![\"Cover:](\"http:\/\/www.femininemoments.dk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/RomaineBrooks_a_Life_cover_w-200x300.jpg\")
Romaine Brooks: A Life
\nLanger, Cassandra (Author)
\nSep 2015. 290 p. Univ. of Wisconsin, hardcover, $26.95. (9780299298609). Univ. of Wisconsin, e-book, $15.95. (9780299298630). 759.13.
\n[This new art book will available as of September 23, 2015 at Amazon and Barnes and Noble as well as on line from the University of Wisconsin Press.]<\/p>\n
Painter Brooks (1874\u20131970) endured a gothic childhood. Her parents divorced, her father vanished, and her exceedingly wealthy mother became insane and abusive, leaving her little daughter in the care of a New York City laundress who could barely afford to feed her own family. Though cold and hungry, Brooks experienced affection for the first time as her kind guardian encouraged her budding artistic skills. While subsequently weathering boarding schools and a stint in a convent, Brooks came to accept that shewas attracted to women. She roamed Europe and studied art, receiving her immense inheritance and precious independence after her mother\u2019s death. Art historian Langer is zealous and exacting as she seeks to fully portray her heretofore too-little-known subject, mining newly available materials, addressing the complexities and contradictions of Brooks\u2019 life, and celebrating the courage and power of her meticulouslycomposed paintings. Langer ponders Brooks\u2019 \u201cstern\u201d modernity and quest to create images of \u201cheroic\u201d femininity and, most daringly, \u201clesbian sexuality.\u201d Brooks\u2019 dark palette was inspired by Whistler\u2019s, while her \u201cstreamlined forms, elongated figures, subtle variations of hue, and chicness of gesture and dress\u201d were her very own. Brooks painted her intimates, including the poet and politician Gabriele D\u2019Annunzio and the grand love of her life, the expat heiress and host of a famously influential salon, Natalie Barney. Langer sensitively grapples with Brooks\u2019 elitism, bigotry, and fascist tendencies while avidly reclaiming this \u201cfascinating and controversial\u201d artist\u2019s elegant and evocative, haunted and defiant art in praise of \u201caudacious women.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 Donna Seaman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Romaine Brooks: A Life Langer, Cassandra (Author) Sep 2015. 290 p. Univ. of Wisconsin, hardcover, $26.95. (9780299298609). Univ. of Wisconsin, e-book, $15.95. (9780299298630). 759.13. [This new art book will available as of September 23, 2015 at Amazon and Barnes and Noble as well as on line from the University of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12924,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[429,423],"class_list":["post-13948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-book","tag-cassandra-langer","tag-romaine-brooks"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t