Isabella Ducrot: A Retrospective

Co-published with Museo Madre and Astrup Fearnley Museet, this book is the first comprehensive monograph of the Italian artist Isabella Ducrot. Ducrot uses both textiles and paper as a medium, which she has collected from her travels throughout Asia. The material, its flaws and qualities, become part of the image. Flower still lifes, landscapes, loving couples and garments are all part of Ducrot’s vocabulary of themes—simple, yet all-encompassing.

The book brings together more than 250 works from throughout Ducrot’s career, spanning four decades, and features new scholarly essays by Adam D. Weinberg, Eva Fabbris & Marta Federici, T’ai Smith, Angela Tecce, Ginevra de Blasio and Jhumpa Lahiri. In addition, the book includes a selection of Isabella Ducrot’s own writing, as well as an illustrated chronology of the life and work of the artist.

Isabella Ducrot was born in 1931 in Naples. Her oeuvre is deeply rooted in her interest in fabrics, central to both her pictorial works and writings. Employing diverse media—including pencil, pastel, ink and watercolour—her works compress an array of cultural references, ranging philosophy, folklore and textile weaving.