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thegrimbookworm's review against another edition
This was not the book it claims it is. What I thought would be a focus on women in the art world ended up being a focus on the men surrounding the women in the art world and art history in general. Had the synopsis described this to be an art history book of a particular era, instead of using a group of women in the title to draw people in, then I'd be less disappointed and would have continued to read it for exactly that. But I picked up this book to learn about the women in art history specifically. So, I'm DNFing it and moving on to something else. This book is 944 pages long, and I don't want to slog through 900+ pages of false advertisement.
vohak's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
A very enlightening book about the women who were formative in the creation of abstract art in New York in the 20th century. This book is about a group of very flawed people who came together professionally, creatively, sexually, and romantically over several decades to create art like no one had ever seen before.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Car accident, Sexism, Violence, Misogyny, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Drug use, Suicide attempt, and Abandonment
Minor: Rape, Sexual harassment, War, Abortion, and Infidelity
riotsquirrrl's review
4.0
Long, and at times overly focused on the men of the movement, this book is very good at delving into the lives and influences of these 5 women to the point where I feel like I know them. But ultimately I was left pondering who was left behind.
Given the length of this book, and the number of pages devoted to male artists, male dealers, and male poets (both straight and gay), I was surprised at how the only lesbian mentioned was one line about Sylvia Beech in Paris. The author briefly talks about the gallery owner Betty Parsons but only my own googling turned up that Parsons had been with women in Paris but went back in the closet when she returned to the States and ran galleries. At the very least, given the amount of time the author talks about the repression of the postwar period and its effect on bohemians, the fact that a gallery owner who carried Jackson Pollock's work felt pressured to hide seems like a big deal. It also seems weird to me that so many painters could be in the Village and not strike up a friendship with some queer women.
Instead we get a book that reads as super hetero, with its focus on the painters' love lives with men and how being in relationships with their fellow male artists affected them and the scene in general. But it makes me wonder, what content is absent from the record? Either because the author didn't include it or because the women themselves omitted it. I find it hard to believe that five women who dressed in men's clothing and were tough like men didn't get called dykes and worse, especially Grace Hardigan.
I'm also not really a fan of the author's coverage of race, or rather, her mostly not-coverage. I can't help but compare this book to "If Beale Street Could Talk," which talks about how difficult it was for Black people to rent lofts in the Village and the police harassment they received. Like it was a choice by those painters to only fraternize with other white and Jewish people. They liked jazz but didn't seem to have actually made friends with any of the jazz musicians.
To her credit, though, the author does include the ways in which Jewish people were and were not integrated into white society, and how that intersected with the amount of money they had.
I also expected more analysis about how women artists were able to paint in part because they went to the automat every day, and so paid others to do the work they didn't want to do. Especially given how much time is spent talking about how coming from money did and did not make the artists' lives different. It's also interesting but not really remarked upon that Hardigan started buying fancy clothes and furs from her paintings' sale and that gets remarked about by other people, but the furs and such that Joan Mitchell had received through family gifts went unremarked.
Whatever did happen to Grace's son? The author stops mentioning him after age 11, which in and of itself belies the author's comments that Hardigan was distressed at having given him up. Let Hardigan be as deadbeat as Bill de Kooning, Mary Gabriel!
I admit that I also laughed at the author saying, "Mondrian so respected looking that he rarely looked people in the face." No, ma'am, that's the autism. It did make me wonder about what else Gabriel missed because she didn't know what she was looking at.
Given the length of this book, and the number of pages devoted to male artists, male dealers, and male poets (both straight and gay), I was surprised at how the only lesbian mentioned was one line about Sylvia Beech in Paris. The author briefly talks about the gallery owner Betty Parsons but only my own googling turned up that Parsons had been with women in Paris but went back in the closet when she returned to the States and ran galleries. At the very least, given the amount of time the author talks about the repression of the postwar period and its effect on bohemians, the fact that a gallery owner who carried Jackson Pollock's work felt pressured to hide seems like a big deal. It also seems weird to me that so many painters could be in the Village and not strike up a friendship with some queer women.
