Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York · Alexander Nemerov

Later in March, Penguin releases a new book, Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York by art historian Alexander Nemerov. It's a somewhat short biography that focuses on a particular period in the artist's life. Enthusiasts of abstract expressionism might recognise the cover photo, taken for Life magazine and shows Frankenthaler sitting on a painted canvas in her studio on West End Avenue in New York. Frankenthaler, who in the 1950s made a name for herself in the art world of post-war America, was one of the major artists of 20th-century America and had a great influence on contemporary art.

It so happens that I'm still reading Ninth Street Women (see № 25 reading list), about the career of Frankenthaler and her fellow artists Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, and Joan Mitchell. Its author Mary Gabriel praises Nemerov's new book by saying that his poetic descriptions read ‘like one of Helen’s paintings.’

Cover photo: Gordon Parks, 1957

Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York
By Alexander Nemerov
Hardcover, 288 pages
ISBN: 9780525560203
Penguin Press

In Memory of Memory · Maria Stepanova

This patterned book cover makes my heart beat faster: In Memory of Memory by the Russian poet Maria Stepanova has just been published in English by New Directions, an American publishing house. The idea of the book came about after Stepanova found a box with photographs, letters, diaries and souvenirs in the apartment of a deceased aunt in Russia. It led her to take a closer look at her Jewish family history. The book, a mixture of essays, fiction, memoirs, travelogues and historical sources, has been getting positive media coverage.

In regards to In Memory of Memory, I feel as if I’m spoilt for choice because the UK edition is published by Fitzcarraldo Editions. I like their tasteful book design: All books are high quality paperbacks with cover flaps; non-fiction is white with a blue font on the cover and fiction blue with white (blog readers may remember these editions from reading lists where I included works by the French Annie Ernaux). I honestly do not know which edition to buy. Is it greedy to have both?

In Memory of Memory
By Maria Stepanova
Translated by Sasha Dugdale
Paperback, 448 pages
ISBN: 9780811228831
New Directions

№ 25 reading list: women only

Happy New Year! I would like to start the year with a new reading list, consisting of books by women only. As you probably know, Elizabeth Hardwick is a great favourite; her essay collection Seduction and Betrayal features female writers and women in literature. It so happens that Joan Didion, who has a book on the list, writes the introduction to the collection, which includes an essay about the Bloomsbury group and Virginia Woolf, who is also on the list.

№ 25 reading list:

1  Seduction and Betrayal  · Elizabeth Hardwick
2  Ninth Street Women  · Mary Gabriel
3  Approaching Eye Level  · Vivian Gornick
4  Intimations: Six Essays  · Zadie Smith
5  On Beauty  · Zadie Smith
6  The Waves  · Virginia Woolf [rereading]
7  Slouching Towards Bethlehem  · Joan Didion [rereading]

I have to confess that the list has been so long in the blog's draft that I have already read five of the seven books. I'm not far into the Mary Gabriel one - its snappy full title is Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art - but can already recommend it. Gail Levin's biography of Lee Krasner was on my № 24 reading list. I can also recommend that one but if I had to choose between the two I would pick Ninth Street Women. Even though Gabriel doesn't go into details about the artists' childhoods, I find her book more enjoyable to read. It's also better designed and images of artworks are in colour. Levin's book about Krasner is obviously well researched but the text is sometimes too academic for my taste which restricts its flow. In my copy, a William Morrow paperback, the paper is of poorer quality and the images of Krasner's artwork are in black and white only.

Lee Krasner, The Seasons, 1957

images mine, the 2nd appeared on Instagram 05/11/20 | Lee Krasner artwork, Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Whitney Museum of American Art via Haus der Kunst