Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) not only put American art on the map with his famous "drip paintings," he also served as an inspiration for the character of Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire—the role that made Marlon Brando famous. Like Brando, Pollock became an icon of rebellion in 1950s America, and the brooding, defiant persona captured in photographs of the artist contributed to his celebrity almost as much as his notorious paintings did. In the years since his death in a drunken car crash, Pollock's hold on the public imagination has only increased. He has become an enduring symbol of the tormented artist—our American van Gogh.In this highly engaging book, Evelyn Toynton examines Pollock's itinerant and poverty-stricken childhood in the West, his encounters with contemporary art in Depression-era New York, and his years in the run-down Long Island fishing village that, ironically, was transformed into a fashionable resort by his presence. Placing the artist in the context of his time, Toynton also illuminates the fierce controversies that swirled around his work and that continue to do so. Pollock's paintings captured the sense of freedom and infinite possibility unique to the American experience, and his life was both an American rags-to-riches story and a darker tale of the price paid for celebrity, American style.

Jackson Pollock (Icons of America)

Arts & Photography

Toynton, Evelyn

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

A compelling look at Jackson Pollock's vibrant, quintessentially American art and the turbulent life that gave rise to it Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) not only put American art on the map with his famous "drip paintings," he also served as an inspiration for the character of Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire—the role that made Marlon Brando famous. Like Brando, Pollock became an icon of rebellion in 1950s America, and the brooding, defiant persona captured in photographs of the artist contributed to his celebrity almost as much as his notorious paintings did. In the years since his death in a drunken car crash, Pollock's hold on the public imagination has only increased. He has become an enduring symbol of the tormented artist—our American van Gogh.
In this highly engaging book, Evelyn Toynton examines Pollock's itinerant and poverty-stricken childhood in the West, his encounters with contemporary art in Depression-era New York, and his years in the run-down Long Island fishing village that, ironically, was transformed into a fashionable resort by his presence. Placing the artist in the context of his time, Toynton also illuminates the fierce controversies that swirled around his work and that continue to do so. Pollock's paintings captured the sense of freedom and infinite possibility unique to the American experience, and his life was both an American rags-to-riches story and a darker tale of the price paid for celebrity, American style.

Introduces the way of life of pre-Civil War New Englanders, pioneers on the Great Plains, Sioux Indians, homeless children, and young slaves, and discusses schools, play, child labor, and children's books

Growing Up in America, 1830 to 1860

History

Millbrook Pr

The Oriental Wife is the story of two assimilated Jewish children from Nuremberg who flee Hitler’s Germany and struggle to put down roots elsewhere. When they meet up again in New York, they fall in love both with each other and with America, believing they have found a permanent refuge. But just when it looks as though nothing can ever touch them again, their lives are shattered by a freakish accident and a betrayal that will reverberate into the life of their American daughter. In its portrait of the immigrant experience, and of the tragic gulf between generations, The Oriental Wife illuminates the collision of American ideals of freedom and happiness with certain sterner old world virtues.

The Oriental Wife

Literature & Fiction

United States

Other Press

In this luminous novel about romance and illusion—and what's left of love when they're stripped away—an American Anglophile is drawn into the lives of a disintegrating aristocratic family. After the sudden death of her husband, Annie Devereaux flees to England, site of the nostalgic fantasies her father spun for her before he deserted the family. A chance encounter in London leads Annie to cancel her return to New York and move in with Julian, the disaffected, moody son of Helena Denby, a famous British geneticist. As their relationship progresses, Annie meets Julian's sisters Isabel and Sasha, each of them fragile in her own way, and becomes infatuated with visions of their idyllic childhood in England's West Country. But the more she uncovers about Julian's past, the more he explodes into rage and violence. Finally tearing herself away, Annie winds up adrift in London, rescued from her loneliness only when she and Isabel form an unexpected bond. Slowly, with Isabel as her reluctant guide, Annie learns of the emotional devastation that Helena's warped arrogance, her monstrous will to dominate, inflicted on her children. The family who once embodied Annie's idealized conception of England is actually caught in a nightmare of betrayal and guilt that spirals inexorably into tragedy.

Inheritance: A Novel

Belle Prokoff is the formidable widow of the tormented Clay Madden -- an alcoholic, Montana cowboy who blazed through the New York art world and revolutionized it. Blunt, fierce, and scornful of the world's hypocrisy, Belle, a painter herself, has passionately protected her husband's memory since his death in a car accident three decades earlier.
Full of vivid characters and intense confrontations, this highly charged tale moves towards its startling conclusion as Belle battles Madden's would-be biographer and changes forever the lives of the people in her orbit. Inspired by certain principal events in the lives of the artists Jackson Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner, this beautifully written novel imagines dialogue, events, and characters in a fictional universe.

Modern Art

Delphinium

They Were Good Germans Once: A Memoir: My Jewish Émigré Family

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Delphinium Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Toynton, Evelyn. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Toynton, Evelyn

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Toynton, Evelyn. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Jackson Pollock (Icons of America)

Jackson Pollock (Icons of America)

Growing Up in America, 1830 to 1860

The Oriental Wife

Inheritance: A Novel

Modern Art

They Were Good Germans Once: A Memoir: My Jewish Émigré Family