IN MY LIBRARY
Sebastian Smee
Those who think sex scandals and rivalries are limited to pro ball players should think again: Artists can get pretty damn heated. So it seems in Sebastian Smee’s “The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art.” Among the fraught frenemies the Pulitzer-winning art critic examines are Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. “What shocked me was to learn that less than a year after Pollock’s death in a car crash, de Kooning started going out with Pollock’s ex-girlfriend,” Smee says. “These artists are competing on so many levels at once — not just competing, but falling under the spell of each other, competing for collectors, friends and lovers.” Here are four art-themed books Smee admires. — Barbara Hoffman
The Letters of Vincent van Gogh published by Thames and Hudson
I read excerpts of his letters when I was a teenager, but it wasn’t until I was sent this new illustrated edition that I realized how heartfelt they were. Every painting and drawing van Gogh writes about is reproduced in this book, which is full of surprising details. No matter how troubled he was, he had such an unguarded passion for life.
The Unknown Matisse by Hilary Spurling
Volume 1 tells the story of the first half of Matisse’s life, and it’s a real revelation: We have this image that creating these sensual paintings everyone loves was easy, but Mat- isse was deeply stressed his entire life. He suffered panic attacks, nosebleeds, insomnia — extraordinary when you think about the simplicity of his paintings.
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol by Andy Warhol
It’s subtitled “From A to B and Back Again.” Andy Warhol was kind of an Oscar Wilde of the wised-up, post-hippie era: “I’d rather watch someone buy their underwear than read a book they wrote.” Warhol didn’t actually write the book — a lot of this came out of interviews he did with Interview magazine’s Bob Colacello. Which seems classic Warhol!
Whistler and His Mother by Sarah Walden
The Louvre gave Sarah Walden the job of restoring the most famous American painting, and she wrote a book about it. Whistler wanted pictures to work like music, combining color and tones. His real title was “Arrangement in Black and White: The Artist’s Mother.”