Benjamin Moser on Frederic Edwin Church
The writer and translator reviews a new biography of the Hudson River painter, plus more books to round out July.
We may be nearing the halfway point of summer, but Helen Levitt’s tender snapshots of New York City keep the humor and poetry of the streets alive year-round. A comprehensive book on the late photographer, who spent nearly seven decades documenting moments of levity and communion in the city’s working-class neighborhoods, is a perfect companion to ward off the mid-summer scaries — a reminder that the quiet joy of the everyday doesn’t rise and fall with the seasons. Critic Natalie Weis offers a reflection on the new tome today.
Also in this edition, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and translator Benjamin Moser considers a biography of the intrepid Hudson River painter Frederic Edwin Church. He writes that the painter “managed to convey all the nation’s fears — of slavery, war, and disunion — through moody images of clouds and trees,” captured in the measured portrait by author Victoria Johnson.
More art books to round out July below, including a callback to Grand Finales: The Creative Longevity of Women Artists by Susan Gubar, well worth a revisit as you line up your next summer reads.
—Lakshmi Rivera Amin, associate editor
Helen Levitt Captured the Poetry of New York City
Photographer Helen Levitt, who was born in Bensonhurst in 1913 and died at the age of 95 in her fifth-floor apartment in Greenwich Village, lived in New York City her entire life (save for a five-month sojourn to Mexico) and never lost her Flatbush accent. She was friends with photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson and Walker Evans, and, like the latter, collaborated with writer James Agee, but she never received the level of attention and acclaim that her male contemporaries did.
Though Levitt is perhaps best known for her photographs of children’s chalk drawings in the 1930s, they comprise only a fraction of her six-decade practice, whose emotional complexity and formal innovation continue to captivate. The comprehensive book Helen Levitt, edited by Joshua Chuang, draws from the breadth of her output with rarely seen images and scholarly essays that focus on her early expeditions with a Leica, 1941 trip to Mexico, experiments with color photography, two series taken in the New York subway, and final photographs from the 1980s. | Natalie Weis
Read MoreFrom Our Critics
The Many Lives of Frederic Edwin Church
Victoria Johnson’s biography is a nuanced portrait of the artist, whose landscapes conveyed the anxieties of a nation struggling over slavery, war, and disunion. | Benjamin Moser
Read MoreThe Album Art Music Left Behind
Two projects examine the visual art and design that shape our perception of music, from Raymond Pettibon’s Foo Fighters record covers to the ephemera of bygone bands. | Divya Mehra
Read MoreICYMI
A Natural History of William Kentridge’s Studio
Let it be said, the studio is a safe space for stupidity. A space where impulses can be given the benefit of the doubt. | William Kentridge
Read MoreFrom the Archive
The Women Artists Who Found Freedom in Old Age
The artists profiled in Grand Finales refused to consign themselves to what the author calls “Little-Old-Lady-Land,” and opted to keep searching, pushing, and trying new things. | Sophia Stewart
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