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

Author: Sebastian Smee

Narrator: Bob Souer

Unabridged: 10 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/27/2016

Synopsis

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 contemporary—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. Jackson Pollock's uninhibited style of "action painting" triggered a breakthrough in the work of his older rival, Willem de Kooning. Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon met in the early 1950s, when Bacon was being hailed as Britain'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.

About Sebastian Smee

Sebastian Smee has been the Boston Globe's art critic since 2008. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2011, having been a runner-up in 2008. He joined the Globe's staff from Sydney, where he had worked as national art critic for the Australian. Prior to that, he lived for four years in the U.K., where he wrote for the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the Art Newspaper, the Independent, Prospect magazine, and the Spectator. He has contributed to five books on Lucian Freud. He teaches nonfiction writing at Wellesley College.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Roger on July 25, 2017

Painters Without Pictures So much of the pleasure in an art book comes from the combination of text, binding, and the art itself that it is difficult to review a cheaply-produced advance proof (via Amazon Vine) of the words alone. However, the publishers promise a "beautiful package with two 8-page c......more

Goodreads review by JabJo on December 30, 2016

Great topic, disappointing handling. This book can't seem to decide whether it's biography, psychology, or art history, and in the end is a rather bland mix of the three that doesn't add up to solid substance. You get some general biographical sketches, first of one person, then the other. Sometimes......more

Goodreads review by Mike on June 04, 2020

This is a story of Modern Art told through the lens of four pairs of rivaling friendships--Freud and Bacon, Manet and Degas, Picasso and Matisse, and Pollock and de Kooning. Smee follows ups and downs, loves and hates in these relationships and around them. He explores how these relations are influe......more

Goodreads review by Biblio on July 10, 2016

If you ever imagined that great artists languish in their garrets all day in solitude, please read The Art of Rivalry. It's hard to see how these eight artists had time to paint at all with all the carousing, drinking, affairs, drugs, and fighting. Art critic Sebastian Smee sets out to show how comp......more

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