A Sweeper-Up After Artists: A Memoir

New York: Thames & Hudson, 2009. 382 pages, illustrations; 25 cm. Tight, clean copy. "For over fifty years Irving Sandler has been a vital presence in the New York art world. Frank O'Hara called him, in a memorable poem, 'the balayeur des artistes,' the sweeper-up after artists. He has been a friend or acquaintance of virtually every important American artist of the postwar period, and his art criticism and books constitute the first and most comprehensive critical and historical account of this extraordinary period. His personal chronicle is the living memory of the New York art world, from abstract expressionism to the present day." - Publisher. CONTENTS: Preface: reminiscences and speculations; Stumbling upon a vocation; The art world of the 1950s; My pantheon: Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Philip Guston, Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt, David Smith; More first generation artists who inspired me: Hans Hofmann, Josef Albers, Milton Avery, Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Tony Smith; Art criticism: apprentice years; My pals in the 1950s: Alex Katz, Philip Pearlstein, Al Held, Mar di Suvero; Art criticism: critics at war; The new academy: Joan Mitchell, Raymond Parker, Grace Hartigan; Post-gesture painting: out of the 1950s: Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, John Cage, Marcel Duchamp; Into the 1960s: Frank Stella, Barnett Newman, Robert Smithson, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein; The trauma of Vietnam and its aftermath; The sweeper-up after artists.. Paperback. Fine. 8vo.