DESCRIPTION
Henry McBride, a towering figure in art criticism from 1913 to the early 1950s, was a discerning observer and ardent supporter of twentieth-century modernism. In this richly annotated collection of his selected letters-addressed to such friends as Gertrude Stein, Carl Van Vechten, Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Marianne Moore-McBride engagingly describes many of modernism's most important events and figures.
From the Inside Flap
Henry McBride (1867-1962) became a towering figure in art criticism
during a long career that began in 1913-the year of the famous Armory
Show in New York that opened American eyes to avant-garde developments
in European art-and continued until the advent of Abstract
Expressionism in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A sensitive and
discerning observer of the changing cultural landscape, McBride not
only wrote prolifically for publication but also corresponded
extensively. In this remarkable collection of selected letters, Henry
McBride describes some of the most important events and figures of
twentieth-century modernism. Written in a characteristically charming,
gossipy, and warm-hearted style, these letters reveal McBride's
responses to revolutionary changes in the world of art and in the world
at large. Closely allied to the pivotal circles that shaped modern
culture, McBride counted among his correspondents such friends as
Gertrude Stein, Carl Van Vechten, the Stettheimer sisters, Alfred
Stieglitz, Charles Demuth, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Marianne Moore. His
letters, along with the biographical introduction, headnotes, and rich
annotation provided in this volume, present a unique perspective on
twentieth-century modernism by one of its most ardent
supporters."Witty, engaging, and thoroughly likable, McBride seemed to
know everyone of significance. His letters provide an insider's
perspective on the elite cultural world in which he was an active
participant-a world which no longer exists."-Barbara Haskell, Whitney
Museum of American Art
REVIEWS
From Publishers Weekly:
Whether the fare was Virgil Thomson's opera Four Saints in Three Acts,
Picasso's or Marcel Duchamp's paintings or Gertrude Stein's prose,
critic Henry McBride (1867-1962) was noted for his friendly, upbeat
acceptance of modernist art, literature and music in such avant-garde
periodicals as the Dial. McBride could make it all seem cozy and
friendly, in part because he enjoyed friendships with many vital
creators during his long lifetime. As a youngish tourist, McBride is
not brilliant: "Botticelli is not so tremendous to me as he used to
be." Starting a journalistic career in 1912 at 45, he approved heartily
of modern artists like Juan Gris, but saved his case making for his
criticism. At times, McBride seems to have been a rotten judge of
character: he found the young Nelson Rockefeller "really a nice lad."
In 40 years of letters to friend Malcolm MacAdam, he camps it up
genteelly, probably coming the closest to his real-life intimate
talking style, joshing for example about Thornton Wilder's being the
"friend intim " of boxer Gene Tunney. McBride hints elsewhere at the
amusingly gossipy personality he clamped down on in public and which
did not stray, even in the letters, into intimate detail. (Editor
Watson refers to McBride as "openly not heterosexual.") Students and
less formal fans of modernism will want to check out this informal
champion's quotidian, but they will find few of the kind of revelations
that make for good hype. (Jan.) Forecast: If stores with solid
selections of lesser-known modernist literature stock this book along
with McBride's selected criticism, The Flow of Art (also from Yale), or
with the recent Magician of the Modern: Chick Austin and the
Transformation of the Arts in America (Forecasts, Oct. 16) and
Stravinsky's Lunch (Forecasts, Oct. 9), could attract a bigger audience
than it otherwise might.
