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Search - The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art

The Art of Rivalry Four Friendships Betrayals and Breakthroughs in Modern Art
Author: Sebastian Smee

Pulitzer Prize winning art critic Sebastian Smee tells the fascinating story of four pairs of artists Manet and Degas, Picasso and Matisse, Pollock and de Kooning, Freud and Bacon whose fraught, competitive friendships spurred them to new creative heights. — Rivalry is at the heart of some of the most famous and fruitful relationships in history.... more » The Art of Rivalry follows eight celebrated artists, each linked to a counterpart by friendship, admiration, envy, and ambition. All eight are household names today. But to achieve what they did, each needed the influence of a contemporary one who was equally ambitious but possessed sharply contrasting strengths and weaknesses.

Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas were close associates whose personal bond frayed after Degas painted a portrait of Manet and his wife. Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso swapped paintings, ideas, and influences as they jostled for the support of collectors like Leo and Gertrude Stein and vied for the leadership of a new avant-garde.Jackson Pollock s uninhibited style of action painting triggered a breakthrough in the work of his older rival, Willem de Kooning. After Pollock s sudden death in a car crash, de Kooning assumed Pollock's mantle and became romantically involved with his late friend s mistress.Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon met in the early 1950s, when Bacon was being hailed as Britain s most exciting new painter and Freud was working in relative obscurity. Their intense but asymmetrical friendship came to a head when Freud painted a portrait of Bacon, which was later stolen.

Each of these relationships culminated in an early flashpoint, a rupture in a budding intimacy that was both a betrayal and a trigger for great innovation. Writing with the same exuberant wit and psychological insight that earned him a Pulitzer Prize for art criticism, Sebastian Smee explores here the way that coming into one s own as an artist finding one s voice almost always involves willfully breaking away from some intimate s expectations of who you are or ought to be.

Praise forThe Art of Rivalry

Gripping . . . Mr. Smee s skills as a critic are evident throughout. He is persuasive and vivid. . . . The Art of Rivalry is rooted in a closely observed theory, but it roams in a way geared to nonspecialist readers, part mini-biographies, part broader art history. . . . You leave this book both nourished and hungry for more about the art, its creators and patrons, and the relationships that seed the ground for moments spent at the canvas. The New York Times

With novella-like detail and incisiveness [Sebastian Smee] opens up the worlds of four pairs of renowned artists. . . . Each of his portraits is a biographical gem, deftly taking social milieus, family backgrounds, and the art controversies of the day into account. . . . Smee s vivid, agile prose is especially good at evoking the temperaments of the personalities involved. . . . The Art of Rivalry is a pure, informative delight, written with canny authority. The Boston Globe

Perceptive . . . Smee is onto something important. His book may bring us as close as we ll ever get to understanding the connections between these bristly bonds and brilliance. The Christian Science Monitor

In this intriguing work of art history and psychology, The Boston Globe s art critic looks at the competitive friendships of Matisse and Picasso, Manet and Degas, Pollock and de Kooning, and Freud and Bacon. All four relationships illuminate the creative process both its imaginative breakthroughs and its frustrating blocks. Newsday From the Hardcover edition."

ISBN-13: 9780812985078
ISBN-10: 0812985079
Publication Date: 5/16/2017
Pages: 416
Rating:

Currently 4/5 Stars.

4 stars, based on 1 rating

Publisher: Random House Trade
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover, Audio CD
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

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