Debra Bricker Balken – författare

Despite being one of the foremost American intellectuals of the mid-twentieth century, Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978) was utterly incapable of fitting in—and he liked it that way. Signature cane in one hand and a cigarette in the other, he cut a distinctive figure on the New York City culture scene, with his radiant dark eyes and black bushy brows. A gangly giant at six foot four, he would tower over others as he forcefully expounded on his latest obsession in an oddly high-pitched, nasal voice. And people would listen, captivated by his ideas. With Harold Rosenberg: A Critic’s Life, Debra Bricker Balken offers the first-ever complete biography of this great and eccentric man. Although he is now known mainly for his role as an art critic at the New Yorker from 1962 to 1978, Balken weaves together a complete tapestry of Rosenberg’s life and literary production, cast against the dynamic intellectual and social ferment of his time. She explores his role in some of the most contentious cultural debates of the Cold War period, including those over the commodification of art and the erosion of individuality in favor of celebrity, demonstrated in his famous essay “The Herd of Independent Minds.” An outspoken socialist and advocate for the political agency of art, he formed deep alliances with figures such as Hannah Arendt, Saul Bellow, Paul Goodman, Mary McCarthy, Jean-Paul Sartre, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock, all of whom Balken brings to life with vivid accounts from Rosenberg’s life. Thoroughly researched and captivatingly written, this book tells in full Rosenberg’s brilliant, fiercely independent life and the five decades in which he played a leading role in US cultural, intellectual, and political history.

After Many Springs is the title of a Thomas Hart Benton painting that evokes nostalgia for a fertile, creative time gone by. This bold new book––taking the name of this work by Benton––examines the intersections between Regionalist and Modernist paintings, photography, and film during the Great Depression, a period when the two approaches to art making were perhaps at their zenith. It is commonly believed that Regionalist artists Benton, John Steuart Curry, and Grant Wood reacted to the economic and social devastation of their era by harking back in tranquil bucolic paintings to a departed utopia. However, this volume compares their work to that of photographers such as Dorothea Lange and Ben Shahn and filmmakers such as Josef von Sternberg—all of whom documented the desolation of the Depression—and finds surprising commonalities. The book also notes intriguing connections between Regionalist artists and Modernists Jackson Pollock and Philip Guston, countering prevailing assumptions that Regionalism was an anathema to these New York School painters and showing their shared fascination with the Midwest.Distributed for the Des Moines Art CenterExhibition Schedule:Des Moines Art Center (January 30 – May 17, 2009)

One of the foremost artists to emerge in Philadelphia in the 1960s, Edna Andrade (1917-2008) is now recognized as an early leader in the Op Art movement. Characterized by pulsating patterns, vivid colors, and a visual immediacy that surpasses narrative meaning, her work explores symmetry and rhythm through geometric design and structures inspired by nature. Andrade sought to create "democratic art" that dispensed with the need for elite aesthetic education or intricate explanations. As a result, her accessible and appealing compositions were often repurposed for commercial art and political campaigns.Edna Andrade takes a comprehensive look at the full range of Andrade's work, from her early surreal and figurative landscapes, through several decades of Bauhaus-inspired design and the distinctive geometric patterns of Op Art, to her late-life quasi-abstract studies of the Atlantic coastline. Accompanied by 170 illustrations, including full-color reproductions as well as photographs, drawings, sketches, and notes, the essays situate Andrade's work in the context of movements that surfaced in the United States in the 1960s, such as Minimalism and Pop Art. The first book-length study of her career as an artist and teacher, Edna Andrade examines the aesthetic influences, creative development, and enduring legacy of this dynamic twentieth-century artist.Contributors: Debra Bricker Balken, Joe Houston

This title was first published in 2002. The Park Avenue Cubists explores the work of a group of American artists committed to the belief that American abstraction could make a unique contribution to the evolution of the visual experiments begun by the European Modernists. All were inspired by the work of Braque, Picasso, Gris and Leger which they witnessed at first hand during repeated trips to Paris. Dubbed the 'Park Avenue Cubists' for the wealth and social status that enabled them to promote their own work and patronise that of their fellow members of the American Abstract Artists (AAA), the group included Albert Eugene Gallatin, George L.K. Morris, Suzy Frelinghuysen and Charles G. Shaw. Featuring essays by Debra Bricker Balken and Robert S. Lubar on the group's place in the history of modern art, along with individual studies of the four artists and an appendix bringing together the key statements written by the artists themselves, this volume provides the first in-depth study of the group.

This title was first published in 2002. The Park Avenue Cubists explores the work of a group of American artists committed to the belief that American abstraction could make a unique contribution to the evolution of the visual experiments begun by the European Modernists. All were inspired by the work of Braque, Picasso, Gris and Leger which they witnessed at first hand during repeated trips to Paris. Dubbed the 'Park Avenue Cubists' for the wealth and social status that enabled them to promote their own work and patronise that of their fellow members of the American Abstract Artists (AAA), the group included Albert Eugene Gallatin, George L.K. Morris, Suzy Frelinghuysen and Charles G. Shaw. Featuring essays by Debra Bricker Balken and Robert S. Lubar on the group's place in the history of modern art, along with individual studies of the four artists and an appendix bringing together the key statements written by the artists themselves, this volume provides the first in-depth study of the group.