Mary Gabriel: Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art, 9780316226189, Little Brown, Hardback
 

If one book held me captured and sustained me intellectually from December 2020 until yesterday, it has been Mary Gabriel’s incredible, masterful and painstakingly researched biography about five of the most instrumental women painters in Modern American art who were key figures of the New York School and Abstract Expressionism:  Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell.  Admittedly this is not a book for everyone but for interested readers Gabriel’s chronicle of the life paths of these five pioneering, trailblazing women was an absolutely inspiring, fascinating read. 

The vast amount of information Gabriel brought together goes far beyond the art scene and looks at the political and socially turbulent happenings in New York, the US and Europe from the 1920ties until the Sixties.  Mary Gabriel spent 7 years researching and writing “Ninth Street Women”; I am completely blown away by her meticulous research, how her writing makes this book so easy to read despite the mountains of detail and complex web of people to follow.  I literally lived with the artists during my reading hours; she makes this book come to life so much, no highbrow art language here.

An epilogue follows their lives beyond the sixties until death:  five women who changed modern American art, suffering rejection, being ridiculed, often going hungry, who were ignored by galleries and museums for being daring and female, who all had very turbulent personal lives but continued to dedicate their lives to their art until the end.  Three were married to famous male painters which did not make their lives less complicated:  Lee Krasner to Jackson Pollock, Elaine to William deKooning and Helen, after her she was already well established in the art world, to Bob Motherwell.

This is a book not only for those interest in modern art but it is especially a brilliant biography of five unusual women who led very exceptional lives as painters.  5 stars from me, fascinating 730 pages to enjoy!