From A to B and Back Again: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol by Andy Warhol (review)

Books 79 Such details provide a Gothic-portrait, as if Van Eyck has in the end written ‘as I could’ and signed. The book, ending with critical notes by art critics and Feininger’s associates, provides an example of the analytical approach that I find needs encouragement nowadays. Artists will find enlightening painterly clues in Feininger’s letters. 1 like to imagine a multimedia production in which there is a background of a Gothic cathedral with a portrait of Feininger playing the violin (reproduced on the back of the book-jacket) superimposed on it, his Gothic features replacingcarved figuresover the portals. There is background organ music by Bach and a male actor sitting on the floor reads the letters in a bass voice. Suddenly, a slide of the painting ‘Cloud above the Sea-11’ (reproduced in the book in colour) is projected onto the scene,giving ‘ultimateform’ to the vastnessof the stage. At the end, one of Noland’s large canvases with horizontal bands is seen, since Feininger ‘pointed the way for younger artists to abstract art’ (p. 19). ‘Revealing art as a part of life’ has been achieved in this book and those concerned with its making will be congratulated by those who strive to take art as self-revelation in which the subtlety of every moment in life matters. Though the picture inserts do support the theme of ‘art as a part of life’, I would have been pleased to see many more of the thousands of the sketches done by Feininger, perhaps in the form of the layout of the letters shown in illustrations 8,9 and 49. Max Weber. Alfred Werner. Abrams, New York, 1975. 200 pp., illus. $37.50. Reviewed by David Friend’ To convey the many facets of Weber’s complex character and various talents is no easy task. Werner manages to do this with great economy and clarity. I met Weber on a number of occasions at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City with the late Gerrit Hondius, who had studied with him years before at the Art Students League. Gradually, in following Weber’s career during the last 20 of his 55 productive years, I learned of his extraordinary talents as a teacher, his efforts on behalf of fellow-artists as chairman of the American Artists’ Congress, his sensitive writings and why he became practically a recluse. ‘Reflecting various revolutionary movements . . . Weber produced a body of work that is passionate and articulate, triumphant in its conspicuous excellence’-over 3000 oils plus numerous drawings, watercolors, gouaches, pastels, woodcuts, lithographs and about 30 small sculptures. Sadly, only in the last 12 years of his life was he secure financially. Until he died in 1961, ‘he was painfully aware that as an artist, he remained an outsider in American Society’. This shy, sensitive artist, ‘the one pioneer American Cubist of stature’, fought for his beliefs, but, unhappily, lacked the compelling charm that might possibly have helped propel him to the high level of esteem his work deserved. He and a small band of artists were to face humiliation, artistic isolation and over 20 years of economic hardship before ‘they and their work were to prevail over traditional academic opinion’. ‘Weber, born in 1881 in Russia, but brought up and educated in New York City, studied art with Arthur Wesley Dow at Pratt Institute from 1898 to 1901. Dow, who had worked with Gauguin at Pont Aven and later as assistant to Ernest Fenollosa, curator of Japanese art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, extolled modernism in art, using Japanese prints to teach formal design relationships. After painting and teaching for four years, Weber traveled to Europe, becoming one of the comparatively few artists from the USA. to study in Paris at the turn of the century. He came in contact with Picasso, Delaunay, Laurencin, Gertrude and Leo Stein, Guillaume Apollinaire and others who were to establish reputations of international fame. Henri Rousseau became his dearest friend. Weber even helped to organize a class for Matisse and studied with him, although, for some unknown reason, their relationship was *P.O. Box 405, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA. not cordial. Cezanne, who was his...