Burnt Umber [Paperback]

Sheldon Greene (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2001

Fiction. BURNT UMBER is a novel about two unforgettable artists--the German painter Franz Marc and the American sculptor Harry Baer--who struggle to express their personal vision of the defining moments of the 20th Century: the trenches of World War I, the liberation of the concentration camps, the turbulence of post-WWII Paris, the Civil Rights Movement, and Viet Nam-era Berkeley. "Green is a born storyteller"--the Los Angeles Times Book Review.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Green's second novel is a beautifully written account of the lives of artists caught up in turbulent times. In the waning days of World War II, GI and American artist Harry Baer takes refuge in an abandoned house and by chance discovers the sketchbook of prewar German artist Franz Marc. In Proustian fashion, the story elicits the tortured artistic life of Marc in the midst of artistic and intellectual movements prior to World War I. Green intertwines Marc's life with that of Baer, who is about to begin his own artistic odyssey. Baer, whose life is loosely based on American artist Harold Paris, moves to Paris, France, after the war and marries Aurora, a struggling intellectual who pushes him to become a star in the Left Bank galleries. Returning to the U.S. a generation later, Harry finds new challenges in Berkeley, California, especially with Karine, an African American activist, and Darah, a feminist who vies for the love he devotes to his art alone. Very beautifully written. Ted Leventhal
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From the Back Cover

Burnt Umber is a novel on the grand scale about the passionate lives of artists. It unfolds through the intertwining stories of the German painter Franz Marc, the American sculptor Harry Baer, and the strong-willed women they loved.

Much has been written about modern art pioneer Vasily Kandinsky, but his close friend Franz Marc remains a mystery. Through Marc's tortured and vividly imagined life, that of his wife Antonia, abandoned on her wedding night, and his lover Marguerite, a lesbian and early feminist, Burnt Umber offers an intimate portrayal of the European artistic and intellectual renaissance leading up to World War One.

Masterfully woven with Marc's story is that of Harry Baer (based on the art and milestones in the life of Harold Paris), an American G.I. who finds Marc's sketchbook in an abandoned farmhouse during World War Two and is haunted by it. In Paris, after the war, Harry marries Aurora, an intellectual assaulting the elite French academy. She launches his artistic career in the prestigious left bank galleries. Moving to Berkeley to teach, Harry forges a new career and confronts a new breed of women: Karine, the African-American activist who loves him but won't live in his shadow, and Darah, the daughter of a Congressman, who embodies the confidence of the feminist generation and challenges Harry to give as much of himself to those who love him as to the art he creates.

Burnt Umber is a novel about two unforgettable artists who struggle to express their personal vision of the defining moments of the 20th Century: the trenches of World War One, the liberation of the concentration camps, the turbulence of post-World War Two Paris, the Civil Rights Movement and Viet Nam-era Berkeley.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Leaping Dog Press; 1st edition (May 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0967952018
• ISBN-13: 978-0967952017
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,925,969 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sheldon Greene is a partner in the San Francisco law firm of Greene & Allison. The firm works with over 40 credit unions on the West Coast. He is also Executive Vice President and Director of Oak Creek Energy Systems, Inc. a Southern California wind energy operator and development company that is responsible for the consummation of the largest ever wind energy power purchase agreement; 1550 MW to deliver energy to Southern California Edison. Oak Creek is a subsidiary of Marubeni, a multi-national Japanese trading company.

Education:

Graduated Magna Cum Lauda, Phi Beta Kappa, Omicron Delta Kappa, Delta Sigma Rho, Order of the Coif, Case Western Reserve University, undergraduate and law, fifth in Grand National Debate Tournament, Law Review Editor, Winner Dunmore Moot Court Competition, Contracts Prize.

Work History:

Law Clerk, Court of Common Pleas,

Warden of Insurance of the State of Ohio, attorney in first successful state challenge to increased Blue Cross insurance rates,

House Counsel to Pennsylvania Life Insurance Co.,

War Against Poverty: As Directing Attorney of the Modesto office and later General Counsel, of California Rural Legal Assistance; he successfully brought suits against the Regan administration that blocked massive cuts in medical assistance to low income and working poor, a suit requiring implementation of minimum wages for women and minors, a suit blocking importation of braceros, a suit challenging abuses of the non resident worker law among others. He drafted legislation and secured bi-partisan sponsorship of the first law in United States to penalize the knowing employment of illegal entrants in the country, which was signed into law by then California Governor Reagan.

Cultural: He was a member of the founding board of the New Israel Fund and served as its first secretary. He lived in Israel for almost two years studied Hebrew in Jerusalem, worked on the National Archeological Survey in the Negev and a Kibbutz in the Gallil and wrote a novel.

