Editor’s comments:

When it was first published in 1993, New American Paintings was part of a much smaller and less connected art world. The last decade has witnessed a robust expansion of the contemporary art market, along with an unprecedented proliferation of art galleries, art fairs, art books, art museums, art websites and art magazines. For those interested in contemporary art, all of this has been somewhat of a double-edged sword: While there is a lot more to look at, read and consume, much of that information is unwanted.

Put into scientific terms, New American Paintings’ core function is to view the widest possible swath of visual information and filter it down to a concentrated, significant and ultimately consumable subset. While certain art-related websites have similar aims, we have been performing this function since long before the first “on-line gallery” went live. In 2006, we reviewed the work of more than 5,000 painters throughout the country and offered 240 of them free exposure in the pages of New American Paintings. For many artists featured in New American Paintings, publication can literally launch a career.

While New American Paintings’ core mission will not change as we move forward, we are starting to make some changes in the presentation and content of the publication. Most noticeably, this edition marks the introduction of a new masthead and cover design. The decision to make these adjustments was motivated by a wish to more accurately reflect the progressive and vital content of New American Paintings. In the coming months, you will notice other design changes within the book, and, more importantly, the addition of editorial content such as features on past New American Paintings artists.

Aside from being the launch vehicle of our new “look,” this edition of New American Paintings is also special in that it contains a supplement called The MFA Annual. More than 900 Master of Fine Arts candidates from the nation’s top art schools competed. Linda Norden, the former Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts led the review and selected the twenty featured artists. You will find this section at the back of this edition.

I would like to thank Charlotta Kotik, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum, for her review of this year’s southern competition. I have worked with Charlotta on several other occasions and she has always been a tremendous supporter of this project.

I hope that you enjoy the content of this expanded edition of New American Paintings and our new look. In the future, we look forward to presenting you with the work of many more emerging painters. Please feel free to contact me at steven@newamericanpaintings.com with any comments that you may have.

Steven Zevitas
Publisher/Editor
New American Paintings