Salon led by Erica Kaufman, English, The Graduate Center, CUNY.
Barbara Guest (1920–2006) was a poet and a member of an informal but highly influential group of writers known as the New York School of poets. Influenced by modern art, especially surrealism and abstract expressionism, she also wrote prose, which was eventually collected in Forces of the Imagination: Writing on Writing and includes an essay on her friend Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) whose painting she promoted. Along with Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan and Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell was one of the few female painters associated with abstract expressionism to gain critical and public acclaim. This salon will focus on the ways these two professional artists navigated the cold war climate of chauvinism and repression.
This event was held in conjuction with the James Gallery exhibition “The Making of Americans.” For more information, click here.
