Elaine and Bill [Paperback]

Lee Hall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2000

Willem and Elaine de Kooning shared not only a tumultuous, on-again, off-again 'open' marriage, they also navigated a 1950s New York art scene at the center of an artistic revolution.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 46-year marriage of solitary, depressive Willem de Kooning, the Dutch-born American abstract expressionist, and gregarious, ebullient painter-critic Elaine Fried was a spiral of competition marked by sexual infidelities, fights and squalid alcoholism on both sides. Hall ( Betty Parsons ) claims the union, strained by an 18-year separation, nurtured the development of their personalities and art, but there is not much evidence for that in this intimate, engaging narrative based on the author's friendship with Elaine (who died in 1989) and on interviews with the couple's friends (Willem, now 89 and afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, was incapable of being interviewed). Hall portrays Elaine as a smart operator who helped establish her husband's reputation by having strategic sexual affairs with art critics Harold Rosenberg and Tom Hess. She limns a high-energy bohemian world of art, booze and talk. Photos.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

An unvarnished life of ``action painter'' Willem de Kooning and his artist-wife, by Hall (past president of the Rhode Island School of Design; Betty Parsons, 1991--not reviewed). While focusing on the deeply troubled relationship between the introverted Dutch-born Abstract Expressionist and the ebullient Brooklyn woman he married, Hall also presents an overview of the couple's art-world contemporaries: Jackson Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner; Arshile Gorky; Robert Motherwell; David Smith; Franz Kline--in Hall's telling, a pretty unappealing lot of bed-hopping brawlers, blowhards, and bigots. The de Kooning marriage was an open one with each partner engaging in a seemingly endless series of affairs: As her husband's reputation as a leader of the emerging New York School of the 1950's gathered steam, Elaine, in order to further his career, embarked on affairs with art critics Thomas Hess and Harold Rosenberg. Even so, fellow action-painter Jackson Pollock's reputation outshone de Kooning's, at least in the popular press, and the two men became rivals, not only for artistic kudos but also for women. Who could best hold his liquor also became a point of contention, though both ended up as alcoholics. When Pollock was killed in a car crash while drunk, de Kooning's reputation as ``the greatest American painter'' soared. His works commanded higher and higher prices--but his drinking escalated as well. The de Koonings eventually separated after Willem fathered an illegitimate child and Elaine sank into dipsomania. But after 20 years, the couple reunited, and Elaine, recovering from alcoholism, devoted her final years to protecting the health and reputation of her husband, who became ever more reclusive and detached. In 1989, Elaine died of lung cancer; today, the ``American Picasso'' has been declared mentally incompetent, his daughter and a lawyer acting as his co-conservators. Written in pedestrian prose--but nonetheless a continually engrossing, if depressing, portrait of an American master. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs--not seen) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Cooper Square Press; Cooper Square Press Ed edition (May 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081541059X
• ISBN-13: 978-0815410591
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #960,571 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An art-world expos, August 16, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Elaine and Bill (Paperback)

Thank you, Cooper Square, for reissuing Hall's valuable book. Elaine and Bill deserves a wide-based readership. Biography readers interested in Elaine and/or Willem de Kooning in particular, or American artists of this century in general, will learn a great deal. Hall's friendship with Elaine lays the groundwork and is enhanced by her discussions with friends (and wannabee friends) of both painters--although after the fact some refused to acknowledge their participation. The author also brings long-delayed attention to Elaine's neglected painting--art that is very much her own, not the weaker shadow of her husband's work often suggested.

Perhaps this book's principal contribution, however, is its cool and calm exposŽ of the "art world's" best-kept secret: that, at base, it is a fraud that has less to do with expression than financial gain. Readers get a clear, well-written, and easily believable picture of an artist's life during that time of near-mythical when hard drinkin', butch fightin', and tough paintin' were the mainstays of New York's boy-culture art scene of the 50s and into the 60s. The book provides a much-wanted description of why there's so little "there" there in the articles by the likes of Greenberg and Rosenberg. In light of their various affairs--both amorous and financial-one understands how these critics' and their cronies' small-scale star making paved a sort of on-ramp to the market-driven farce the art world is today.

By all means read Elaine and Bill. It is fascinating reading on many levels and, when all is said and done, provides a window--for some too clean and revealing a window--into the machinery driving the manufacture of art today.

2 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars who needs enemies?, November 20, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Elaine and Bill (Paperback)

This book is just chock-full of rumor and gossip, much of which is totally insubstantiated. Some of the 'facts' are just plain wrong. With friends like Lee Hall, who needs enemies? Do yourself a favor and if you do read this, read it with more than a few grains of salt. There are better stories about the New York School - John Myers' memoir comes to mind, for one.