An early work late in life

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Alastair Gordon

"Early one day in the summer of 1993, the famously prolific architect Norman Jaffe went for a swim at the beach in Bridgehampton, New York, leaving his clothes in a neat little pile on the sand, as he did almost every morning. But this particular morning, he never returned. With his disappearance, he left behind many unanswered questions - not only about the cause of his death, but about the nature of his architectural legacy." "Romantic Modernist: The Life and Work of Norman Jaffe, Architect is the first book to explore Jaffe's body of work and the inner struggle that shaped his life. A magnetic, free-spirited individual, he approached his work with a sense of passion that was all but unrivaled in the world of architecture. Over the course of his career, he established himself as an innovator in solar and urban design, but he is best known for his strikingly sculptural houses in the Hamptons, from small hideaways to sprawling estates, to which he brought an almost mystical vision: with the perfect balance of light and shadow and the right proportions and materials, he was convinced, houses could provide what he described as "dreamlike, romantic journeys" that offered an opportunity for self-discovery." "Through interviews with Jaffe's closest friends and associates, as well as exhaustive archival research, critic Alastair Gordon traces Jaffe's career trajectory from his early years on the West Coast through his increasingly celebrated life in New York and his premature, unexplained death. Hundreds of original drawings and color photographs illustrate Jaffe's story, offering a rare look at this charismatic figure whose life was as interesting as the work he produced."--Jacket.

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Paul Ferris

"Dylan Thomas's life and work have made him a legendary figure since he died, amid alcohol and debts, in New York at the age of thirty-nine. At the heart of his achievement are a few dozen poems and stories which, together with the romantic comedy Under Milk Wood, haunt the imagination and give his writing a broader appeal than he could have envisaged. Beyond his writing is the chequered figure of the poet himself: often comic, at times in despair, always self-obsessed, in the end defeated by his own nature." "Paul Ferris's classic biography has been recognised as the standard life since it first appeared in 1977. He has now drawn on fresh material to revise the book. In particular, he looks again at Thomas's marriage to the fiery Caitlin, and finds in it the seeds of a fatal dependence."--BOOK JACKET.

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Kennedy Fraser

In the fourteen superb essays collected in this volume - most were published in The New Yorker and Vogue; two appear in print for the first time - Kennedy Fraser explores the uniquely female voice, the uniquely female presence, in literature and art. She reveals how the early sexual experiences of Virginia Woolf and Edith Wharton colored their emotions and their work. She considers the long life in exile of Nina Berberova, with its complicated, intertwining loves and friendships. She shows us Vermeer, unrivalled "in conveying the active, passive, peculiarly feminine inner life" of another time, and Louise Colet, Flaubert's mistress, trying to find a permanent place in his life as well as in his work. Fraser writes engagingly of such survivors as the feminist Germaine Greer, the English naturalist Miriam Rothschild, and the New York haute couture designer Valentina. She observes the havoc Paul Scott and Henri Matisse wreaked on the women and families around them during their very different careers in the arts. Vignettes from her own life - about her garden, about buying meat in New York, about her sister - are interspersed throughout. And the book ends with a remembrance of her days at William Shawn's New Yorker, where she was introduced to the writing life.

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Patricia Morrisroe

Robert Mapplethorpe was one of the most famous and controversial figures in the contemporary art world. Some of his photographs were praised for their startlingly beautiful composition, others condemned for their explicit sexuality. He was an artistic enigma. In 1989, three months after Mapplethorpe's death at forty-two, the Corcoran Gallery of Art canceled a show of his work, igniting a fierce battle over federal funding of "objectionable" art. When the exhibit arrived in Cincinnati a year later, the Center for Contemporary Art and its director were ordered to stand trial on obscenity charges - the first time a gallery in the United States faced prosecution for the art it displayed. In this remarkable biography, Patricia Morrisroe chronicles Mapplethorpe's singular life and the development of his unique art against the background of American culture during the sixties, seventies, and eighties. Mapplethorpe: A Biography reveals a life even more daring than the photographer's art. Selected by Mapplethorpe to write his story, Patricia Morrisroe conducted numerous interviews with the artist before his death, as well as with hundreds of people who knew him during the different periods of his life. Powerful and provocative, Mapplethorpe is the definitive biography of one of America's most celebrated photographers.