The Art of Rivalry
Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art
Published on 13. October 2016
Book
Hardback
420 pages
978-1-78125-165-2 (ISBN)
Description
This is a story about rivalry among artists. Not the kind of rivalry that grows out of hatred and dislike, but rather, rivalry that emerges from admiration, friendship, love. The kind of rivalry that existed between Degas and Manet, Picasso and Matisse, Pollock and de Kooning, and Freud and Bacon.
These were some of the most famous and creative relationships in the history of art, driving each individual to heights of creativity and inspiration - and provoking them to despair, jealousy and betrayal. Matisse's success threatened Picasso so much that his friends would throw darts at a portrait of his rival's beloved daughter Marguerite, shouting 'there's one in the eye for Matisse!' And Willem de Kooning's twisted friendship with Jackson Pollock didn't stop him taking up with his friend's lover barely a year after Pollock's fatal car crash.
In The Art of Rivalry, Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee explores how, as both artists struggled to come into their own, they each played vital roles in provoking the other's creative breakthroughs - ultimately determining the course of modern art itself.
These were some of the most famous and creative relationships in the history of art, driving each individual to heights of creativity and inspiration - and provoking them to despair, jealousy and betrayal. Matisse's success threatened Picasso so much that his friends would throw darts at a portrait of his rival's beloved daughter Marguerite, shouting 'there's one in the eye for Matisse!' And Willem de Kooning's twisted friendship with Jackson Pollock didn't stop him taking up with his friend's lover barely a year after Pollock's fatal car crash.
In The Art of Rivalry, Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee explores how, as both artists struggled to come into their own, they each played vital roles in provoking the other's creative breakthroughs - ultimately determining the course of modern art itself.
Reviews / Votes
Intriguing ... Smee writes beautifully ... tantalising -- Lynn Barber * Sunday Times * Elegant ... accomplished -- Michael Prodger * The Times * A spirited account ... recounted with exceptional sympathy and lucidity ... Smee skilfully interweaves, the personal - including the sexual and emotional - with the artistic and, however widely he circles, eventually closes in oh his essential theme: a moment of revelation and a crucial breakthrough in painting ... vivid. -- Roger Malbert * The Art Newspaper * Lively and engaging -- Kathryn Hughes * Mail on Sunday * A fascinating examination ... This is art history as human friction - one in the eye for those who think art is a high-minded enterprise. * Tatler * The keynotes of Sebastian Smee's criticism have always included a fine feeling for the what of art - he knows how to evoke the way pictures really strike the eye - and an equal sense of the how of art: how art emerges from the background of social history. To these he now adds a remarkable capacity for getting down the who of art - the enigma of artist's personalities, and the way that, two at a time, they can often intersect to reshape each in the other (1)s image. With these gifts all on the page together, The Art of Rivalry gives us a remarkable and engrossing book on pretty much the whole of art. * Adam Gopnik * A magnificent book on the relationships at the roots of artistic genius. Smee offers a gripping tale of the fine line between friendship and competition, tracing how the ties that torment us most are often the ones that inspire us most. * Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take * Modern art's major pairs of frenemies are a subject so fascinating, it's strange to have a book on it only now - and a stroke of luck, for us, that the author is Sebastian Smee. He brings the perfect combination of artistic taste and human understanding, and a prose style as clear as spring water, to the drama and occasional comedy of men who inspired and annoyed one another to otherwise inexplicable heights of greatness. * Peter Schjeldahl, art critic of the New Yorker *More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Trade binding
Illustrations
8 pages of colour plates.
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 144 mm
Thickness: 38 mm
Weight
635 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78125-165-2 (9781781251652)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
10/2016
Profile Books Ltd
€15.49
Available for download
Person
Sebastian Smee is the arts critic for the Boston Globe, and has written for the Australian, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, The Times, Financial Times, Independent on Sunday, Art Newspaper and the Spectator. He is the author of the books Lucian Freud and Side by Side: Picasso v Matisse. He won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for his 'vivid and exuberant writing about art, often bringing great works to life with love and appreciation'.