Jack Beal first attained prominence in the early 1960s when he was one of the first American artists to renounce abstract expressionism for realist painting, feeling that he was raising rather than lowering the stakes of his art by doing so. Jack Beal, the first monograph on this leading American artist, surveys his entire oeuvre to date, including paintings, murals, drawings, and prints, beginning with what he himself regards as his first important picture, The Saw (1964). Jack Beal reproduces all of the artist's most important works, including sixty-four in full color, conveying a range and balance of colors of extraordinary freshness and richness. They are accompanied by a major essay written by Shanes, a bibliography, biographical outline, lists of exhibitions and public collections, and index.