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miguelf's review
3.0
This is a fairly straightforward artist profile of Frankenthaler. It’s a little lackluster in spite of the author’s clear interest and enthusiasm about his subject: maybe it’s the super privileged background that never feels like Frankenthaler was ever challenged besides the obvious misogynist culture of the US in the 50’s to of course contend with. The descriptions of the time and the thoughts expressed just never feel very immersive or a world in which I wanted to get to know better, as opposed to, say, the intimate and more riveting portrait that was published last year of Sylvia Plath’s life in ‘Red Comet’ who were contemporaries with somewhat similar backgrounds.
leah_alexandra's review
medium-paced
3.0
What a disappointing book. I was really looking forward to learning about Frankenthaler, but the author writes with a familiarity that feels unearned, and a clear obsession that verges on unsettling. It is shallow. It lacks both emotional and historical depth.
crystalisreading's review
I'd never heard of Helen Frankenthaler prior to seeing Fierce Poise offered on NetGally. I'm not as knowledgeable about art as I would like to be, and Helen's story sounded interesting, and the cover is just beautiful, so I requested it. Why not? I was so excited to dig in--and then I started reading the introduction.
The author has a bizarre and off-putting tone to his writing here, one that manages to be both obsequious and overly familiar. Nemerov talks about his lifelong love to Frankenthaler and her work, saying he feels a special connection with her because they both lived in a similar area for periods of their life, and his father was her English teacher for one year of school and attended a party with Frankenthaler's first serious romantic partner within a few days of the author's birth. It's a bizarre and kind of creepy stretch. But for all that he claims to have felt this awareness of her since before he could speak, and has wanted to write a book about her and her art for twenty years, he admits that he never tried to meet her or interview her, not even during the ten years when his teaching job was only 45 minutes from her home at the time, prior to her death. Instead, he just presumes to be intimately familiar with her and her art, referring to her throughout the book as Helen, as a "token of the proximity I feel," explaining this familiarity at length in the introduction. The writing felt like something an unbalanced fan, or certainly at least an entitled rich white cisgender man, would write, and it put me off this book entirely.
So thank you to #NetGalley and Penguin for granting me an #advancedcopy of #FiercePoiseHelenFrankenthalerand1950sNewYork, but I will not be finishing this book.
The author has a bizarre and off-putting tone to his writing here, one that manages to be both obsequious and overly familiar. Nemerov talks about his lifelong love to Frankenthaler and her work, saying he feels a special connection with her because they both lived in a similar area for periods of their life, and his father was her English teacher for one year of school and attended a party with Frankenthaler's first serious romantic partner within a few days of the author's birth. It's a bizarre and kind of creepy stretch. But for all that he claims to have felt this awareness of her since before he could speak, and has wanted to write a book about her and her art for twenty years, he admits that he never tried to meet her or interview her, not even during the ten years when his teaching job was only 45 minutes from her home at the time, prior to her death. Instead, he just presumes to be intimately familiar with her and her art, referring to her throughout the book as Helen, as a "token of the proximity I feel," explaining this familiarity at length in the introduction. The writing felt like something an unbalanced fan, or certainly at least an entitled rich white cisgender man, would write, and it put me off this book entirely.
So thank you to #NetGalley and Penguin for granting me an #advancedcopy of #FiercePoiseHelenFrankenthalerand1950sNewYork, but I will not be finishing this book.
tarolinecodd's review
reflective
medium-paced
3.25
One of my pet peeves is a so-called feminist biographical dive into a woman’s life that doesn’t complicate much of anything. The opening essay framed this work in a way that intrigued me, but ultimately it fell short. This biography does not represent or even allude to the woman who encouraged the NEA to cut funding for artists like Robert Mapplethorpe in a few decades.
karin_anette's review
4.0
Informed account of a time when artists were still able to rock the establishment. The modernist painters had an entirely different status than painters of today. They were intellectual, rebellious and proud, and treated almost like stars. Having the right connections and being able to project the right image would play a big role in their success. The amazing book cover is a photo taken for Life magazine. It helped boost Helen Frankenthalers career. Many interesting personalities appear in the book, and Helen is skillfully navigating in their midst.
sweatergirl's review
3.0
the writing is so lush, and the care in the work is so clear and lovely. that said, the author might be enthralled by the subject (although i do think he is not uncritical) but god did i dislike her by the end of this book.
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