Political: He has been a member of the Nancy Pelosi initiated San Francisco based Red to Blue group since 2005 and has contributed to key House and Senate campaigns as identified by the leadership..

Obama: Greene was a member of two Obama National Policy Teams: Energy and Immigration and was active in working up both policies. He became a supporter of Barak Obama just before he announced his campaign for President.

Publications

Fiction

Lost and Found, a novel, Random House,
Burnt Umber, a novel, Leap Frog Press,
Prodigal Sons, a novel, Book Surge
Pursuit of Happiness, CreateSpace
Articles

Law Review:

Promised Land: Distribution of Public Land by the United States 5 Ecology Law Quarterly 4 at 707-751 (1976) University of California, Berkeley

Public Agency Distortion of Congressional Will, 40 The George Washington Law Review #3 March 1972, pp 440-464

Immigration Law and Rural Poverty-The Problems of the Illegal Entrant, 1969 Duke Law Journal #3 pp475-494

Cause of Action and the Statute of Limitation, Koenigberg v. California, 9 Survey of Ohio Law, 10 Western Reserve Law Review

Periodicals and books

Man in the Middle, Liability of California Insurance Agents and Brokers, Underwriters Report, April 8, 1965

Wetbacks, Growers, and Poverty, The Nation, Oct 20 1969
CRLA Pest or Pesticide? California Farmer Sept 20, 1969

Somebody is Always Offended , The Nation, Dec. 14, 1970

Is Lawcare Next? The Nation, Dec. 11, 1972

Employment of Illegal Entrants Los Angeles Times, May 25 1972

Corporate Accountability and the Family Farm, in Radical Agriculture, edited by Richard Merrill, Harper Colophon 1976

Personal: Resides, Berkeley CA. Married to Judy Greene a psychotherapist. One daughter, Talia an artist, married living in Philadelphia, one grand child. He sings baritone in the Oakland Symphony Chorus, gardens, writes novels and non fiction, and plays singles tennis. He and Judy collect art, travel a lot, like good food and wine, and take in a lot of cultural events. He reads the NYTimes and the Economist for information and is a self confessed policy wonk with opinions on most everything.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Burnt Umber, May 12, 2001

By 

Lois Schwartz - See all my reviews

This review is from: Burnt Umber (Paperback)

I love a work of fiction that teaches me something, and this book is a wonderful mini-course in art history. Although I certainly recognized the work of Franz Marc, Shel Greene's novel really piqued my interest and we spent an evening on the internet looking at pictures of his work. As for Greene's creative creation, Harry Baer, I found him to be three-dimensional and thought the latter part of his life was particularly compelling. Everyone is tracked by his own demons, and the harder the Baer character tries to make amends for his past, the more trapped he is.

The structure of the novel works very well, although the connection between the two artists is entirely serendipitous and a bit fragile -- it would have been interesting if the plot had interconnected them in a more fateful way.

I dropped everything to complete the book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will recommend it to others.

As an aside, this is a very pretty book and the typeface and cover are particularly attractice. This is one of those rare times when it is wise to judge a book by its cover.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Remarkable Achievement, April 26, 2001

By 

Richard Goodman (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Burnt Umber (Paperback)

"Burnt Umber" is a very unconventional novel for several reasons. First, its protagonists are two unrelated real life twentieth century artists whose work was far overshadowed by that of their contemporaries. Second, in place of normal chapters, this book is composed of microchapters, few longer than three pages. Third, although the story unfolds primarily through narration, some microchapters are epistolary and others are in the form of a screenplay. Finally, neither artist is shown to be larger than life or even to be especially likable.

In spite of (or, more likely, because of) these unusual aspects, "Burnt Umber" succeeds splendidly in evoking the lives and art of Franz Marc and Harold Baer(the real name of the latter artist was Harold Paris). For example, the use of microchapters and of alternative narrative voices creates an impression not unlike that of glass shards: the fragments do not fit neatly together but nonetheless they can be pieced together into a recognizable whole.

At the center of this work are Marc, an early twentieth century co-founder (with Kandinsky) of Der Blaue Reiter school and Baer, a mid-century Berkeley sculptor. We are given a unique entree to the imaginations and to the creative processes of these two artists, who see the world quite differently than the rest of us. To be sure, both artists are self-centered, monomaniacal cads. However, Greene's unsentimental approach lends this work a flinty verisimillitude.

As topping on the cake, this novel introduces the reader to several dusty corners of the twentieth century: Munich on the eve of World War I; the trenches as seen from the German side; and Paris in the late 1940s.

Two criticisms: This book would have benefitted greatly from the inclusion of pictures of the art that these men created. In addition, I sometimes found Greene's imagery and descriptions to be overly redolent and, on the whole, to be less effective than his unadorned narration. Nonetheless, "Burnt Umber" is a remarkable achievement.