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FULL BLOOM

Name: FULL BLOOM
Author: Hunter Drohojowska-Philp
ISBN: 0-393-05853-0

THE ART AND LIFE OF GEORGIA O’KEEFFE

by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2004

Not definitive, but masses of information make it worthwhile.

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An extensively researched biography of arguably the most identifiable American painter of the 20th century.

Tracing the artistic and emotional evolution of Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) into an increasingly self-centered and unpleasant personality, art journalist Drohojowska-Philp takes account of the painful circumstances that shaped that evolution. Contrary to the artist’s own description of her early years as independent and happy, the author chronicles an extremely difficult adolescence and young adulthood, followed by an early artistic maturity that was almost entirely dominated by her lover (and later husband), photographer and impresario Alfred Stieglitz. O’Keeffe divided her life into before, during, and after Stieglitz, and her biographer uses the same organization. Drohojowska-Philp pays so much attention to the Stieglitz circle that she almost loses O’Keeffe in the process, but giving context to the artist’s life and career is the most impressive achievement here. That gives way in the third section to serial descriptions of paintings and a prosaic repetition of the venerable artist’s travels in lieu of more critical consideration of the period during which O’Keeffe created a not entirely accurate image of herself as a recluse and became America’s foremost art-world prima donna (not to mention the originator of Santa Fe chic). The author provides extensive endnotes, but also plenty of unattributed anecdotes, such as the story of the now-famous O’Keeffe returning to the site of one of her early teaching positions, appearing in her old room during a class led by her former supervisor, striding to a cabinet and removing her remaining drawings, then leaving without a word. Drohojowska-Philp’s cavalier attitude toward references might not bother a popular audience, but it’s problematic for specialists who would otherwise find her text helpful. Nonetheless, the author’s use of previously untapped sources confirms a wealth of information previously a matter of debate or obscured by O’Keeffe herself in establishing her official mythology.

Not definitive, but masses of information make it worthwhile.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004

ISBN: 0-393-05853-0

Page Count: 480

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2004

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | ART & PHOTOGRAPHY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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INTO THE WILD

by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...

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The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).

Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor will it to readers of Krakauer's narrative. (4 maps) (First printing of 35,000; author tour)