Angna maintained her friendships with Alfred Stieglitz and Dorothy Norman solely through her elegant and personal letters. And friends such as Judith Anderson, Greer Garson, Fanny Brice, and Albert and Millie Lewin knew only her business address. Enters' home was a Manhattan apartment which she shared with her secret, lifetime companion, the journalist and art critic Louis Kalonyme, who gave up his own career to serve as her secretary, business manager, confidant, and lover. He retained close contacts with only a few of his friends--Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe, Eugene O'Neill, and John Marin.
Uncommon Eloquence is a meticulously researched portrait of this complex, elusive, and incredibly talented woman. Dorothy Mandel presents us with glimpses of the behind-the-scenes travails of Angna's cross-country tours of the U.S. and her many appearances in Europe, the poverty of her early years as an artist in Greenwich Village, her churning out chapters of books in crowded hotel lobbies and train stations during World War II, her dramatic escape from her home in Malaga at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, and her struggles with the bureaucracy of Hollywood in the 1940s.
Confronted with her diversified and unique talents, critics tried for decades to classify Enters' artistry, but no one ever succeeded. Angna Enters was a loner in the art world, going her own way to create her own special reality in the arts. Mandel has captured the drive, the frustrations, and the strength of this fascinating, solitary performer.
