The Unknown Night: The Genius and Madness of R. A. Blakelock, an American Painter - Brossura

Vincent, Glyn

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0802140645 ISBN 13: 9780802140647

Casa editrice: Grove Pr, 2003

Riassunto

Recounts the tragic life of the celebrated American artist, from his Greenwich Village childhood and journeys among the Sioux and Uinta Indians, through his struggles with mental illness in turn-of-the-century New York, and the exploitation of his work by an unscrupulous philanthropist. Reprint.

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Product Description

On February 22, 1916, Ralph Albert Blakelock's haunting landscape, Brook by Moonlight, was sold at auction for $20,000, a record price for a painting by a living American artist. The sale made him famous, newspapers called him America's greatest artist, and thousands flocked to exhibits of his work. Yet at the time of his triumph Blakelock had spent 15 years confined in a psychiatric hospital in upstate New York and his wife and children were living in poverty. Released from the asylum by a young philanthropist, Blakelock was about to become the victim of one of the most heartless con games of the century. This remarkable biography chronicles the life, times and madness of one of America's most celebrated and exploited painters whose brooding, hallucinogenic landscapes anticipated Abstract Expressionism by more than half a century. Like the best biographies, The Unknown Night brings to life a vanished world, as well. In this case, it's late 19th and early 20th century New York--a city of artists' studios and spiritualists' salons, shantytowns and millionaires' mansions. Blakelock was a mystic who as a young man wandered among the Indians out West, and on his return frequented the spiritualist circles in New York City. Though he was regarded as a loner, he worked among the great painters of his time, artists like William Merritt Chase and George Inness. Blakelock initially painted in the Romantic style of the Hudson River School, but by the 1880s, his brooding, hallucinogenic landscapes were considered among the most controversial, radical paintings of the era. In the 1890s he fell on hard times and sometimes played the piano on the vaudeville circuit to earn extra cash. He suffered his first mental break down in 1891. After a period of remission he became violent and was institutionalized in 1899 just as his reputation was beginning to soar. Interest in his work peaked in 1916 when a wave of Blakelock hysteria swept America. Crowds lined up to see Blakelock exhibiti

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Grove Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2003
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0802140645
• ISBN 13: 9780802140647
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 384
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile