In the 1960s Wesselmann scandalized the public with his Great American Nude series. These large-sized paintings of female nudes were daring subject matter for the time, and the client wanted to feature one of them on the cover of the publication. However, to our mind, although those works were very interesting, they were no longer provocative. Our first challenge was to persuade the client to use an image from the artist’s Smokers series that depicted a plume of smoke emanating from a cigarette dangling from a pair of voluptuously full lips. In 1964, nudity—not smoking—had shock value. In 2012, just the opposite was true.

We proposed a very classic graphic look, in keeping with the methodical, disciplined artist’s personality. Such an approach ranks Wesselmann among the greats in the European artistic tradition, shattering the perception of Pop art as a minor genre. Making the book’s edges red—one of Wesselmann’s trademark hues—was meant to evoke his talent as a colorist and lend the volume a 3-D look, another important characteristic of his art. For their part, the thick and thin lines of the typeface on the cover call to mind the play of negative and positive shapes so integral to Wesselmann’s work.

The publication, which offers a rare look at the whole of Wesselmann’s work, has met with acclaim in the specialist art press and the media in general internationally, and its attention-grabbing cover has often illustrated articles about the exhibition. It has already won a number of design awards. In terms of sales, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts exceeded its target and had to bring back copies previously sold to the book’s distributor, Prestel, to meet the demand; this should only increase, as the exhibition is currently on view in Richmond, Virginia, and will travel to Cincinnati and Denver during the next year.