Human forms can be intensely intimate or broadly universal. Here, figurative artists use the human form as a tool to express varied content and contemporary issues. These paintings depict our feelings and sentiments, our sense of belonging to a larger community in the contemporary world, while capturing the impulses behind the range of figuration presented by today's contemporary international artists. Portraitist Marlene Dumas presents figures in a gritty, unsentimental manner, evoking the essence of the human condition, while Kerry James Marshall paints the life of African-Americans in the twentieth-century, employing recent historical review to document the social challenges. British artist Jenny Saville paints the figure in massive scale, combined with an overt, never-ending interest in the pure rendering of human flesh. Hope Gangloff paints her figures as characters, intimate friends, and acquaintances, narrating a drama from their canvases. An important resource for those interested in contemporary figurative painting. AUTHOR: Lauren Pheeney Della Monica, a New York-based art consultant, specializes in advising private clients on building collections of fine art. After earning her Royal Society of Arts Diploma in Connoisseurship from Christie's Education followed by her law degree, Lauren worked in an American paintings gallery, the Citibank Private Bank Art Advisory Service, the art law group of a Manhattan law firm, and MoMA's office of the general counsel before founding her art advisory firm, LPDM Fine Art, in 2004. She has written books about contemporary art ('Painted Landscapes: Contemporary Views', Schiffer, 2013) and nineteenth-century American marine painting, as well as numerous articles on art collecting. She is a member of the Association of Professional Art Advisors (APAA.) For more information, see www.lpdmfineart.com. 272 pages