A GREENBERG BOOKSHELF
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Clement Greenberg, Miro. New York: Quadrangle Press, 1948 His first book, subsequently disowned, but by
no means negligible. Features "a memoir by Ernest Hemingway" --
Hemingway was a prescient early collector of Miro. In hindsight, Miro appears
as an early synthesizer of Picasso and Matisse and a step towards the
so-called "color field abstraction" which became identified with
Greenberg. |
Clement Greenberg, Hofmann. Paris, Georges Fall, 1961. Despite Greenberg's admiration, Hans Hofmann
remains under appreciated, too often praised as a teacher to the detriment of
his art. Greenberg, quite rightly, recognized him for the great painter that
he is. The text of his essay can be found on this site. |
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Clement Greenberg, Henri Matisse (1869- ): Abrams, Pocket Library of Great Art, New York, 1953. Excellent, but long out of print. In addition
to an introductory essay, the book contains accounts of individual paintings
reproduced. As Greenberg was one of the early champions of Matisse, the book
is essential and illuminating. |
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Greenberg, Clement, Art and Culture :
critical essays. Boston : Beacon
Press, 1961. Available in paperback and ebook. This is the essential book of Greenberg's essays -- if you read
nothing else, read it. TheyÕre revised from originals published in various
magazines from the late thirties though the fifties. Despite the revisions,
Greenberg came to regret some of the inclusions and judgments: he came to
believe that "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" was badly flawed, that he was
too harsh on Soutine, and that some of the observations he'd made about
all-over painting were embarrassing. (These are a few of the regrets he
mentioned to me.) The shortcomings are trivial in comparison to the insights
afforded with clarity and admirable concision. A masterpiece of relevance.
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Greenberg, Clement, The Collected Essays
and Criticism, Available in paperback. It took 15 years after the publication of Art and Culture to assemble the original texts of
Greenberg's early writing. The essays range across literature and art and
provide a cross-section of his taste in relation the art of the time.
O'Brian's scholarship is painstaking and helpful. |
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Greenberg, Clement, The Collected Essays
and Criticism, Available in paperback. A scholarly assemblage as above, but with an introduction
marred by O'Brian's speculations about Greenberg's alignment with American
foreign policy subverting his taste. |
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Greenberg, Clement, The Harold Letters,
1928-1943, The Making of an American Intellectual, Edited by Janice van
Horne. Counterpoint, Washington, D.C.,
2000. Available in paperback and ebook. Letters written to his friend, Harold Lazarus.
An aptly titled book, reads like a novel. This far and away the best portrait
of the man in print. A must read for any student of American letters. |
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Greenberg, Clement, Homemade Esthetics, Oxford University Press, 1999. Available in paperback and ebook. Referred to in his lifetime as "The
Bennington Seminars" these are a series of meditations on aesthetics
that occupied much of his attention in the 1980s. They present a rare
combination of a person with discriminating taste who has the ability to
reflect upon its nature. Required reading. |
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Greenberg, Clement, Clement Greenberg, Late
Writings, Minnesota University Press,
2003. Edited and with introduction by Robert C. Morgan Available in paperback. Long awaited, this assembles most of
Greenberg's writings from 1970 to 1990. Much of the book is taken up with the
state and fate of modernism, artcriticism, and culture generally along with
ruminations on the art of other cultures, regions, and media. The book is
rounded out with the text of four interviews with Greenberg. An exceprt from Greenberg's last interview
with Saul Ostrow can be found on the University of Minnesota Press web site.
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Wilkin, Karen; Guenther, Bruce, Clement
Greenberg: a Critic's Collection,
Portland Art Museum & Princeton University Press, 2001. Greenberg's personal collection, now in the collection
of the Portland Art Museum. The book is well put together and abundantly
illustrated. Greenberg practiced what he preached when it came to art. He
lived surrounded by works given by the painters and sculptors he admired. He
loved art. This is some of the art he loved -- by no means all the work of
famous artists. |
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Van
Horne, Janice, A Complicated Marriage: My Life with Clement Greenberg Available in paperback and ebook |
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Rubenfeld, Florence, Clement Greenberg: A
Life, Scribner, 1997. Available in paperback. The "exposŽ" reviewed elsewhere in
this site, often influenced by "Clembashers." Much of the
"evidence" is hearsay and poorly sifted, but there are many
illuminating comments. |