Picasso's War: How Modern Art Came to America
Book by Hugh Eakin
DETAILS
Publisher : Crown; 1st edition (July 12, 2022) Language : English Hardcover : 480 pages ISBN-10 : 0451498488 ISBN-13 : 978-0451498489 Item Weight : 1.7 pounds Dimensions : 6.42 x 1.48 x 9.54 inches Best Sellers Rank: #7,187 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #4 in Artist & Architect Biographies #10 in Art History (Books) #43 in World War II History (Books) , A riveting story of how dueling ambitions and the power of prodigy made America the cultural center of the world—and Picasso the most famous artist alive—in the shadow of World War II “[Eakin] has mastered this material. . . . The book soars.”— The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker In January 1939, Pablo Picasso was renowned in Europe but disdained by many in the United States. One year later, Americans across the country were clamoring to see his art. How did the controversial leader of the Paris avant-garde break through to the heart of American culture? The answer begins a generation earlier, when a renegade Irish American lawyer named John Quinn set out to build the greatest collection of Picassos in existence. His dream of a museum to house them died with him, until it was rediscovered by Alfred H. Barr, Jr., a cultural visionary who, at the age of twenty-seven, became the director of New York’s new Museum of Modern Art. Barr and Quinn’s shared goal would be thwarted in the years to come—by popular hostility, by the Depression, by Parisian intrigues, and by Picasso himself. It would take Hitler’s campaign against Jews and modern art, and Barr’s fraught alliance with Paul Rosenberg, Picasso’s persecuted dealer, to get Picasso’s most important paintings out of Europe. Mounted in the shadow of war, the groundbreaking exhibition Picasso: Forty Years of His Art would launch Picasso in America, define MoMA as we know it, and shift the focus of the art world from Paris to New York. Picasso’s War is the never-before-told story about how a single exhibition, a decade in the making, irrevocably changed American taste, and in doing so saved dozens of the twentieth century’s most enduring artworks from the Nazis. Through a deft combination of new scholarship and vivid storytelling, Hugh Eakin shows how two men and their obsession with Picasso changed the art world forever. Read more
REVIEW
I learned a lot in this book. And it reads well. Short chapters which means it never gets bogged down like some histories of art can do. Never gets too far in the weeds, although there are references I know I missed. Good narrative flow and full of information. But it doesn't ever feel like it is full of information. I didn't get the title, but I'm not all that clever. Picasso's War is more about two fellows who saw Picasso (and others) as revolutionary artists before many others in America saw them as such. One fellow was a lawyer who was collecting modern art in America before anyone else. The other was an art historian who admired the lawyer's work. The art historian, Alfred Barr, was among those leading the charge to create MoMA. Picasso is a character in the book, but it never feels like he's in the room, really. In fact, perhaps one of the best things I can say about the book is that it gave me some insight into Picasso that made me more curious about him than any books I have tried to read in the past that ARE about him. Picasso's War also led me to buy two of Alfred Barr's books that are out of print. And one book on medieval art by Charles Morey- one of Barr's professors at Princeton. It was Morey's approach to thinking about medieval art that influenced Barr's work in "bringing" modern art to America. This was one particularly fascinating aspect of Eakin's book that lingered with me long after I had finished reading it. Tip of the hat to Mr. Eakin. Nicely done.
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