Three Artists (Three Women): Modernism and the Art of Hesse, Krasner, and O'Keeffe (Ahmanson-Murphy Fine Arts Book) [Paperback]

Anne Middleton Wagner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 17, 1998 | Series: Ahmanson-Murphy Fine Arts Book

This original and sharply obser-vant book gives new significance to three important figures in the history of twentieth-century art: Eva Hesse, Lee Krasner, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Anne Wagner looks at their imagery and careers, relating their work to three decisive moments in the history of American modernism: the avant-garde of the 1920s, the New York School of the 1940s and 1950s, and the modernist redefinition undertaken in the 1960s. Their artistic contributions were invaluable, Wagner demonstrates, as well as hard-won. She also shows that the fact that these artists were women--the main element linking the three--is as much the index of difference among their art and experience as it is a passkey to what they share.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In this scholarly new book, Wagner (history of art, Univ. of California, Berkeley) skillfully probes and tracks how each of these important American modernists at one time coped with life as both a professional artist and wife of a more famous one. "O'Keeffe's Femininity" demonstrates how infamous she was at rendering body imagery: "to imagine an impossible union?the passionate coupling of hygiene and scatology, the body and its absence." Lee Krasner is shown painting her own way through Jackson Pollock's as well as Arshile Gorky's conventions until she eventually achieved autobiographical essays in paint and collage. Eva Hesse is optimistically identified as an innovative commentator on new sexuality, focusing on her body, but not her body alone. This gendered interpretation of three of the foremost American modernist women artists presents an interesting blend of biographical and historical criticism. Recommended for most academic collections.?Mary Hamel-Schwulst, Towson State Univ., Md.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"A massive enrichment of the field of feminist studies. [Wagner]is a scrupulous historian and a subtle analyst of the visual arts. . . . An important book, which will both art historically and theoretically remap our studies of femininity, modernism, and representation." -- Griselda Pollock, Women's History

"Her excellent description and analysis of individual works will help general readers to better appreciate abstract art." -- Lisa Miller, Bloomsbury Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 323 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (February 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520214331
• ISBN-13: 978-0520214330
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #710,861 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful, scholarly, and accessible, December 17, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Three Artists (Three Women): Modernism and the Art of Hesse, Krasner, and O'Keeffe (Ahmanson-Murphy Fine Arts Book) (Paperback)

One is reluctant to criticize the reviews of other customers, yet the two reviews prior to mine attempt to force upon Wagner's book both an historical framework and a point of view that are outside of her intended goal. If one reads the book for what it is, one finds a work of analytical insight, scholarship, humanity, and understanding of historical context. Enjoy it, savor it, reflect upon it!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars authoritative, engaging & personal, February 21, 2008

By 

Kathlene Kelly "hermit girl" (planet earth) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Three Artists (Three Women): Modernism and the Art of Hesse, Krasner, and O'Keeffe (Ahmanson-Murphy Fine Arts Book) (Paperback)

I greatly enjoyed Anne Wagner's work in Three Artists (Three Women). Not only did she write an exceptional Introduction for her work - something rare in my opinion - but she isn't afraid to tackle the idea that one of her subjects, Eva Hesse, might not have been such a commodity had she lived. Wagner doesn't insult the artist or offend the reader in her discourse about Hesse's semi-martyrdom. Instead she very matter-of-factly outlines reasons for considering that the sculptor might have been less novel. She is sharp but candid:

It is her (un)timely death that has meant that she has survived to play a special cultural role: forever under thirty-five, she answers a hunger for youthful tragic death. She is the `dead girl'...Much of the writing about the artist cannot resist taking advantage of the free mileage it gets from Hesse's early death. When it is harnessed to her troubled life, so called, an irresistible package results. (197)

Wagner's strong suit is her skill at assisting the reader to build an understanding of feminism, art and the history of women as artists. She draws on three rather conventional (in the academic sense) artists when one might prefer to see her focus on feminist artists who are a little more out of the ordinary - Shirin Neshat comes to mind. In all, however, the work is quite a valuable cornerstone for art study and her presentation of the subject of women as artists/artists as women and the discussion about the mutual exclusivity that has historically accompanied those two constructs is insightful.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book, November 21, 2009

By 

sm (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Three Artists (Three Women): Modernism and the Art of Hesse, Krasner, and O'Keeffe (Ahmanson-Murphy Fine Arts Book) (Paperback)

This closely argued study of three women artists is a delight to read: it is rigorously researched, beautifully written and insightful.

The introduction is a highly provocative intervention into feminist art history that stresses the need to consider aesthetic criteria rather than simply political credentials. Or more accurately, the author argues for their interdependence. Wagner compares Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party to a Lynda Benglis Eat Meat. She refers to Benglis's work as part of the modernist avant-garde tradition with its recalcitrant resistence to easy interpretation, and argues that this kind of work has more political potential than Chicago's work, which by comparison, is much more closed and didactic.

Each chapter examines a woman artist in relation to the avant-garde tradition. The Hesse chapter is a brilliant reworking of the methods of psychobiography. I would recommend the book for that chapter alone, her evaluations of Krasner and O'Keefe are, however, equally provocative and fascinating.