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THE ART OF RIVALRY

FOUR FRIENDSHIPS, BETRAYALS, AND BREAKTHROUGHS IN MODERN ART

Smee takes readers deep into the beginnings of modern art in a way that not only enlightens, but also builds a stronger...

An exploration of the relationships among eight artists who were friends, mentors, and/or rivals and the particular incidents that changed their lives.

It may have been a portrait sitting, an exchange of works, a studio visit, or the opening of an exhibition. However they came to pass, writes Pulitzer Prize–winning Boston Globe art critic Smee (Nonfiction Writing/Wellesley Coll.; Freud, 2015, etc.), these relationships greatly affected the psyches of some of the greatest artists of their time. Some have cast them as rivals, others as enemies, but the author rejects many of these opinions. Francis Bacon’s influence on Lucian Freud helped loosen his style, and Jackson Pollock’s works drove Willem de Kooning to open up his manner of creation. All were undeniable talents, and their abilities were changed significantly by these relationships. However, none of them was ever an acolyte (imagine Pablo Picasso ever admitting anyone was better than he). Henri Matisse said it best in that he could never tolerate rivals, but he thrived in their presence. They all sought radical originality, and each man’s art was affected by lovers, successes, and failures, as well as hard drinking and brave collectors of modern art like Peggy Guggenheim and Gertrude and Sarah Stein. Would Edgar Degas ever have moved out into Paris’ streets without Edouard Manet’s urging ,or would Picasso ever have moved to cubism without the specter of Matisse’s maturity and pressure? In addition to digging into these intimate relationships, Smee explains their work in in an accessible way. He clearly and vividly explains the monumental effect each man had on modern art, from Manet’s daring Olympia to Pollock’s Number 1.

Smee takes readers deep into the beginnings of modern art in a way that not only enlightens, but also builds a stronger appreciation of the influences that created the environment that fostered its development.

Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-8129-9480-3

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: May 17, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016

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NIGHT

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. 

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006

ISBN: 0374500010

Page Count: 120

Publisher: Hill & Wang

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

Well-told and admonitory.

Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

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