An evocation of a time when America’s leaders were proud of their “elitist” cultural tastes and fearless about inviting the...
Davis (The Culture Broker, 2007, etc.) chronicles the surpassingly popular 1962–63 exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa in Washington, D.C., and New York.
Not everyone was happy, she notes. The French worried about transporting their treasure across the Atlantic in winter via passenger ship, and indeed the S.S. France was briefly beset by a strong storm, though it and the painting emerged unscathed. National Gallery director John Walker, placed in charge by President Kennedy, worried about security arrangements and feared possible damage to the fragile Renaissance painting. Davis carefully follows the story from the initial idea for the loan, to the negotiations, the arrangements, the transportation, the displays, the return to France and the aftermath. The President and First Lady were popular in France, and Jackie’s patent fondness for all things French endeared her abroad even as it raised eyebrows here. But the Kennedys were nothing if not experts at managing their images, the author ably shows. During their short tenure in the White House they endeavored to elevate the cultural life of the nation—a noble educational attempt that was making some progress when bullets ended it all in Dallas. Charmed by Jackie, French cultural minister André Malraux supported the loan. Madeleine Hours, head of the Louvre’s laboratory, argued against it, but once she knew she had no other choice did all she could to assure the painting’s stability and safety in transit. Davis is careful to provide all the principals’ back stories, humanizing the adventure in a pleasing way. But her prose and attitude are equally hyperbolic: Favored adjectives include stupendous, brilliant and remarkable, and only the most feverish Jackie lovers will be thrilled by the author’s breathless paragraphs about the First Lady’s wardrobe.
An evocation of a time when America’s leaders were proud of their “elitist” cultural tastes and fearless about inviting the citizenry to share them.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7382-1103-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Da Capo
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.
A revealing biography of the fabled Manhattan hotel, in which generations of artists and writers found a haven.
Turn-of-the century New York did not lack either hotels or apartment buildings, writes Tippins (February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof In Wartime America, 2005). But the Chelsea Hotel, from its very inception, was different. Architect Philip Hubert intended the elegantly designed Chelsea Association Building to reflect the utopian ideals of Charles Fourier, offering every amenity conducive to cooperative living: public spaces and gardens, a dining room, artists’ studios, and 80 apartments suitable for an economically diverse population of single workers, young couples, small families and wealthy residents who otherwise might choose to live in a private brownstone. Hubert especially wanted to attract creative types and made sure the building’s walls were extra thick so that each apartment was quiet enough for concentration. William Dean Howells, Edgar Lee Masters and artist John Sloan were early residents. Their friends (Mark Twain, for one) greeted one another in eight-foot-wide hallways intended for conversations. In its early years, the Chelsea quickly became legendary. By the 1930s, though, financial straits resulted in a “down-at-heel, bohemian atmosphere.” Later, with hard-drinking residents like Dylan Thomas and Brendan Behan, the ambience could be raucous. Arthur Miller scorned his free-wheeling, drug-taking, boozy neighbors, admitting, though, that the “great advantage” to living there “was that no one gave a damn what anyone else chose to do sexually.” No one passed judgment on creativity, either. But the art was not what made the Chelsea famous; its residents did. Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Robert Mapplethorpe, Phil Ochs and Sid Vicious are only a few of the figures populating this entertaining book.
A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-618-72634-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
A wondrous mix of races, ages, genders, and social classes, and on virtually every page is a surprise.
Photographer and author Stanton returns with a companion volume to Humans of New York (2013), this one with similarly affecting photographs of New Yorkers but also with some tales from his subjects’ mouths.
Readers of the first volume—and followers of the related site on Facebook and elsewhere—will feel immediately at home. The author has continued to photograph the human zoo: folks out in the streets and in the parks, in moods ranging from parade-happy to deep despair. He includes one running feature—“Today in Microfashion,” which shows images of little children dressed up in various arresting ways. He also provides some juxtapositions, images and/or stories that are related somehow. These range from surprising to forced to barely tolerable. One shows a man with a cat on his head and a woman with a large flowered headpiece, another a construction worker proud of his body and, on the facing page, a man in a wheelchair. The emotions course along the entire continuum of human passion: love, broken love, elation, depression, playfulness, argumentativeness, madness, arrogance, humility, pride, frustration, and confusion. We see varieties of the human costume, as well, from formalwear to homeless-wear. A few celebrities appear, President Barack Obama among them. The “stories” range from single-sentence comments and quips and complaints to more lengthy tales (none longer than a couple of pages). People talk about abusive parents, exes, struggles to succeed, addiction and recovery, dramatic failures, and lifelong happiness. Some deliver minirants (a neuroscientist is especially curmudgeonly), and the children often provide the most (often unintended) humor. One little boy with a fishing pole talks about a monster fish. Toward the end, the images seem to lead us toward hope. But then…a final photograph turns the light out once again.
A wondrous mix of races, ages, genders, and social classes, and on virtually every page is a surprise.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-05890-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
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