Description:
It's hard to pinpoint the exact location of the center of the art world. It has resided most famously at one time in Paris and then New York, with other major cities making claim to the title at different times throughout the years. However fleeting this title may be, it still seems surprising that once upon a time Hartford, Connecticut, a town most known for its insurance companies, served as the unofficial gateway and capital of modern art in America. Beginning in the late 1920s, a young and somewhat rebellious Harvard graduate began a career at Hartford's Wadworth Atheneum that would make waves throughout the country and help shape the American artistic climate for years to come. Magician of the Modern: Chick Austin and the Transformation of the Arts in America is the biography of this creative museum director (and amateur actor) whose energy and romantic visions inspired so many. The story is one of a charmed life full of upper-class indulgences like transatlantic trips, short-lived college suspensions, lavish parties, and country houses. Underneath the shiny surface was a real-life soap opera, from an overbearing mother and distant father to a blissful marriage that very slowly crumbled under the pressures of an ever-changing lifestyle--and through it all Austin remained steadfast in his commitment to art and theater. Not every endeavor was successful: a failed collaboration with arts patron Lincoln Kirstein to bring George Balanchine to Hartford was a crushing blow, and his mounting of a Picasso show brought much neighborly criticism. Yet, whatever the project, Austin was always way ahead of the cultural curve, and in Hartford that meant that much of the community was playing a constant game of catch-up. Austin's life is a complex story of travel, art, family, romance, and an ever important group of friends. --J.P. Cohen
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