PositiveLibrary Journal... bracing, unflinching essays ... Readers will value Laing’s talent for writing with equal discernment about the very different media of painting and sculpture on the one hand and fiction on the other. She draws perceptive insights from the biographical details of the artists’ lives, sketching them in incisive profiles ... An excellent introduction both to the work of a fine cultural critic and to the creative figures discussed.
Jed Perl
PositiveLibrary Journal... exhaustively researched and profusely illustrated ... Perl does a fine job, too, of introducing readers to the lesser-known Calder ... This surprisingly first full-length biography of Calder (an autobiography was published in the mid-1960s) offers a wealth of detail about the artist’s family life, social circle, and voluminous production. For casual readers, there may be both too much and also too little detail, making Calder an enigma within his own story, a challenge to any biographer—a bluff, hearty presence whose inner life and aesthetic ideas nevertheless seem hard to discern ... For readers interested in Calder and postwar modernism, the wealth of facts, anecdotes, and analysis here will be welcome.
Blake Gopnik
PositiveLibrary JournalCertainly for those fascinated with Warhol, but equally for those seeking an in-depth yet accessible introduction to the artist.
