One of the pleasures of the CAA conference is going through the book displays, seeing what is newly out, and learning what is on the way. I spoke with a Getty Trust Publications representative about how to get more GLBT content in their books. The answer was to locate it in their collections.
When looking at the revised edition of Gardner’s Art through the ages, I asked if any of the artists were identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. “No, I don’t think they are ready for that yet,” he said. I didn’t think to ask if “they” meant the publisher or the buyers.
Several recent books have major or significant lesbian or gay content. Some are newly out in paperback editions.
Frames of reference: looking at American art, 1900-1950, edited by Adam D. Weinberg and Beth Venn, includes three essays on Marsden Hartley (1877-1943), two of which identify him as gay or bisexual. U. of Calif. Press, copublished with the Whitney Museum of American Art, 224 pages, $50.00 cl, ISBN 0-520-21887-6; $29.95 paper, ISBN 0-520-21888-4.
Chapter 5 in We weren't modern enough: women artists and the limits of German modernism by Marsha Meskimmon deals with “The garçonne: the third sex” and the sapphic illustrations of Jeanne Mammen (1890-1976). U. of Calif. Press, 263 pp., $24.95 paper, ISBN 0-520-22134-6.
In The great American thing: modern art and national identity, 1915-1935, Wanda M. Corn discusses how Charles Demuth’s homosexuality was viewed by his contemporaries. U. of Calif. Press, 425 pp., $50 cloth, ISBN 0-520-21049-2.
In Abstract expressionism: other politics, Ann Eden Gibson discusses (among other things) attitudes toward homosexuality and the challenges faced by lesbian and gay artists Forrest Bess (1911-1977), Sonia Sekula (1918-1963), and Beauford Delaney (1901-1979). Especially helpful are the brief artists' biographies. Yale U. Press, 384 pp., $45.00 cloth, ISBN 0-300-06562-0; $19.00 paper, ISBN 0-300-08068-9.
About face/Andy Warhol Portraits, with essays by Nicholas Baume, Douglas Crimp, and Richard Meyer is a rich collection of images, some never published before. Meyer writes on Warhol’s pre-Pop work, Crimp on the films “Blow job” and “Mario Banana.” MIT Press, 128 pp., $22.95 paper, ISBN 0-262-52272-1.
Andy Warhol drawings 1942-1987, text by Mark Francis and Dieter Koepplin, is full of drawings (248), documentation, and a detailed discussion of the processes and times of production. Bulfinch, 320 pp., $100.00 cloth, ISBN 0-8212-2608-8.
Anna Klumpke: a turn-of-the-century painter and her world by Britta C. Dwyer presents the life of the U.S.-born painter (1856-1945) and her intimate relationship with Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899). Northeastern Univ. Press, $35.00 cloth, ISBN 1-55553-386-8.
Any new book on painter Romaine Brooks (1874-1970) is cause for celebration. Amazons in the drawing room: the art of Romaine Brooks by Whitney Chadwick with an essay by Joseph Lucchesi, is forthcoming in June from U. of Calif. Press, copublished by Chameleon Books in association with the National Museum of Women in the Arts, $50.00 cloth, 0-520-22565-1; paper: $24.95, 0-520-22567-8).
Post-dykes to watch out for: cartoons by Alison Bechdel. Firebrand, 144 pp., $24.95 cloth, ISBN1-56341-123-7; $11.95 paper, ISBN 1-56341-122-9. On the cover, Bechdel (b. 1960) introduces the viewer to eight characters from her popular comic strip, each wearing similar striped shirt, dark pants, and hair do, but different shoes.
I think it was James Smalls at the roundtable discussion “Re-writing the history of 20th-century American art” (CAA 2000) who made a comment about not existing at the margins or edges, but in the cracks and crevices. Searching through biographies for information about lesbian and gay art and artists is rather like that. In memory of my feelings: Frank O’Hara and American art by Russell Ferguson presents the gay world of poet and art writer O’Hara who also served as subject for artists Larry Rivers and Jasper Johns. U. of Calif. Press, 160 pp., $39.99 cloth, ISBN: 0520222431.
The sorcerer's apprentice: Picasso, Provence and Douglas Cooper by John Richardson details the relationship between Richardson (b. 1924) and Cooper (b. 1911) who was a major figure in British art writing and collecting. Knopf, 324 pp., $26.95 cloth, ISBN 0-375-40033-8.
Of special interest in The Ballets Russes and its world, ed. by Lynn Garafola and Nancy Van Norman Baer, is Garafola’s essay “Reconfiguring the sexes.” Yale, 406 pp., $45.00 cloth, ISBN: 0-300-06176-5.
More discussion of the following will appear in The lesbian review of books, vol. VI, no. 4, summer 2000, due out in May.