In Memory of My Feelings: Frank O'Hara and American Art is a reexamination of the relationship between art and poetry at a crucial moment in American art. It also offers new insights into the charismatic figure of Frank O'Hara and his world and interests, which included art, music, theater, dance, film, and mass culture.

Co-published with the U. of California Press in conjunction with a 1999 exhibition at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (and scheduled for other venues). Curator Ferguson supplies an extended essay situating O'Hara (1926-1966) as one of the most important poets of his generation who was deeply involved in the New York art world during the 1950s. From Ferguson's essay: "This book is not...a study of his poetry. Nor is it a biographical study. Its aim, rather, is to use the charismatic figure of O'Hara as a lens through which to take another look at the most mythologized period in American art." The works represented include art by O'Hara as well as by the many artists with whom he had profound relationships. (Books in Print shows a second ISBN from the Museum: 0-91435-769-7, though it's nowhere on the book.)
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Not only was Frank O'Hara (1926-1966) one of the most important American poets of his generation, he was also intimately involved with the art world of the 1950s and 1960s, a time when New York had become the cultural capital of the world. As an associate curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara organized a series of important exhibitions, notably of the work of Franz Kline and of Robert Motherwell. In Memory of My Feelings: Frank O'Hara and American Art explores this key period in modern art by presenting artists who were associated with O'Hara and whose seminal works are reflected in his poetry.

Featuring over 80 works by twenty-three artists, the book focuses on works closely tied to specific poems by Frank O'Hara, notably Jasper Johns's In Memory of My Feelings--Frank O'Hara and Grace Hartigan's Oranges, Included are direct collaborations between O'Hara and various artists such as Joe Brainard, Norman Bluhm, and Larry Rivers, as well as portraits of the poet by Elaine de Kooning and Alex Katz. Franz Kline, Alice Neel, and Joan Mitchell are some of the other artists highlighted.

The book is a timely re-examination of the relationship between art and poetry at this crucial moment in American art. It also offers new insights into the charismatic figure of Frank O'Hara and his world.

The exhibition, In Memory of My Feelings: Frank O'Hara and American Art, will be at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, from July 11 to November 14, 1999; at The Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, January 28 to April 16, 2000; and the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York, in May, 2000.