Both Celia Paul and Gwen John oriented their lives around being artists and were diverted by romantic entanglements with famous male artists that reduced them to muses. Was it worth it?
New York Review Books
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A Dictionary Takes Us Through the Fascinating History of Symbols
Juan Eduardo Cirlot’s A Dictionary of Symbols has been an invaluable resource for decoding symbols since it was first published in 1958.
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A New Collection of Saul Steinberg’s Influential Cartoons
The Labyrinth, originally published in 1960 and long out of print, is the perfect introduction or reintroduction to Steinberg’s incomparable style.
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A Magical 1970s French Comic Book Finally Translated Into English
In Nicole Claveloux’s comic collection, The Green Hand and Other Stories, we move through dream states with highly idiosyncratic characters.
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The Idiosyncratic Writings of Leonora Carrington, a Reluctant Surrealist
Three books by Leonora Carrington, including her memoir of her time at an insane asylum, reveal the artist’s specific vision of the world, which strayed from and defied Surrealism.
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How Pirate and Parrot (Mis)Understand One Another
Eugene Ostashevsky is a father of two young daughters and a fan of Dr. Seuss, and he no longer thinks it is “possible to write anything serious that is not funny.”
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Reader’s Diary: ‘Bresson on Bresson’
Before starting to make films, Robert Bresson had been a painter. Or rather, he remained one, since according to him, “It’s not possible to have been a painter and to no longer be one.”
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An Auteur’s Enduring and Confounding Guide to Filmmaking
Robert Bresson’s Notes on the Cinematograph, first published in 1975 and about to be reissued by New York Review Books, is not a manifesto or unified theory.