Art Czar: The Rise and Fall of Clement Greenberg

by Alice Goldfarb Marquis

In the years of his greatest dominance, Clement Greenberg almost single-handedly established Jackson Pollock and the New York School at the center of the American art world. His work set the tone for art criticism for half a century to come. This biography, based on unpublished and previously unavailable documents, interviews and archives, presents a riveting story of imagination and grandiosity, of vision and tragic excess. With clarity and insight,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0878467017
• ISBN13: 9780878467013
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: MFA Publications
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.9" x 8.5"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Thorough research, broad overview, good writing

I read this book from cover to cover with great interest. Although you could feel author's finding Greenberg not quite agreeable as person, and who would completely accept him based upon his biography, but Marquis' judgments were always deeply grounded in factual material. And there were plenty of material available. Greenberg meticulously documented every day of his life and Marquis did not overlook any scrap of available information. She is very serious researcher who attempted to analyze and present summary of most important Greenberg's works. Her analysis, albeit imperfect, broad enough for a sort of book she produced. As an author, she has to balance what to include and what to omit. I think she succeeded. I like her work very much and learned quite a bit from her. I recommend her book to anyone interested in twentieth century American art.

A balanced biography of the man who was arguably the most influential American art critic of the twe

Award-winning journalist and historian Alice Marquis presents Art Czar: The Rise and Fall of Clement Greenberg, a balanced biography of the man who was arguably the most influential American art critic of the twentieth century. Drawing from unpublished and previously unavailable documents, interviews, and archives, Art Czar portrays the tangled elements of Greenberg's life, including his relationship with family, friends, lovers, and rivals. Art Czar also reveals how Greenberg's tastes and gift for rhetoric spoke to the American art scene from 1940 to the 1980s. A painstakingly accurate evaluation of the nuances of Greenberg's lasting influence as surely as it is a chronicle of the events of his life.