Ninth Street Women

"Ninth Street Women is about the women who were part of that collection of artists in post-war New York , who had really been written out of art history. When we think of Abstract Expressionism, we think of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko. It’s almost like a string quartet. But this book shines a spotlight on the period and shows that there’s a full orchestra playing, not just those four men. I really loved it, because it wasn’t preachy. It didn’t say, ‘they’ve been overlooked.’ It just told the story of Abstract Expressionism from a really, impeccably well-researched position. Mary Gabriel is a brilliant writer, very readable. She’s been shortlisted for a Pulitzer. She showed how hard these women worked and how they were overlooked. At the time they were accepted by their male peers but, unfortunately, prejudice worked against them. And at times they worked against themselves. Lee Krasner was a fantastic painter and thankfully lived long enough to have a successful career after the early loss of her partner, Jackson Pollock. But while Pollock was alive, she supported him to the extent that her own work was sidelined as she tirelessly promoted him as the greatest living painter. In articles about him, she was referred to as ‘Mrs Pollock’, or ‘the former Lee Krasner’, which would really destroy my sense of self. Yet she was there painting alongside him, her work being sometimes, I feel, ahead of his. She was really important. Ninth Street Women is a welcome reassessment of the whole history of the period, with all of them in it together, particularly the second generation of Abstract Expressionist artists like Helen Frankenthaler—a phenomenal artist—Joan Mitchell and Grace Hartigan. Biography is an important strand of the history of art . It must be well written, or it just becomes turgid and boring, a load of dates. What Mary Gabriel, the author of this book, does is use a particular moment in their life to illustrate the whole scene. It takes huge skill to do that as a writer."

"I was fascinated by "Ninth Street Women," by Mary Gabriel, so I read it anywhere, anytime."