 The worlds of Lincoln Kirstein.
Author: Duberman, Martin Published: 2007 Lincoln Kirstein's contributions to American life as both an intellectual force and an advocate of the arts were unparalleled. While still an undergraduate he started an innovative literary journal, as well as the modernist Harvard Society for Contemporary Art - forerunner of the Museum of Modern Art. While still in his twenties he brought George Balanchine to the United States, and in service to the choreographer's talent persisted, against heavy odds, in creating both New York City Ballet and the School of American Ballet. Among much else, Kirstein helped create Lincoln Center in New York, and the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut; established the pathbreaking journal Dance Index and the USA's first dance archive; and in some fifteen books proved himself a brilliant critic of art, photography, film, and dance. But behind this remarkably established and renowned public face lay a complex, contradictory, and often tortured human being. Kirstein suffered for decades from bipolar disorder, which frequently strained his relationships with his family and friends. And despite being married for more than fifty years to a woman he deeply loved, Kirstein had a wide range of homosexual relationships throughout his life. This major biography, filled with fascinating perceptions and incidents, is a major act of historical reclamation. Utilising an enormous amount of previously unavailable sources, including Kirstein's untapped diaries, Martin Duberman has rendered accessible for the first time a towering figure of immense complexity and achievement. Please note that the book's front fore-edge is intentionally rough cut. |
