Gail Levin on Alice Baber, with Deborah Solomon

At the time of her premature death at just fifty-four, the paintings of Alice Baber (1928 - 1982) had already entered the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan, the Guggenheim, and the Whitney. How could such an accomplished and visionary artist then fall into near obscurity?
In Alice Baber: An Artist's Triumph Over Tragedy, the artist's fascinating story is finally revealed despite concerted efforts to consign her to oblivion. Levin's biography is a vital corrective to the history of American art and a thrilling opportunity for the next generation to experience Baber anew. Vividly written and richly detailed, Levin's life takes us on a journey through her rural upbringing to her years exhibiting around the world and experience the heady mid-century art world in all its glory. We witness Baber's talent and ambition, her tenacity and charm, and learn how her feminist activism and her work as a curator helped other artists.

Gail Levin is Distinguished Professor of art history, fine & performing arts, American studies, and women’s studies at Baruch College and the Graduate Center, of the City University of New York. Levin is the author of Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist in Biography, A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, & named one of the “Five Best Artist Biographies” ever by the Wall Street Journal. She has two new biographies of women artists who each had to navigate being part of an artist-couple: Alice Baber, and Sajitha R. Shankhar (born 1967). These follow her earlier biographies of Lee Krasner and Judy Chicago.

Leon Levy Center Biography Fellow Deborah Solomon is an art critic, journalist and biographer. She writes frequently for the New York Times, and is currently at work on a full-scale biography of the artist Jasper Johns. Her books include Jackson Pollock: A Biography (1987); Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell (1997); and American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell (2013). In 2001, Solomon was awarded a grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, in the field of biography. Solomon has written for many publications, and her weekly interview column, “Questions For,” appeared in The New York Times Magazine from 2003 to 2011.

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