A Diary of the Plague Year
An Illustrated Chronicle of 2020
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
An extraordinary illustrated chronicle of 2020 that captures this indelible year in America in all its tragic, surreal, epic, and (sometimes) comedic intensity
Artist Elise Engler set herself a task five years ago: to illustrate the first headline she heard on her bedside radio every morning. The idea was to create a pictorial record of one year of listening to the news. But when Donald Trump was elected, the headlines turned too wild for her to stop the experiment.
Then 2020 happened. Was there ever such a year? Headlines about the death of Kobe Bryant and Donald Trump's impeachment began to give way to news of a mysterious virus in China, and Engler’s pages were quickly filled with the march of COVID-19: schools closing their doors, hospitals overflowing, graveyards full to capacity. Day by day, Engler drew every shocking turn of the year: the police murder of George Floyd and protests around the globe; a war against science and those who preached it; fires consuming California; a vicious election, absurdly contested. Other stories appeared, too: “Harvey Weinstein Sentenced,” “Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospitalized,” “China Extends Control over Hong Kong,” and—on repeat—“Stock Market Plunges.”
The result is a powerful visual record of an unprecedented time, collected in A Diary of the Plague Year, which follows the headlines from the first appearance of the coronavirus to the inauguration of President Joe Biden. Made in real time, Engler’s vibrant, immediate images recapture what it was like to live through 2020, bringing texture, feeling, and even charm to what we might not remember and what we will never forget.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Artist Engler debuts with a stunning visual chronicle of what many consider "the worst year of our lives." From January 20, 2020, to January 21, 2021, Engler created a work of art for each day of the calamitous period marked by Covid-19, based on the headlines every morning. These evocative works, accompanied by brief notes summarizing the day's news, lead readers through the monumental, mundane, and transitory events of what Engler calls "a time scarred by fecklessness, devastation, rage, injustice, illness, and death." While the pandemic looms large in her provocative paintings—as well as former president Trump's two impeachments—she underscores how, despite humanity being on pause, "we managed to carry on." On offer are portraits that juxtapose the profound with the prosaic—Kobe Bryant's death on January 27, 2020; Tom Brady's signing with Tampa Bay for $60 million (which happened, she notes, the same day that New York "declared disaster"); the murder of George Floyd in May and the subsequent summer of protest; and President Biden's inauguration. In a blunt style that captures the urgency and confusion of that year, Engler's paintings offer an extraordinarily haunting time capsule of an era readers soon won't forget.
