BOOK:Artists In Love, Rizzoli Publications

Great artists have been drawn together in friendship and in love. In the book “Artists in Love: From Picasso & Gilot to Christo & Jeanne-Claude, A Century of Creative and Romantic Partnerships” by Rizzoli Publications, Veronica Kavass delves into the passionate and creative underpinnings of the art world’s most provocative romances. The well-known romances are there, like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe, and Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollack, but Kavass also delves into the lives of Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence, and to Jasper Johns & Robert Rauschenberg. Her provocative essays illustrate the wide range of influence each artist had on their partner: some worked together to produce a prolific amount of work as a single unit (Oldenburg and van Bruggen, Christo and Jeanne-Claude), others acted as muse for the other (Lee Miller and Man Ray), and others’ artistic expression functioned as two sides of the same coin (Leon Golub and Nancy Spero). Not surprisingly, there is often a dominant male figure and tales of infidelity and turbulence abound, but even if there weren’t any tabloid-worthy details, Kavass’ tone is captivating and engaging enough for any reader.–Efi Michalarou