Men and Monuments

by Janet Flanner

From 1925 to 1978, Janet Flanner was the Paris correspondent for "The New Yorkers", signing her letters "Genet". In "Men and Monuments", Flanner traces the course of four brilliant lives - those of the painters Picasso, Braque and Matisse, and the writer, politician and art critic Andre Malraux. Through anecdote, analysis, reportage, and opinion, Flanner presents a portrait of a time in Paris history - the late 1940s and 1950s - during which a nation recovered from a catastrophe, a new art was being forged and new ideas and values flourished. In addition, Flanner tells the inside story of one of the greatest art-pillaging campaign in Hitler's and Goering's ransack of the collections of the occupied countries during World War II.

Genres: Art, History, Essays

328 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1970

About the author

Janet Tyler Flanner was an American writer and journalist who served as the Paris correspondent of The New Yorker magazine from 1925 until she retired in 1975.
She wrote under the pen name "Genêt". and published a single novel, "The Cubical City", set in New York City.

Reviews

[Harry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book for anyone interested in Andre Malraux, Henri Matisse, Picasso, or Braque. Flanner was the New Yorker Paris correspondent in the glory years of European modernism and has a lot to say in long profiles of these individual men. It's sophisticated and smart and includes surprising anecdotes. Good New Yorker writing hasn't changed much!

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read the last section of this book — the discussion of Nazi art theft during World War II. I would say that it's mainly notable for being (I think) one of the earliest popular discussions of the so-called Monuments Men which avoids excessively valorizing and the group. (It originally appeared in The New Yorker in 1957, if I read the copyright notice correctly.) There are profiles of André Malraux, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braques, and Henri Matisse, but I didn't read them.

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Janet Flanner, a wonderful writer, was the New Yorker Paris correspondent from 1925 until about 1965. In addition to the collections of her New Yorker columns, one of which I just bought (1925-1939), she published this remarkable collection of essays — both artistic and biographical on Malraux, Matisse, Braque, and Picasso, with a lengthy addendum on the Nazis’ looting of European art. The first three essays are worth the price of admission. Hghly recommended.