From Library Journal
In this scholarly new book, Wagner (history of art, Univ. of California, Berkeley) skillfully probes and tracks how each of these important American modernists at one time coped with life as both a professional artist and wife of a more famous one. "O'Keeffe's Femininity" demonstrates how infamous she was at rendering body imagery: "to imagine an impossible union?the passionate coupling of hygiene and scatology, the body and its absence." Lee Krasner is shown painting her own way through Jackson Pollock's as well as Arshile Gorky's conventions until she eventually achieved autobiographical essays in paint and collage. Eva Hesse is optimistically identified as an innovative commentator on new sexuality, focusing on her body, but not her body alone. This gendered interpretation of three of the foremost American modernist women artists presents an interesting blend of biographical and historical criticism. Recommended for most academic collections.?Mary Hamel-Schwulst, Towson State Univ., Md.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Lisa Miller, Bloomsbury Review
"Her excellent description and analysis of individual works will help general readers to better appreciate abstract art."
