Overview

This first full biography confirms Florine Stettheimer as one of the 20th century's most significant, progressive artists whose work remains highly relevant today. Stettheimer was a feminist, multi-media artist who painted several sexually explicit, political, identity-issue-based works and documented New York City's growth as the centre of cultural life, finance, and entertainment between the World Wars. During her first 40 years in Europe, Florine Stettheimer studied academic painting and was aware of all the earliest modernist styles prior to most American artists. Returning to New York, she and her sisters led an acclaimed Salon for major avant-garde cultural figures including Duchamp, the Stieglitz circle, poets, dancers, writers, etc. During her life she showed her innovative paintings in over 46 of the most important museum exhibits and Salons, wrote poetry, designed unique furniture and gained international fame for her sets and costumes for the avant-garde opera, 4 Saints in 3 Acts.

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9783777438344

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Reviews

For anyone interested in the messy, exhilarating tale of early American modernism, this is essential reading. Bloemink's new biography provides an intimate, nuanced look at the pivotal role Stettheimer played in fomenting an artistic revolution in the United States. It is the definitive account of one of the era's great artists. -- Andrew Russeth In this remarkable biography, Bloemink reveals Florine Stettheimer's determined feminism, progressive significance, subversive social consciousness, and her continuing relevance at a critical time for women in the art world. -- Linda Nochlin

[An] already indispensable, fascinating new book. . . . Bloemink brings her account to life using a wealth of archival material from Stettheimer's world. -- 4Columns [A] thrilling new book. . . Bloemink expresses a desire early on to undo a number of the 'misrepresentations' put forward about the artist. -- ARTnews [Stettheimer] has remained an artist's artist, with an elusive legacy that Barbara Bloemink has uncovered in her new biography. -- AnOther Magazine A 1963 biography of the painter Florine Stettheimer contributed greatly to the impression that she was a 'cloistered spinster' whose work was too frivolously ornamental to be taken seriously or regularly exhibited. Bloemink's newly published biography serves as a necessary corrective: For starters, the artist was a dedicated feminist who actually enjoyed single life. The writer also excavates Stettheimer's impact as a progressive thinker whose paintings challenged the societal norms of racism and antisemitism, and highlights the monumentality of her work, both in terms of its scale and its grand themes such as American patriotism and women's independence. -- T, The New York Times Style Magazine Bloemink is again making the case for Stettheimer as a fascinating, and crucial, figure of art history, one deserving a place in the pantheon of American modernists. In a hefty new biography, Stettheimer's life and work--which, in addition to her paintings, include acerbic poems, ornate furniture and frames, and costumes and set designs--unfold in unprecedented detail. -- Vogue Bloemink's thorough, engaging book is the first comprehensive biography and full reading of Stettheimer's paintings, and gives the artist the attention she has long deserved. The author explores the ways that Stettheimer's life circumstances and social circle shaped her highly original art, which blended sly humor and private pleasures with socially and politically minded messages about the world at large. -- Hyperallergic Enlightening. . . . In this comprehensive study of the artist's life and work, Stettheimer scholar Barbara Bloemink expands on her 1995 biography, championing the painter's contributions to Modern art as original and feminist. Bloemink argues that her work has been read superficially until now. She elucidates the historic context for Stettheimer's paintings, aiding readers to look beyond the seductively decorative surfaces to see subversive depths. -- The Art Newspaper Those of us who love the work of Florine Stettheimer owe a debt to Barbara Bloemink. . . . She has written a new biography, deeply researched and beautifully illustrated, with much to recommend it. -- Wall Street Journal For anyone interested in the messy, exhilarating tale of early American modernism, this is essential reading. Bloemink's new biography provides an intimate, nuanced look at the pivotal role Stettheimer played in fomenting an artistic revolution in the United States. It is the definitive account of one of the era's great artists. -- Andrew Russeth In this remarkable biography, Bloemink reveals Florine Stettheimer's determined feminism, progressive significance, subversive social consciousness, and her continuing relevance at a critical time for women in the art world. -- Linda Nochlin

Author Information

Considered the expert scholar on Florine Stettheimer's work, Barbara Bloemink has written extensively on her and co-curated the artist's 1995 Whitney Museum Retrospective. Formerly the director and chief of five art museums including the Smithsonian's National Design Museum and Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, she has curated over 70 exhibitions, published extensively, lectured and taught internationally on art and design. She received a Ph.D. from Yale University.

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