Artists in Love : From Picasso & Gilot to Christo & Jeanne-Claude, A Century of Creative and Romantic Partnerships

IPPY 2012 Gold Award in the Fine Arts category (Independent Publisher Book Awards) ForeWord Reviews 2012 Book of the Year Award Finalist For centuries, great artists have been drawn together in friendship and in love. In Artists in Love, curator and writer Veronica Kavass delves into the passionate and creative underpinnings of the art world's most provocative romances. From Picasso and Francoise Gilot to Lee Miler and Man Ray to Saul Steinberg and Hedda Sterne, Kavass' graceful and daring text provides a generous glimpse into the inspiring and sometimes tempestuous relationships between celebrated artists throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. From poetic beginnings to shocking endings (and vice-versa), the various dimensions of the artist couple archetypes are ceaselessly explored. Some are enduring and collaborative, yielding astonishing parallel bodies of work, as with Robert and Sonia Delaunay and Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Others are adoring and explosive, such as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Essays revealing what compelled these dynamic artists to partner, how their pairing influenced their work, and why their love may have faltered, are accompanied by lush illustrations of their art and documentary photographs of the couple. The first visual book to explore this subject in such epic scope, Artists in Love is a revelatory and riveting journey into the hearts and minds of artists in love. Artists featured include: Wassily Kandinsky & Gabriele Munter Robert & Sonia Delaunay Alfred Stieglitz & Georgia O'Keeffe Jean Arp & Sophie Taeuber-Arp Anni & Josef Albers Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera Lee Miller & Man Ray Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight Barbara Hepworth & Ben Nicholson Elaine & Willem de Kooning Pablo Picasso & Francoise Gilot Jackson Pollock & Lee Krasner Dorothea Tanning & Max Ernst Nancy Spero & Leon Golub Jasper Johns & Robert Rauschenberg Robert Motherwell & Helen Frankenthaler Christo & Jeanne-Claude Bernd & Hilla Becher Eva Hesse & Tom Doyle Charles and Ray Eames Kay Sage and Yves Tanguy Saul Steinberg and Hedda Sterne Robert Smithson & Nancy Holt Niki de Saint Phalle & Jean Tinguely Marina Abramovic & Ulay Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen Bruce Nauman & Susan Rothenberg David McDermott and Peter McGough