, to “Lady Marmalade” for Patti LaBelle, Bob Crewe was a multifaceted artist for whom a passion for painting and the visual arts provided a lifelong counterbalance to music.
Bob Crewe: Sight and Sound is the first book to explore both the extraordinary musical life and the remarkable paintings and sculptures of one of America's greatest-ever songwriters. Collected here are more than 80 of Crewe's original artworks, stretching from his first forays into abstract expressionism in the 1950s and 1960s, his more complex, tactile compositions made in the 1990s, and never-before-seen archival images and ephemera that reflect Crewe's simultaneous contribution to the visual arts and popular music.
Original essays by Jessica May and Peter Plagens explore the development of an artist whose influences ranged from Rauschenberg and Johns to Warhol and Bacon; legendary record producer Andrew Loog Oldham captures the period of radical experimentalism in which Crewe wrote many of the most memorable songs in the canon of modern pop; and Donald Albrecht's introduction provides further insight into Crewe’s personal and creatives lives, as well as his relationships with icons of the music industry.
Donald Albrecht is a writer, curator, and cultural historian living and working in New York City. Formerly curator at the Museum of the City of New York, he is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and has written and contributed to many books on the intersections of art, architecture, design, photography, and sexuality with popular culture. Jessica May is an independent curator and formerly Deputy Director and Robert and Elizabeth Nanovic Chief Curator at Portland Museum of Art, Maine. Andrew Loog Oldham is an English record producer and author. He was for several years manager of the Rolling Stones, and went on to work with many of the biggest acts of the 1960s and 1970s, from Rod Stewart and the Small Faces to Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. Peter Plagens is an artist, writer, and art critic for The Wall Street Journal, as well as the author of several books of art criticism.
