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Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York
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About This Book
A dazzling biography of one of the twentieth-century's most respected painters, Helen Frankenthaler, as she came of age as both an artist and a woman in the vibrant art world of 1950s New York At the dawn of the 1950s, a promising young painter named Helen Frankenthaler, fresh out of college, moved to New York City. By the decade's end, she had succeeded in establishing herself as an important American artist of the postwar period. In the years in between, she made some of the most daring, head-turning paintings of her day and also came into her own as a woman: traveling the world, falling in and out of love, and engaging in an ongoing artistic education. She also experienced anew--and made her mark on--the city in which she had been raised in privilege as the daughter of a judge, even as she left the security of that world to pursue her artistic ambitions. Brought to vivid life by acclaimed art historian Alexander Nemerov, these defining moments--from her first awed encounter with Jackson Pollock's drip paintings to her first solo gallery show to her tumultuous breakup with eminent art critic Clement Greenberg--comprise a portrait as bold and distinctive as the painter herself. Inspired by Pollock and the other male titans of Abstract Expressionism but set on charting her own course, Frankenthaler was an artist whose talent was matched only by her unapologetic determination to distinguish herself in a man's world. Fierce Poise is an exhilarating ride through New York's 1950s art scene and a brilliant portrait of a young artist through the moments that shaped her.
Reviews
"Reading this book, I found myself wondering whether Mr."
"It is their collision, even with its blind spots, that takes center stage here, setting off brilliant sparks of perception and recognition."
"In just over 200 pages, Nemerov takes us on a fast, exhilarating ride through the formative decade of her career, providing a lucid introduction to an artist we're likely to hear more about in the near future."
"Pairing vivid anecdotal biography with energetic descriptive analysis, the author recalibrates our perception of Frankenthaler's undulating and entrancing canvases, on which she channeled in-the-moment feelings and celebrated the 'beauty and power and glory' of life."
"The book ends with a Coda the reader a ghostly witness to Frankenthaler's coming into her celebrity in 1969 with a retrospective at the Whitney Museum."
"It is criticism as communion."
"While some may disagree with the author's assumption about audience appreciation of Frankenthaler's oeuvre, this book will appeal to those interested in the developmental years of a 1950s artist, and her creative process."
"This book serves as a corrective to those dismissals."
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