Overview

This absorbing biography, often conveyed through Peter Selz's own words, traces the journey of a Jewish-German immigrant from Hitler's Munich to the United States and on to an important career as a pioneer historian of modern art. Paul J. Karlstrom illuminates key historical and cultural events of the twentieth-century as he describes Selz's extraordinary career-from Chicago's Institute of Design (New Bauhaus), to New York's Museum of Modern Art during the transformative 1960s, and as founding director of the University Art Museum at UC Berkeley. Karlstrom sheds light on the controversial viewpoints that at times isolated Selz from his colleagues but nonetheless affirmed his conviction that significant art was always an expression of deep human experience. The book also links Selz's long life story-featuring close relationships with such major art figures as Mark Rothko, Dore Ashton, Willem de Kooning, Sam Francis, and Christo-with his personal commitment to political engagement.

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9780520269354

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Reviews

Life is short, art is long, but sometimes it's the other way, too. --San Francisco Chronicle

An intellectual bildungsroman recounting a life in art that never stopped evolving. --Artillery A paean to a man who is both vastly experienced and eternally youthful in his outlook. --Huffington Post Life is short, art is long, but sometimes it's the other way, too. --San Francisco Chronicle A fascinating account of an individual who has made many contributions to art history. --Washington Ind Rev of Bks With Selz at the helm, the Berkeley Art Museum redefined many aspects of modern art and brought overdue attention to California artists. --Berkeleyside

Author Information

Paul J. Karlstrom, former West Coast Regional Director of the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, is the editor of On the Edge of America: California Modernist Art, 1900--1950 (UC Press) and a co-editor of Asian American Art: A History, 1860--1970. He is coauthor of Turning the Tide: Early Los Angeles Modernists, 1920--1956 and author of Raimonds Staprans: Art of Tranquility and Turbulence.

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