Synopses & Reviews
The American artist Theresa Ferber Bernstein (1890and#8211;2002) made and exhibited her work in every decade of the twentieth century. This authoritative book about Bernstein provides an overview of her life and artistic career, examining her relationships with contemporary artists.
Bernsteinand#8217;s work is noteworthy, even among her more famous male contemporaries such as John Sloan, Stuart Davis, and Edward Hopper, all of whom she knew. Working in realist and expressionist styles, she treated the major subjects of her time, including the fight for womenand#8217;s suffrage, the plight of immigrants, World War I, jazz, unemployment, racial discrimination, and occasionally explicitly Jewish themes such as a synagogue interior or ritual objects such as a menorah. She was a member of the American Artistsand#8217; Congress and painted a mural for the U.S. government during the Great Depression.
Bernsteinand#8217;s portrait subjects include Albert Einstein, Martha Graham, Judy Garland, Louis Armstrong, Lil Hardin, and Billie Holiday, yet it is her particular sensibility and empathy with those subjects that set her apart from her mostly male contemporaries.
Theresa Bernstein: A Century in Art includes thematic essays by Michele Cohen, Patricia M. Burnham, Elsie Heung, Sarah Archino, Stephanie Hackett, Gillian Pistell, and by the editor, Gail Levin. It features more than two hundred images, including full-color reproductions of her art and rare documentary photographs, many published here for the first time. It also includes a detailed chronology of Bernsteinand#8217;s life, a list of public collections, and a list of her writings.
Review
“Franco Mormandos fascinating book is a welcome addition to the Bernini literature. It is both a biography of the artist and a portrait of Roman Baroque culture. Though written for a general audience, it reveals an impressive command of the specialist scholarship—in art history, literature, and history. Mormando wears his learning lightly, writing with animation, carefully pacing his anecdotes, and making the whole as entertaining as it is informative.”
John Crowley, author of Aegypt and Little, Big
Review
"Gian Lorenzo Bernini was one artist whose life was every bit as dramatic, sensual, and emotional as his art. Franco Mormando's sympathetic, intimate biography moves as fast as its hyperactive subject, taking us on a whirlwind ride through the glittering courts of papal Rome and the Paris of the Sun King, Louis XIV. From its shocking beginning to its perfect ending, the book is sheer unmitigated delight." Library Journal
Review
"By adopting the manner of a lecturer—teasingly mentioning things to come, employing the first-person plural as a teacher, roping students into his intellectual questing, throwing in some slang now and then, and without neglecting scholarship (this is a history of papal Rome as much as a biography)—Mormando gives us a succulent reading experience.
Quanto e dolce."
Booklist
Review
"Mormando provides enough salacious details of the scandal-ridden life of baroque artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini to keep readers turning pages in this engaging, well-researched biography. . . . Mormandos extensive research and documentation not only will satisfy scholars and students of art history, especially baroque aficionados, but this biography will also appeal to general readers" starred review
Review
"There are a few artists to whom the label 'faultless' applies, and the top of that list is Bernini, architect, showman and sculptor. Franco Mormando's book shows him in full as a man for the first time, and he is as pleasing, as sweet, as interestingly ambiguous as his amazing oeuvre. This is a wonderful book to have at last."
Ingrid Rowland, author of Giordano Bruno
Review
"Such a publishing landmark by a lauded historian of the period is an event."--
The Tablet (UK)
Tablet (UK)
Review
"Like the finely crafted artwork, Franco Mormando's biography of Bernini is outstanding."--Jonathan Farrell,
Digital Journal Jonathan Farrell
Review
"This book helps bring to life Theresa Bernstein, her life and her art. . . . Her work is impressive, especially compared to her peers at the time. . . . This book will help people appreciate her art more."and#8212;Kevin Winter, Portland Book Review
Review
andquot;Levinandmdash;who first encountered Bernstein's name while researching her book on Edward Hopperandmdash;has rendered an intriguing biography out of wonderful artwork and a provocative life story.andquot;andmdash;Arlene B. Soifer, Jewish Book Council
Review
andldquo;Gail Levin and her team of authors have assembled a fascinating account of the life and art of Theresa Bernstein, who came of age in the early years of the twentieth century and painted with a boldness of technique and feeling on a par with John Sloan and Stuart Davis. Indeed, she often surpassed them in terms of the praise showered on her when she exhibited in New York and Gloucester during the interwar years. Eclipsed at midcentury, as so many other women artists were, she is today recognized as a leading artist of the early twentieth-century urban scene.andrdquo;andmdash;Patricia Hills, professor of art history at Boston University and the author of Painting Harlem Modern: The Art of Jacob Lawrence
