In 1999, Detroit-area collector James F. Duffy Jr. gave the Detroit Institute of Arts a vast collection of works on paper by Gordon Newton. This gift included over five hundred drawings, forty sketchbooks and sketchpads, two paintings, twelve pieces of sculpture, and folder after folder of archival materials related to the works of art and the artist. These gifts were combined with other works by Gordon Newton that the museum already owned to form an exhibition of the artist's work that spanned over three decades. Many of the works are included in this text, which highlights the breadth of Gordon Newton's art and explores the variety of themes and mediums he has used.Gordon Newton: Selections from the James F. Duffy Jr. Gift provides a rare opportunity to study an artist's work over an extended period of time, from his earliest black-and-white abstract drawings to the heavily layered, richly colored figurative images made within the past decade. Biographical information on Newton, as well as essays that focus on the style of his work and the historical and cultural artistic events shaping the times, is combined with 150 illustrations to make this an important study not only of a major artist, but of the creative process in general.Gordon Newton's art of the last thirty years is complex, beautiful, unpredictable, and always provocative. The essays in this book provide an in-depth look at selected works from the James F. Duffy gift.