A well-written, fact-filled history of two American artists; a must for fans of history and art.
Against a backdrop of the American Revolution, Waters’ debut history explores the lives of expatriate colonial painters John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West as they move from friendship to bitter rivalry in George III’s London.
Both Copley and West were sons of Irish immigrants born in 1738; Copley in Boston, West near Philadelphia. Both began their careers painting portraits in America, and both left the Colonies as the American Revolution was brewing. West arrived in England before Copley and, through a series of introductions and coincidences, gained a royal patronage from King George, also born in 1738. West arrived with no political baggage, however, and had an easier time than Copley, whose painting of Samuel Adams made him suspicious to British eyes. In 1774, when Copley first met West in London, their relations were cordial, and West even tried to help his fellow artist. But time and again, Copley’s artistry was recognized as superior, and West came to view him as a threat and attempted to thwart Copley clandestinely and, in the end, quite openly. This slim but information-packed volume reads like an enjoyable high school text filled with enticing factual tidbits that bring the story to life. For instance, Copley’s Tory father-in-law, Richard Clarke, was responsible for the security of the tea that was dumped into Boston Harbor. Copley, who was town warden but apolitical, tried to mediate “a solution acceptable to both parties.” However, “[i]n the face of serious threats from a mob that smashed windows in the Clarke residence,” he fled to Salem. This small tome includes an introduction, chronology, notes, list of abbreviations, bibliography, and museums and galleries where the paintings can be viewed. Waters makes no bones about taking sides: He’s clearly in Copley’s corner, even taking editorial snipes at West and making disparaging conjecture beyond the known facts. Galt, whom West tasks with writing his biography, “wrote the apotheosis West wanted, that is, to be remembered almost in a divine light as a great artist. West’s puffing was outrageous.”
A well-written, fact-filled history of two American artists; a must for fans of history and art.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4808-0138-7
Page Count: 178
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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