Phoebe Hoban Knihy

"Phoebe Hoban's definitive biography of the renowned American painter Alice Neel tells the unforgettable story of an artist whose life spanned the twentieth century, from women's suffrage through the Depression, McCarthyism, the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, and feminism. Throughout her life and work, Neel constantly challenged convention, ultimately gaining an enduring place in the canon. Alice Neel's stated goal was to "capture the zeitgeist." Born into a proper Victorian family at the turn of the twentieth century, Neel reached voting age during suffrage. A quintessential bohemian, she was one of the first artists participating in the Easel Project of the Works Progress Administration, documenting the challenges of life during the Depression. An avowed humanist, Neel chose to paint the world around her, sticking to figurative work even during the peak of abstract expressionism. Neel never ceased pushing the envelope, creating a unique chronicle of her time. Neel was fiercely democratic in selecting her subjects, who represent an extraordinarily diverse population-from such legendary figures as Joe Gould to her Spanish Harlem neighbors in the 1940s, the art critic Meyer Shapiro, Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling, Andy Warhol, and major figures of the labor, civil rights and feminist movements-producing an indelible portrait of twentieth-century America. By dictating her own terms, Neel was able to transcend such personal tragedy as the death of her infant daughter, Santillana, a nervous breakdown and suicide attempts, and the separation from her second child, Isabetta. After spending much of her career in relative obscurity, Neel finally received a major museum retrospective in 1974, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York. In this first paperback edition of the authoritative biography of Alice Neel, which serves also as a cultural history of twentieth-century New York, the author Phoebe Hoban documents the tumultuous life of the artist in vivid detail, creating a portrait of the artist as incisive as Neel's relentlessly honest paintings. With a new introduction by Hoban that explores Neel's enduring relevance, this biography is essential to understanding and appreciating the life and work of one of America's foremost artists"-- Provided by publisher

The brief career of a man who went from a teenage graffiti writer to an international art star, dying at age 27 of a drug overdose, is profiled in this first biography of the charismatic figure. Photos.

Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art is the tragic story of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, detailing his turbulent childhood, explosive dealings with the art world and rise to fame, which led to his death from a drug overdose at the age of twenty-seven. Phoebe Hoban brings some order to the chaos of Basquiat s life and the arcane dealings of the international art market, placing him in a context alongside his contemporaries, Julian Schnabel and Keith Haring, as well as his mentor, Andy Warhol. This, the definitive biography of the artist, chronicles the meteoric success and overnight burnout that made Basquiat an instant artworld myth. As much the portrait of an era as the portrait of the artist as a young man, the book is an incisive expose of the Eighties art market, a vivid picture of the rise and fall of the graffiti movement, the East Village art scene and the out-of-control auction houses, and resurrects both the painter and his epoch...

The book commemorates the twenty-one year anniversary of Cheim & Read, showcasing a thorough documentation of its exhibitions. It includes installation views and highlights significant artworks, providing an insightful look into the gallery's contributions to the art world over the years.