The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and

The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art

Pulitzer Prizeâ€“winning art critic Sebastian Smee tells the fascinating story of four pairs of artistsâ€”Manet and Degas, Picasso and Matisse, Pollock and de Kooning, Freud and Baconâ€”whose fraught, competitive friendships spurred them to new creative heights.

Rivalry is at the heart of some of the most famous and fruitful relationships in history. The Art of Rivalry follows eight celebrated artists, each linked to a counterpart by friendship, admiration, envy, and ambition. All eight are household names today. But to achieve what they did, each needed the influence of a contemporaryâ€”one who was equally ambitious but possessed sharply contrasting strengths and weaknesses.

Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas were close associates whose personal bond frayed after Degas painted a portrait of Manet and his wife. Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso swapped paintings, ideas, and influences as they jostled for the support of collectors like Leo and Gertrude Stein and vied for the leadership of a new avant-garde.Â Jackson Pollockâ€™s uninhibited style of â€œaction paintingâ€ triggered a breakthrough in the work of his older rival, Willem de Kooning. After Pollockâ€™s sudden death in a car crash, de Kooning assumed Pollock's mantle and became romantically involved with his late friendâ€™s mistress.Â Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon met in the early 1950s, when Bacon was being hailed as Britainâ€™s most exciting new painter and Freud was working in relative obscurity. Their intense but asymmetrical friendship came to a head when Freud painted a portrait of Bacon, which was later stolen.

Each of these relationships culminated in an early flashpoint, a rupture in a budding intimacy that was both a betrayal and a trigger for great innovation. Writing with the same exuberant wit and psychological insight that earned him a Pulitzer Prize for art criticism, Sebastian Smee explores here the way that coming into oneâ€™s own as an artistâ€”finding oneâ€™s voiceâ€”almost always involves willfully breaking away from some intimateâ€™s expectations of who you are or ought to be.

Praise forÂ The Art of Rivalry

â€œGripping . . . Mr. Smeeâ€™s skills as a critic are evident throughout. He is persuasive and vivid. . . .Â You leave this book both nourished and hungry for more about the art, its creators and patrons, and the relationships that seed the ground for moments spent at the canvas.â€â€”The New York Times

â€œWith novella-like detail and incisiveness [Sebastian Smee] opens up the worlds of four pairs of renowned artists. . . . Each of his portraits is a biographical gem. . . . The Art of Rivalry is a pure, informative delight, written with canny authority.â€â€”The Boston Globe

â€œBacon liked to say his portraiture aimed to capture â€˜the pulsations of a person.â€™ Revealing these rare creators as the invaluable catalysts they also were, Smee conveys exactly that on page after page. . . . His brilliant group biography is one of a kind.â€â€”The Atlantic

â€œPerceptive . . . Smee is onto something important. His book may bring us as close as weâ€™ll ever get to understanding the connections between these bristly bonds and brilliance.â€â€”The Christian Science Monitor

â€œIn this intriguing work of art history and psychology, The Boston Globeâ€™s art critic looks at the competitive friendships of Matisse and Picasso, Manet and Degas, Pollock and de Kooning, and Freud and Bacon. All four relationships illuminate the creative processâ€”both its imaginative breakthroughs and its frustrating blocks.â€â€”Newsday

From the Hardcover edition.
Country USA
Manufacturer Random House
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2016-08-16
Format Kindle eBook
EANs 9780812994803

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Random House
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2016-08-16
Format	Kindle eBook
EANs	9780812994803

The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art

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