Two Boys Dreamed of a Life as Famous Artists . . .
At the beginning of the twentieth century immigrant Abraham Walkowitz was a pioneering artist, a daring American modernist who returned from a sojourn in the Paris of Picasso and Matisse and helped introduce radical art to the country. A prominent part of Albert Stieglitz’s groundbreaking 291 studio, a portrayer of innovative dancer Isadora Duncan, a celebrator of the towering New York skyscrapers then being erected, a principal artist in the celebrated Armory Show of 1913, he was considered a major artist in his time. But then something happened. In The Man Who Knew Walkowitz, a fictional take on his life, his childhood friend from the Jewish Lower East Side, who also dreamed of becoming a great artist, tells of his love-hate relationship with Walky. A failed artist, Jacob became a chronicler of Walky’s rising fame, then decline and fall. The novel portrays a complex relationship filled with envy and joy that only ended when Walkowitz died in 1965. Jacob’s story—interwoven with that of Walkowitz—is a tale of what happened to the American Dream for so many souls who saw their dreams of their names in bright lights turn to ashes.
Genre: Historical
At the beginning of the twentieth century immigrant Abraham Walkowitz was a pioneering artist, a daring American modernist who returned from a sojourn in the Paris of Picasso and Matisse and helped introduce radical art to the country. A prominent part of Albert Stieglitz’s groundbreaking 291 studio, a portrayer of innovative dancer Isadora Duncan, a celebrator of the towering New York skyscrapers then being erected, a principal artist in the celebrated Armory Show of 1913, he was considered a major artist in his time. But then something happened. In The Man Who Knew Walkowitz, a fictional take on his life, his childhood friend from the Jewish Lower East Side, who also dreamed of becoming a great artist, tells of his love-hate relationship with Walky. A failed artist, Jacob became a chronicler of Walky’s rising fame, then decline and fall. The novel portrays a complex relationship filled with envy and joy that only ended when Walkowitz died in 1965. Jacob’s story—interwoven with that of Walkowitz—is a tale of what happened to the American Dream for so many souls who saw their dreams of their names in bright lights turn to ashes.
Genre: Historical
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Used availability for Edward Ifkovic's The Man Who Knew Walkowitz