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From the de Koonings to Twombly: Portraits and Sketches, 1942-2011
by Edith Schloss
A bristling and brilliant memoir of the mid-twentieth-century New York School of painters and their times by the renowned artist and critic Edith Schloss, who, from the early years, was a member of the group that shifted the center of the art world from Paris to New York.
The Loft Generation: From the de Koonings to Twombly is a firsthand account by an artist at the center of a landmark era in American art. Edith Schloss writes about the artists, poets, and musicians who were part of the postwar art movements in America and about her life as an artist in America and later in Italy, where she continued to paint and write until her death in 2011.
Schloss was born in Germany and moved to New York City during World War II. She became part of a thriving community of artists and intellectuals, from Elaine and Willem de Kooning and Larry Rivers to John Cage and Frank O'Hara. She married the photographer and filmmaker Rudy Burckhardt. She was both a working artist and an incisive art critic, and was a candid and gimlet-eyed observer of the close-knit community that was redefining American art. In later life she lived in Italy and spent time with artists such as Giorgio Morandi, Cy Twombly, Meret Oppenheim, and Francesca Woodman.
In The Loft Generation, Schloss creates a rare and irreplaceable up-close record of an era of artistic innovation and the colorful characters who made it happen. There is no other book like it. Her firsthand information is indispensable reading for all critics and researchers of that vital period in American art.
"The late artist and critic Schloss (1919–2011) brilliantly conveys her experiences as a participant in, and a keen observer of, New York's 'loft generation'...Rich in granular detail and rendered in eloquent and captivating prose, this is an intimate look at a pivotal era in its formative stages and offers an invaluable source for the study of one of the great art movements." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Shrewdly observant, Schloss conveys in painterly prose the spirited individuals whose lives she shared and the worlds they inhabited...A captivating memoir of a life in art." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Zestily precise and deeply knowledgeable...With preternatural recall, a discerning eye, keen ear, and hard-won insights, Schloss shares spirited, funny, wry and poignant tales...Intrepid, attentive, judicious, and radiantly expressive, Schloss presents an exhilarating perspective on a salient chapter in art history." - Booklist (starred review)
"I am tempted to say Edith Schloss's Loft Generation is remarkable, but remarkable seems inadequate to describe it. Schloss's memoir of life in New York during the heyday of the Abstract Expressionist movement and her subsequent expat years in Italy is wise, witty, and wild in equal measures. Writing from the position of the ultimate insider about a world that we are only beginning to understand and fully appreciate, she introduces readers to the artists and writers and composers who became part of her life – Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Rudy Burckhardt, Edwin Denby, Paul and Jane Bowles, John Cage, Frank O'Hara, among many, many others. And she describes the romance that is the life of the artist, despite poverty, monstrous political and social turmoil, and changing artistic fortunes. By the end of her story, which is so intimate and so true, we are left feeling as though we are part of that world, too. Quite simply, Schloss transports us, and that is the most any writer can hope to do. No, remarkable does not begin to describe her memoir. The Loft Generation is superb." - Mary Gabriel, author of Ninth Street Women, Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement that Changed Modern Art
"This indispensable eyewitnessing of a crucial period in American culture is wonderfully alive, entertaining, and beautifully written, with a dazzling mix of the personal and the aesthetic. Warmly honest, perceptive, and humane, Edith Schloss's memoir is itself a work of art." - Phillip Lopate, author of The Art of the Personal Essay
This information about The Loft Generation was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Edith Schloss (1919–2011) was an observant member of the abstract expressionist movement and the New York School. She created paintings, assemblages, collages, watercolors, and drawings and worked as an art critic, writer, and editor until her death. Her paintings were shown in galleries all over the world and are in many prominent collections, and her writing has appeared in ARTNews, the International Herald Tribune, Art in America, and many other publications.
Pony Confidential
by Christina Lynch
In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.
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The thing that cowardice fears most is decision
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
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