American artist Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) is best known as an

American artist Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) is best known as an Abstract Expressionist painter of deeply spiritual works. He equated art with religion, stating that 'the greater the art, the more religious'. Pousette-Dart's lifelong devotion to the sacred in art lies behind his great portal, Cathedral, which is set in the facade of the new Mary Fendrich Hulman Pavilion of the Indianapolis Museum of Art. This bronze door, created by Pousette-Dart, was inspired by his 1978-80 painting, Cathedral, a black-and-white work consisting of a wide variety of forms and symbols, many of which seem to have mythological and religious origins. Stephen Polcari's in-depth analysis of Pousette-Dart's portal reveals the place his work holds in the history of modernism. And David Finn's detailed photographs follow the artist's sculptural forms, composed of polished bronze surfaces and the mysterious, shadowy channels between them. Pousette-Dart believed that art is an opening into the human psyche; in his portal this inner life comes into public view with dramatic force. Book has minor shelf wear.