Jeff Wall's large-scale Cibachrome transparencies mounted on light-boxes have exerted a profound influence over little short of the past three decades. His work also spans a time in which the way in which the relationship between art and history has been conceived has undergone a profound change. He is one of the last artists to work out his "moves" on the basis of a linear view of history and then to have to rethink the relationship of his work with art history in a world in which such a view of history was no longer tenable. His compositions in both color and black-and-white maintain a constant dialogue with nineteenth-century genre painting and truly make him, in Charles Baudelaire's expression, "a painter of modern life." In addition to an in-depth essay by Michael Newman, this book reproduces the complete work of Jeff Wall to date and includes his main writings on the creative experience of other key contemporary artists.