Ed Clark, the big sweep : chronicles of a life 1926-2019 / edited by Jake Brodsky.

Two full floors of Hauser & Wirth's 22nd Street building in New York are devoted to 'The Big Sweep,' an exhibition covering the six-decade career of pioneering American abstractionist Ed Clark (1926-2019). Taking its title from Clark's dedication to innovative techniques, particularly his revolutionary embrace of the common push broom as a paintbrush, this presentation documents the ways in which Clark pushed the boundaries of abstraction and its conventions beyond expressionism, from his breakthrough introduction of the shaped canvas to his distinctive approach to and impact upon questions of materiality, form and color. On both sides of the Atlantic--in New York and in Paris--Clark witnessed and participated in myriad pivotal developments in mid to late 20th-century art history, counting artists such as Willem de Kooning, Beauford Delaney, Joan Mitchell and David Hammons among his friends and acquaintances. This publication recounts the story of Clark s art, life and career through reprints of important historical texts and interviews with the artist, as well as photographs, letters and ephemera from his archive.