Intimate Companions

by David Leddick

Book Overview

Photographer George Platt Lynes, painter Paul Cadmus, and critic Lincoln Kirstein played a major role in creating the institutions of the American art world from the late 1920s to the early 1950s. The... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312208987
• ISBN13: 9780312208981
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

a great tri-ography!

leddick's book about the lives and loves of lynes, cadmus and kirstein is one of the best! it's informative, entertaining and a revelation for someone that is a fan of either new york city ballet or the beauteous photographs of george platt lynes. these men were the among the most complex men of arts in the last century. and lynes was even more complex because he was somewhat of an enigma, a self-styled court jester to the 1920 euro-american jet set and literati that got a life when he picked up a camera and began to document his contemporaries. cadmus, by contrast, was the closest to a family man, painting a variety of portraits that documented the crazy seedy life of the west village but choosing to live a domesticated existence with his longtime partner in the countryside of upstate new york(i think, do not hold me to that). but in addition to these lives, which leddick brings to life with humor and a economical approach to his prose, he also weaves in the stories of nycb dancers jose martinez, nicholas magallanes, frank moncion and tanaquil leclercq; other artists such as glenway westcott, leonard bernstein and monroe wheeler and the beautiful hangers-on that modelled for these men and provided characters that would become parts of novels they would write. it's a world that various artists have tried to reconstruct and failed because of lack of talent or too many chemicals but this one time was definitely enough because it was definitely the right mix of people at the right time.

A fine book, finely written

David Leddick has accomplished in this book what couldn't have been achieved by any impeccably-trained art critic or scholarly biographer: he has told the story of three vastly different but intertwined lives from the standpoint of a cultural historian who knew his subjects very well. I for one don't regret, as other reviewers have, that Leddick didn't write about the various other "menages a trois" that crop up in the world of George Platt Lynes, Paul Cadmus, and Lincoln Kirstein. (I don't believe that the French-Cadmus or the Wheeler-Wescott-Lynes trios, for example, is particularly interesting beyond the sexually titillating.) On the other hand, the Lynes-Cadmus-Kirstein connection, to my knowledge, has not been explored in any depth at all, and Lynes especially is in need of an historical re-evaluation. Leddick does an admirable job of showing the kind of world these three men inhabited when they were at ease sexually and emotionally. Like another reviewer, I found the first-person introductions to the book's chapter divisions first-rate writing and terrific gay-history. And Leddick's evocation of Lynes, the flamboyant cement who seems to have held many of these friendships together, is both heartwarming and heartbreaking. I enjoyed this book immensely.

History as Cocktail Party

David Leddick's look at the mostly homosexual art world of New york in the early part of the 20th century is an absolute pleasure to read. As a Gen-X gay man, I find myself very curious about the history of my culture. Obviously these stories aren't usually passed down from parent to child. Mr. Leddick's use of a fictional cocktail party to introduce each decade sets just the right fun gossipy tone and helps the reader to imbibe the ensuing biographical information like it was a well mixed martini. Cheers to Mr. Leddick!

History as Cocktail Party

David Leddick's look at the Gay Bohemeian New York during the early part of the 20th century was as fun as it was informative. Since homo-history is rarely passed down from parent to child it is important that scholars like Leddick are there to fill in the gaps for Gen-xers like myself. Leddick's technique of setting up each historical period as a fictional "cocktail party" was truly inspired. This helped make his history lessons as pleasurable as a well made martini. Cheers