The dynamics among these four determined and visionary individuals—and, for a spell, two married couples—are deeply intriguing in terms of gender expectations, the role of muse, the battle to establish photography as a fine art, and the quest to push painting into provocative new modes of expression. Extracting gems from vast caches of letters, Burke follows the foursome’s artistically and erotically intertwined lives in detail, revealing their distinctive temperaments and the inspiration and anguish of their supportive and competitive interactions. Burke succeeds in portraying iconic Stieglitz and O’Keeffe with fresh insight and in elucidating Strand’s elusiveness, while the least-known of the quartet, the 'daredevil' called Beck, steals the show ... Burke’s expert and enthralling true saga illuminates key intimate and historical aspects of the lives of four extraordinarily creative, intrepid, and influential artists to profound effect.
Burke depicts with intelligent nuance the evolution of the couple’s intertwined personal and professional connection ... Burke eschews feminist outrage, preferring to quote examples of oblivious sexism with no commentary beyond such dry asides as, 'One wonders what Beck thought.' She shows Salsbury and O’Keeffe determinedly navigating a male-dominated world with the tools at their disposal ... Burke eschews feminist outrage, preferring to quote examples of oblivious sexism with no commentary beyond such dry asides as, 'One wonders what Beck thought.' She shows Salsbury and O’Keeffe determinedly navigating a male-dominated world with the tools at their disposal ... [Burke's] not interested in making grand statements, preferring to focus her sharp analytical skills on explicating in rich detail the complex interactions among four vibrant people during a seminal era in American culture — a task she accomplishes in astute, lucid prose.
This is a fascinating subject, and Ms. Burke does it complete justice, following each member of the foursome from the initial encounter with the others to their separate (and in some cases separated) deaths. That all four had unusual ideas about sexuality and honesty, as well as about creativity and art, makes for a compelling story ... Ms. Burke lets her characters do most of the talking, through their letters, diaries and reported speech; and if Strand comes across in her book as the least tangible of the foursome, it may be because many of his letters have been lost ... that prime pitfall of the biographer [is] the attempt to take a guess at what was going on behind the evidence...I was a bit surprised at the extent to which [Burke] yielded to this kind of temptation—but then, as a biographer myself, I know exactly how tempting it can be.
...Burke has four narrative threads to weave—and does so with dexterity ... The novelty in Foursome is seeing Stieglitz always in relationship, rather than embattled and alone, as he has sometimes been depicted, thrashing through a thicket of mostly forgotten conservatives and philistines in the New York art world ... For readers of Foursomenew to the Stieglitz/O’Keeffe legend, the big surprise may be Rebecca Salsbury—'Beck'—who practically climbs out of the book and gallops off.
Readers could be forgiven for thinking the world doesn’t need another biography of Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe. However, Burke distinguishes her book from previous treatments by investigating the dynamic between the more famous couple and the artists who would become their protégés ... The linear story is a laundry list of events in the quartet’s lives, but it contains relatively little drama ... Some readers might prefer to know more about that marriage than about Stieglitz’s eye pain or O’Keeffe’s swollen legs after a smallpox vaccination. Still, there’s enough juicy material here to intrigue readers interested in the private lives of artists ... A well-researched if surprisingly cool account of sensual artists.