Review
and#8220;Based on extensive research, this important book illuminates the compelling life and work of American realist painter Theresa Bernstein. Bernsteinand#8217;s career spans a century, from her early success in the vibrant New York art world of the 1910s to the diverse portraits, still lifes, landscapes, and prints she produced and exhibited until well past the age of one-hundred. This volumeand#8217;s rich essays and illustrations restore Bernstein to the place she deserves in art history.and#8221;and#8212;Laura R. Prieto, professor of history and womenand#8217;s and gender studies at Simmons College and author of
At Home in the Studio: The Professionalization of Women Artists in Americaand#160;
Review
and#8220;
Theresa Bernstein: A Century in Art is a major contribution to art history. Although there are exhibition catalogs of Theresa Bernsteinand#8217;s work and her writings, there is no overview of her life and career, so this book is unique in viewing all the aspects of Bernsteinand#8217;s artistic career and her biography, as well as her relationship with contemporary artists.and#8221;and#8212;Alicia Craig Faxon, professor of art history emerita at Simmons College and the author of
Self-Portraits by Women Paintersand#160;
Synopsis
Sculptor, architect, painter, playwright, and scenographer, Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) was the last of the great universal artistic geniuses of early modern Italy, placed by both contemporaries and posterity in the same exalted company as Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo. And his artistic vision remains palpably present today, through the countless statues, fountains, and buildings that transformed Rome into the Baroque theater that continues to enthrall tourists today.It is perhaps not surprising that this artist who defined the Baroque should have a personal life that itself was, well, baroque. As Franco Mormando’s dazzling biography reveals, Bernini was a man driven by many passions, possessed of an explosive temper and a hearty sex drive, and he lived a life as dramatic as any of his creations. Drawing on archival sources, letters, diaries, and—with a suitable skepticism—a hagiographic account written by Bernini’s son (who portrays his father as a paragon of virtue and piety), Mormando leads us through Bernini’s many feuds and love affairs, scandals and sins. He sets Bernini’s raucous life against a vivid backdrop of Baroque Rome, bustling and wealthy, and peopled by churchmen and bureaucrats, popes and politicians, schemes and secrets.The result is a seductively readable biography, stuffed with stories and teeming with life—as wild and unforgettable as Bernini’s art. No one who has been bewitched by the Baroque should miss it.
About the Author
Gail Levin is Distinguished Professor of Art History, American Studies, and Womenand#8217;s Studies at the Graduate Center and Baruch College of the City University of New York. She is the author of several books, including
Lee Krasner: A Biography,
Becoming Judy Chicago: A Biography of the Artist, and
Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography.
Table of Contents
Preface: The First English-Language Biography of Bernini
Acknowledgments
Website Information
Money, Wages, and Cost of Living in Baroque Rome
Abbreviations
1. The Neapolitan Meteor
A Twelve-Year-Old Pregnant Bride
We Pause to Talk about Our Sources
Childhood in a “Paradise Inhabited by Demons”
Moving on Up: To Rome, 1606
Falling in Love with the Boy Bernini
“I Beg You to Dissimulate”
Bernini Comes of Age
“Why Shouldnt Cardinal Scipiones Penis Get What It Wants?”
The Tender and the True
Bernini Rejoices
2. Impresario Supreme
“Pretty-Beard Urban”
“The Michelangelo of His Age”
Fire Is Never a Gentle Master
“What the Barbarians Didnt Do, the Barberini Did”
“The Cupola Is Falling!”
Head of the Clan
An Encounter with Death
Bernini Slashes a Lovers Face
Bernini Purchases a Bride
“Making What Is Fake Appear Real”
“To Our England Your Glorious Name”
For Whom the Bell Tolls, or Not
3. Berninis Agony and Ecstasy
A Universal Father So Coarse and So Deformed
Bernini Sinks and Teresa Floats
“Not Only Prostrate, But Prostituted as Well”
“Unless Moved by Something Extraordinary That They See”
La Pimpaccia to the Rescue
A Heroic Bust for a Mousy Princeling
The Papal Corpse Left to Rot
4. Bernini and Alexander
The Dream Team: Pope and Architect
“Shes a Hermaphrodite, They Say”
Bubonic Plague, Yet Again
A Jewel for the Jesuits
Final Act of the Bernini-Borromini Rivalry
5. A Roman Artist in King Louiss Court
Bernini Becomes a Political Pawn
Over the Alps in a Sedan Chair
“Speak to Me of Nothing Small!”
Bernini Weeps
“A Plague Take That Bastard!”
The Long, Troubled Aftermath
6. “My Star Will Lose Its Ascendancy”
A Brief Sigh of Relief
The Stoning of Casa Bernini
Sodomy behind the Statue(s)
“That Dragon Vomiting Poison in Every Direction”
Queen Christina Lends Her Name to a Hoax
An Occasional Round of Applause
“Cover Those Breasts!”
“The Cupola Is Falling (Again)!”
Not with a Bang, But a Whimper
Notes
Works Cited
Index