Elaine and Bill

Rating:
Summary: An art-world expos¿
Review: Thank you, Cooper Square, for reissuing Hall's valuable book. Elaine and Bill deserves a wide-based readership. Biography readers interested in Elaine and/or Willem de Kooning in particular, or American artists of this century in general, will learn a great deal. Hall's friendship with Elaine lays the groundwork and is enhanced by her discussions with friends (and wannabee friends) of both painters--although after the fact some refused to acknowledge their participation. The author also brings long-delayed attention to Elaine's neglected painting--art that is very much her own, not the weaker shadow of her husband's work often suggested.

Perhaps this book's principal contribution, however, is its cool and calm exposÂŽ of the "art world's" best-kept secret: that, at base, it is a fraud that has less to do with expression than financial gain. Readers get a clear, well-written, and easily believable picture of an artist's life during that time of near-mythical when hard drinkin', butch fightin', and tough paintin' were the mainstays of New York's boy-culture art scene of the 50s and into the 60s. The book provides a much-wanted description of why there's so little "there" there in the articles by the likes of Greenberg and Rosenberg. In light of their various affairs--both amorous and financial-one understands how these critics' and their cronies' small-scale star making paved a sort of on-ramp to the market-driven farce the art world is today.

By all means read Elaine and Bill. It is fascinating reading on many levels and, when all is said and done, provides a window--for some too clean and revealing a window--into the machinery driving the manufacture of art today.

Rating:
Summary: who needs enemies?
Review: This book is just chock-full of rumor and gossip, much of which is totally insubstantiated. Some of the 'facts' are just plain wrong. With friends like Lee Hall, who needs enemies? Do yourself a favor and if you do read this, read it with more than a few grains of salt. There are better stories about the New York School - John Myers' memoir comes to mind, for one.