Calvin Tomkins’s Followers (38)

Calvin Tomkins

Born

in Orange, New Jersey, The United States

December 17, 1925

Died

March 20, 2026

Genre

Arts & Photography, Biography, Memoir

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Calvin Tomkins has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1960. He wrote his first fiction piece for the magazine in 1958, and his first fact piece in 1962. His many Profile subjects have included Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Merce Cunningham, Buckminster Fuller, Philip Johnson, Julia Child, Georgia O’Keeffe, Leo Castelli, Frank Stella, Carmel Snow, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Frank Gehry, Damien Hirst, Richard Serra, Matthew Barney, and Jasper Johns. He wrote the Art World column from 1980 to 1988. Before joining The New Yorker, he was a general editor of Newsweek, a post he held from 1957 through 1959. In 1955, he joined Newsweek as an associate editor. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including “The Br ...more

Combine Editions
Calvin Tomkins’s books

Average rating: 4.16 · 3,451 ratings · 320 reviews · 60 distinct works • Similar authors

	Living Well Is the Best Revenge 3.98 avg rating — 699 ratings — published 1971 — 24 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews by Calvin Tomkins, Marcel Duchamp, Paul Chan (Goodreads Author) (Editor) 4.24 avg rating — 602 ratings — published 2013 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lives of the Artists: Portraits of Ten Artists Whose Work and Lifestyles Embody the Future of Contemporary Art 4.10 avg rating — 586 ratings — published 2008 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Duchamp 4.36 avg rating — 512 ratings — published 1996 — 19 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Off the Wall: A Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg 4.24 avg rating — 448 ratings — published 1980 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Bride and the Bachelors: Five Masters of the Avant-garde 4.19 avg rating — 217 ratings — published 1965 — 22 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Paul Strand: Sixty Years of Photographs (Aperture Monograph S) 4.37 avg rating — 84 ratings — published 1976 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The World of Marcel Duchamp: 1887 - 1968 4.04 avg rating — 84 ratings — published 1966 — 24 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 3.98 avg rating — 65 ratings — published 1989 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Post- to Neo-, The Art World of the 1980s 4.12 avg rating — 34 ratings — published 1989 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Calvin Tomkins (?)

“Oh, I’m a breather, I’m a respirateur, isn’t that enough?” He asked, “Why do people have to work? Why do people think they have to work?” He”
― Calvin Tomkins, Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews

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“I think there is a great deal to the idea of not doing a thing, but that when you do a thing, you don’t do it in five minutes or in five hours, but in five years. I think there’s an element in the slowness of the execution that adds to the possibility of producing something that will be durable in its expression, that will be considered important five centuries later.”
― Calvin Tomkins, Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews

1 likes

“In 1916 and 1920 taxes were nonexistent, or so unimportant that people never thought of them.”
― Calvin Tomkins, Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews

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Polls

Non-Fiction (1900-1940) - November

Myself When Young: The Shaping of a Writer by Daphne du Maurier

10 votes, 29.4%

Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern by Joshua Zeitz

9 votes, 26.5%

Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation 1918-1940 by D.J. Taylor

4 votes, 11.8%

Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920's by Frederick L. Allen

4 votes, 11.8%

Living Well Is the Best Revenge by Calvin Tomkins

4 votes, 11.8%

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

3 votes, 8.8%

Against the Current: As I Remember F. Scott Fitzgerald by Frances Kroll Ring

0 votes, 0.0%

34 total votes

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Topics Mentioning This Author

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Bright Young Things: March 2014- Everybody was so Young by Amanda Vaill	18	29	Mar 25, 2014 04:50AM
Bright Young Things: Book on the Murphy's	5	13	Aug 04, 2014 12:49PM
Bright Young Things: New Discoveries	872	322	Feb 06, 2019 04:45PM
The Next Best Boo...: The Title Game - Part Deux	8189	2711	Nov 11, 2021 05:18AM
Fun & Games: Author Alphabet	4950	583	Dec 29, 2023 08:49AM

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Calvin Tomkins’s Followers (38)

Calvin Tomkins

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Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
Calvin Tomkins’s books