New York Mid-Century: 1945-1965

"New York Mid-Century, 1945-1965 is the story of how the Big Apple emerged as the cultural capital of the postwar world in art, architecture, design, and the performing arts. It was a period of intense cross-fertilization, as poets and critics mixed with artists, dealers, musicians, designers, architects, actors, dancers, and choreographers. Annie Cohen-Solal, a best-selling author whose books include a biography of kingmaker art dealer Leo Castelli, brings alive the artistic ferment of those years: the legendary galleries and watering holes, the landmark exhibitions and happenings, the influential critics and collectors, and the artists themselves, from Abstract Expressionists Pollock, Rothko, de Kooning, and Kline, to Color Field artists Frankenthaler, Noland, and Louis, to Johns and Rauschenberg, to Minimalists Judd and Flavin, to Pop Artists Oldenburg, Lichtenstein, and Warhol.^ Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger guides us on a tour of the Modernist masterpieces that gave the city a sleek new profile: Gordon Bunshaft's Lever House, Mies van der Rohe's Seagram Building, Le Corbusier and Wallace Harrison's United Nations, Philip Johnson's Four Seasons restaurant and New York State Pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair, Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum, Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal at Idlewild Airport, and of course, Lincoln Center, New York's answer to the great piazzas of the world. He also takes us into the swank shops, offices, and apartments of the era, the furnishings designed by Modernist icons from Charles and Ray Eames to Florence Knoll and George Nelson, and he tantalizes us with the work of the pioneering advertising executives, graphic designers, and photographers who gave the period that Mad Men look.^ He concludes the section with a lively recounting of the philosophical battle between the urban planners who believed in tearing down and building anew (the Robert Moses camp) and the preservationists who believed in retaining the character of old neighborhoods (the Jane Jacobs camp).^ And finally, Robert Gottlieb, former editor of The New Yorker and current dance critic of The New York Observer, invites us to the theater, both on and off Broadway, to relive the heyday of the musical, from Carousel to The King and I, from My Fair Lady to West Side Story, as well as the searing dramas of Williams, Albee, and Miller, and Joseph Papp's wildly innovative Shakespeare in the Park productions; to the great jazz clubs of Harlem and 52nd Street to meet the likes of Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and Dizzy Gillespie; to the studios and stages of the dance world, where George Balanchine and the New York City Ballet were revolutionizing ballet and Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, José Limón, Paul Taylor, and Alwin Nikolais were wowing audiences with the purely American idiom of modern dance; and to the legendary cabarets and nightclubs, from the Blue Angel and Café Society Downtown to the Latin Quarter and Copacabana, where stars as diverse as Pearl Bailey,^ Barbra Streisand, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Harry Belafonte, Carol Burnett, and Woody Allen got their start. And when all the art exhibits, plays, revues, and dance performances come to an end, Mr. Gottlieb treats us to nightcaps at the Stork Club and El Morocco." -- Publisher's description.