Such a fascinating memoir. I’d never heard of artist Edith Schloss and was delighted to make her acquaintance in this first-hand account of her life and work amongst many of the most famous American artists of the 20th century. She was friends with so many of them thus making this book an intriguing and riveting insider view of American art and artists, and a candid and honest exploration of her own work. I recommend seeking out the film that was made of her in her apartment in Rome to get to know her even better.

For any reader who wishes to have been present in post-WWI Paris and/or 1950's/60's New York City for those golden days of painting, music, writing, sculpture, etc., this book is one to reread and keep forever. This is a posthumous edition of a manuscript found among Schloss' many papers and artwork after her death in 2011 that has been masterfully edited by Mary Venturini and Schloss' son, Jacob Burckhardt. The author was born into a wealthy German family in 1919 and was sent by her family to study abroad before war broke out. After spending time in London in 1938, Schloss found herself in New York City where she spent the majority of the 1940's and 50's. In 1962, she moved to Italy. For a young woman who loved writing and all forms of art, these places and times were magic. She lived in slummy Chelsea among poor artists and writers and was "present at the creation". She wrote and painted herself, and left these vivid portraits of the atmosphere of the times, the creative geniuses who invented Abstract Expressionism and so many more forms of art. This is not an academic biography...it is more like a diary of a woman who lived life to the fullest, had a ball, got to know everyone, and recorded the daily events and anecdotes that put the reader in the room. Or, primarily, lofts. "Nobody was anybody" in those days and not everybody became famous. But no one in this book is uninteresting.

The Loft Generation
From the de Koonings to Twombly: Portraits and Sketches, 1942-2011
by Edith Schloss
Pub Date 16 Nov 2021 |
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Biographies & Memoirs



I am reviewing a copy of The Loft Generation through Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley:



Edith Schloss could not decide if she was a painter who wrote, or a writer she painted. She was an accomplished writer who wrote many art reviews and memoirs about different people and events throughout her life. She also had at least one unpublished novel. When she passed away she left many manuscripts in various stages of completion. The Loft Generation was an early draft.




In The Loft Generation: From the de Koonings to Twombly is a firsthand account by an artist at the center of a landmark era in American art. Edith Schloss writes about the artists, poets, and musicians who were part of the postwar art movements as well as about her life as an artist in America and Later in Italy, where she continued to paint and write until her death in 2011.



Edith Schloss was born in Germany, and moved to New York City during World War II. She soon She became part of a thriving community of artists and intellectuals, from Elaine and Willem de Kooning and Larry Rivers to John Cage and Frank O’Hara. She would marry the photographer and filmmaker Rudy Burckhardt. She was both a working artist and an incisive art critic, and was a candid and gimlet-eyed observer of the close-knit community that was redefining American art.



I give the Loft Generation five out of five stars!



Happy Reading!

Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. Edith Schloss, painter and art critic, gives us such a unique insider view of the New York City art scene directly after World War Two. In her loft with husband Rudy Burckhardt, she witnesses the start of such artists as Willem de Kooning, Larry Rivers, John Cage, Frank O’Hara and so many others. We get quick sketches and longer portraits of the men and women who upend Paris to make New York the center of the art world. And what a sharp eye, and tongue, Edith has. And she is just as keen as she relocates to Rome in the sixties and spends time with artists there, most notably Giorgio Morandi. A delightful book.