This long-awaited volume brings together much of Brian O’Doherty’s most influential writing, including essays on major figures such as Edward Hopper, Mark Rothko, and Andy Warhol, and a substantial follow-up to his iconic Inside the White Cube. New pieces specifically authored for this collection include a meditation on O’Doherty’s various alternate personae—most notably Patrick Ireland—and a reflection on his seminal “Highway to Las Vegas” from 1972, penned after a return visit in 2012. The beautifully written texts, many of which have been unavailable in print, are insightfully introduced by art historian Anne-Marie Bonnet and complemented by forty-five color illustrations of artwork discussed in the essays as well as documentary photographs of O’Doherty and other major art-world figures. Adventurous, original, and essentially O’Doherty, this collection reveals his provocative charm and enduring influence as a public intellectual.

“Hard to pigeonhole and much the better for that fact, Brian O’Doherty writes with superb insight and eloquence on a wide span of topics. Indeed, the very range of O’Doherty’s subjects reflects a mind that has not been stymied by the narrow 'discourse’ of academe.”—David Anfam, critic, curator, and writer

"These collected essays cover a wide range of topics and are powerful, exceedingly well written, and lucidly argued. They represent an important contribution to the fields of American art, museum studies, and modern art history."—Alexander Alberro, Professor of Art History, Barnard College

"The present volume of this polymath’s criticism is perhaps most notable for its collection of O’Doherty’s writings on Edward Hopper and Mark Rothko, two painters whom the writer befriended and knew well. It also contains his latest word on the “white cube” (he coined the now-ubiquitous phrase) from 2009, an update to his influential 1976 Inside the White Cube, an early critique of institutional Modernism."