About The Rose

“Drawing on in-depth archival research and ephemeral artifacts, Ferrell illuminates the creative exchange between the Fillmore District artists of San Francisco and their activities as they related to DeFeo and The Rose. . . . Highly recommended.”—A. Verplaetse, Choice

Winner of the SECAC Award for Excellence in Scholarly Research and Publication

“An insightful reading of Jay DeFeo’s The Rose and the dynamics of creative community building in postwar America.”—Ken D. Allan, Seattle University

“Rich in archival detail and incisive visual analysis, About The Rose makes a highly successful intervention into the field of postwar art by advancing a new approach to the function of community in the Fillmore art scene during the 1950s and 60s.”—Joanna Pawlik, author of Remade in America: Surrealist Art, Activism and Politics, 1940–1978

“Ferrell gives us a wholly new understanding of The Rose not just as an important presence in the lives of her protagonists, but as a site for working out the dichotomies between self and other, autonomy and collaboration, and art and the everyday in postwar America.”—Kirsten Swenson, author of Irrational Judgments: Eva Hesse, Sol LeWitt, and 1960s New York