Instead we get a book that reads as super hetero, with its focus on the painters' love lives with men and how being in relationships with their fellow male artists affected them and the scene in general. But it makes me wonder, what content is absent from the record? Either because the author didn't include it or because the women themselves omitted it. I find it hard to believe that five women who dressed in men's clothing and were tough like men didn't get called dykes and worse, especially Grace Hardigan.
I'm also not really a fan of the author's coverage of race, or rather, her mostly not-coverage. I can't help but compare this book to "If Beale Street Could Talk," which talks about how difficult it was for Black people to rent lofts in the Village and the police harassment they received. Like it was a choice by those painters to only fraternize with other white and Jewish people. They liked jazz but didn't seem to have actually made friends with any of the jazz musicians.
To her credit, though, the author does include the ways in which Jewish people were and were not integrated into white society, and how that intersected with the amount of money they had.
I also expected more analysis about how women artists were able to paint in part because they went to the automat every day, and so paid others to do the work they didn't want to do. Especially given how much time is spent talking about how coming from money did and did not make the artists' lives different. It's also interesting but not really remarked upon that Hardigan started buying fancy clothes and furs from her paintings' sale and that gets remarked about by other people, but the furs and such that Joan Mitchell had received through family gifts went unremarked.
Whatever did happen to Grace's son? The author stops mentioning him after age 11, which in and of itself belies the author's comments that Hardigan was distressed at having given him up. Let Hardigan be as deadbeat as Bill de Kooning, Mary Gabriel!
I admit that I also laughed at the author saying, "Mondrian so respected looking that he rarely looked people in the face." No, ma'am, that's the autism. It did make me wonder about what else Gabriel missed because she didn't know what she was looking at.
pixie_d's review
5.0
4.5 stars. A necessary corrective for sexist art history and business practices, but it doesn't read as polemical. The author's clear, steady prose made it easy going, like reading an old-fashioned series of biographies marketed for children (I mean this in the best way), except none of the adult subject matter was left out. Of the five featured artists in this book, I definitely came away with a favorite and a least-favorite (although in truth I couldn't imagine being able to hang out with any of them due to all the smoking and other bad behavior!) But my conclusions were not manipulated by the author, who, beyond being thorough and unbiased, treated her subjects with warmth and sensitivity (another quality that reminded me of those bygone reading experiences).
Reading this book was also an easy, and again probably necessary, way to read explanations of life during wartime and the mid-century aftermath. You will come away with an understanding not only of what this group of artists painted, but why.
Don't let the length deter you from reading: it's not *quite* as long as it looks, since there are over a hundred pages of footnotes, not to mention an extensive bibliography and index. That right there tells you how well researched this book is, a massive undertaking, which makes the way she managed to organize the material even more impressive.
This is not just a story of five artists. There's a huge cast of characters, and she gives at least capsule biographies of each one. She also mentions the titles of plenty of paintings, which allows plenty of opportunities to Google images, one of my favorite activities when reading true stories. (Three sections of pictures in the book, too!)
Reading this book was also an easy, and again probably necessary, way to read explanations of life during wartime and the mid-century aftermath. You will come away with an understanding not only of what this group of artists painted, but why.
Don't let the length deter you from reading: it's not *quite* as long as it looks, since there are over a hundred pages of footnotes, not to mention an extensive bibliography and index. That right there tells you how well researched this book is, a massive undertaking, which makes the way she managed to organize the material even more impressive.
This is not just a story of five artists. There's a huge cast of characters, and she gives at least capsule biographies of each one. She also mentions the titles of plenty of paintings, which allows plenty of opportunities to Google images, one of my favorite activities when reading true stories. (Three sections of pictures in the book, too!)
cwalsh's review
5.0
Did I finish this book or did this book finish me?
This is literally the book of my dreams.
This is literally the book of my dreams.
hermit_essa's review
5.0
A must read for lovers of art history. It’s rare one reads a work of non-fiction that is so engrossing it feels as if you are part of its time and place. The frantic 1950s New York art scene was a pretty cool place to spend my precious reading time this month. Over 700 pages of meticulously researched material that celebrates women in art and elucidates the dawn of the modern art market as we know it today. Fascinating!