cover image Clement Greenberg: A Life

Clement Greenberg: A Life

Florence Rubenfeld. Scribner Book Company, $30 (336pp) ISBN 978-0-684-19110-2

In her first book, arts journalist Rubenfeld demonstrates that it is possible to delve into aesthetic precepts while giving an absorbing account of a life. As she notes, the death of American art critic Clement Greenberg in 1994 was treated as a nonevent by the New York art world. That was not the case with his life. Born in 1909 to Polish Jewish immigrants, Greenberg joined the heady mix of New York modernists who felt that the arts could change society. An English graduate from Syracuse University with no formal background in visual art, Greenberg championed the cause of American post-WWII vanguard art, often leaving a trail of enmity and even, in the case of David Smith's estate, near scandal in his wake. His personal life was no less turbulent, largely because he aligned himself with Newtonian psychiatrists who reduced marriage to a series of ""musical beds."" What distinguishes this book is Rubenfeld's combination of prodigious research (much of it in the form of interviews with art world personalities) and her clear explanation of the intellectual trends Greenberg espoused or that grew up in reaction to him--all of which she does without the deadening gigantism of some biographies. Deftly written in an evenhanded tone, this is both a chronicle of one man's highs and lows, and an intriguing behind-the-scenes look at the art world. It will appeal to anyone interested in 20th-century art or simply in a good story, convincingly told. (Apr.)