The White Blackbird: A Life of the Painter Margarett Sargent by Her Granddaughter [Paperback]

Honor Moore (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1997

An icon of avant-garde art in the 1920s, Margarett Sargent is nearly unknown today. In a haunting and evocative weave of biography and memoir, her granddaughter unearths for the first time the life of this spirited and brilliant woman, who was committed to self-expression--even at the cost of marriage and family. in color.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Rebelling against her Boston Brahmin family and ditching her fiance, spirited Margarett Sargent (1892-1978), a fourth cousin of John Singer Sargent, became a modernist painter and sculptor. Her brightly colored oils, pastels and watercolors, influenced by Matisse and Picasso, were widely exhibited in the 1920s and '30s. Her marriage in 1920 to rich Boston businessman Quincy Shaw McKean became a battleground of wills and temperaments, and Sargent had numerous affairs with men and women, including novelist Jane Bowles. She began drinking heavily in the 1930s while trying to balance the demands of raising four children and an artistic career. In 1948, Shaw McKean announced that he was divorcing her to marry tennis champion Kay Winthrop. Sargent's manic-depressive illness and alcoholism led her to undergo electroshock therapy and repeated stays in sanatoriums. In her early 40s, she gave up art and turned to horticulture, designing gardens professionally. Poet and playwright Moore, the artist's granddaughter, oscillates between straightforward biography and wistful memoir in recounting the turbulent life of a woman whose friends included Alexander Calder, Bernard Berenson, Ziegfeld star Fanny Brice and Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum. Illustrated.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Unrecognized today, Margarett Sargent McKean (1892-1978)?fourth cousin to the American Impressionist painter John Singer Sargent?was well known in avant-garde circles of the 1920s as an emancipated modernist artist and collector from a prosperous upper-class Boston family. For two decades, as she devoted herself to sculpture and then to painting, she remained in a tenuous marriage, engaged in various sexual exploits, managed a privileged household, raised four children, and mounted nine one-woman art shows. At the age of 40, she abruptly stopped painting, plagued by alcohol addiction and manic depression, and spent 20 years in and out of sanitariums. Her poet/playwright granddaughter remembers the multifarious actors in Margarett's bittersweet, tragic career, among them Gutzon Borglum, George Luks, Archibald MacLeish, Betty Parsons, Fanny Brice, Dr. Barnes, and Alexander Calder. Recommended for both the specialist and the general reader as a memoir of Sargent's life and artistic worth.?Mary Hamel-Schwulst, Towson State Univ., Md.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (July 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140249206
• ISBN-13: 978-0140249200
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,675,396 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:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtfully written, December 1, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: The White Blackbird: A Life of the Painter Margarett Sargent by Her Granddaughter (Hardcover)

A very honest study of Honor Moore's grandmother Margarett Sargent. I was impressed by the amount of research that went into painting a portrait of a complex and intelligent woman and artist. A certain amount of sympathy is felt for Margarett, yet she was a proud independent woman whose strength inspires. For me, Margarett's life transcended the label of "wealthy society woman." She had great talent that she put to use. With all the advances in anti-depressives and the treatment of bi-polar illness one wonders if the mental illness that helped suck her into a vacuum of loss would have been able to do so in this decade. In the end, her loss became our loss. Honor Moore did a great thing by keeping her grandmother's memory alive so that we could revisit her colorful art and life. A great read

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent recreation of a misunderstood artist!, June 28, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: The White Blackbird: A Life of the Painter Margarett Sargent by Her Granddaughter (Hardcover)

Honor Moore spent more than a decade researching the life of her grandmother, the painter Margarett Sargent, in an attempt to understand why she stopped painting in middle age. "It was too intense," was all her grandmother ever told the author, late in the ex-painter's long life. Ms. Moore attempts to show that the demands of Sargent's privileged Boston society lifestyle forced her to give up her art and contributed to her madness. A wonderful read, and a surprising insight into the creative process, especially in a woman. --Jack Sheed

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing biography, June 21, 2001

By 

Daniel Akst (Hudson Valley) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The White Blackbird: A Life of the Painter Margarett Sargent by Her Granddaughter (Paperback)

I don't know why this book isn't better known, or why we haven't heard much more from Honor Moore, whose grandmother's life is fascinating, tragic and ultimately mysterious. Unlike so many contemporary biographies, this one isn't overly long or obsessed with detail at the expense of perspective. An exquisite piece of work from start to finish--one of the best biographies I have ever read.