Significant Others: Creativity and Intimate Partnership

by Whitney Chadwick, Isabelle De Courtivron (Editor)

Biographies of artists and writers have traditionally described creativity as an extraordinary individual's lone struggle for self-expression. Now, thirteen of today's leading critics and historians challenge and redefine conventional assumptions in a highly original and revealing series of essays that focus on artist and writer couples who have shared both sexual and artistic bonds, combining biography with evaluation of each partner's work in the context of their relationship.
Significant Others features such celebrated duos as Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin, Sonia and Robert Delaunay, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Anais Nin and Henry Miller, and Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. The contributors explore the nature of artistic companionships, with their corresponding limitations and innovations; the tangled questions of identity; the roles of gender and sexuality; and the stereotypes imposed by society. Many of the essays are particularly concerned with the way women and men have been evaluated in relation to their partners in traditional biographies, art history and literary criticism. We are encouraged to think in new ways about inspirational interaction, and to reassess both women's and men's contributions to culture and the importance of their art.
These creative unions offer arresting instances of sexual and artistic collision, collusion and mutual stimulation. Significant Others presents thirteen dramas, with imaginative and courageous players who chose fruitful, colorful and often difficult solutions to the dilemmas of social constraint and competing genius.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Biography, Romance, History, Art History, Womens

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Whitney Chadwick is a professor emerita at San Francisco State University. She has published on issues of gender and sexuality in surrealism, modernism, and contemporary art. Her book Women, Art, and Society (Thames and Hudson, 1990; fifth revised and updated edition, 2011) explores the history of women’s contributions to visual culture from the Middle Ages to the 21st century through an examination of the intersection of class, gender, race, and sexuality with culture, geography, politics, and criticism.

Chadwick received her PhD from the Pennsylvania State University. In 2003, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Gothenburg. Her research has been supported by fellowships at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and the Forum for Advanced Studies in Arts, Languages, and Theology at Uppsala University.

(from https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/peo...)

Reviews

[Ernest · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of essays which seek to challenge, illuminate, nuance romantic, sexual and emotional relationships between artists. Some chapters in here are particularly enjoyable: these are not merely biographical but employ feminist perspectives, close reading and exegesis to uncover and reclaim the oft-unrecognized efforts, individuality and talent of many partners (who all too often aim to be female).

I was surprised to find out an earlier edition had been published years earlier: this didn't feel dated at all. Even for someone not entirely familiar with many of the book's subjects, each essay does a fantastic job making this readable and accessible.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're as much of a sticky beak as I am. then you'll enjoy these brief peeps into the lives and relationships of couples who shared creative lives. Being a fan of the Bloomsbury set, I went straight to the chapters on Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, and Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. For those who are already familiar with these couples, there is really nothing new in this slim little book, but the chapters on Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin, and Anais Nin and Henry Miller are particularly interesting. One can skip across the entries for couples with which one is unfamiliar or seem to be a little laboured. Nonetheless, this is an interesting book that provides revelatory glimpses into the personal lives of thirteen fascinating couples.

[Carman Chew · Rating 5 out of 5]

While most biographies are quick to fall into the mould of The Hero's Journey, with rather linear timelines of growth, resistance then victory, this book challenges the genre, exploring instead a more holistic take, on the relationships between creatives.

The editors have managed to strike a perfect balance between being detailed enough to introduce those unfamiliar with the persons presented and being insightful enough with the clear theming of each essay. Together, they truly form a colourful analysis across gender, race, and even the formality and transience across artistic relationships.

What impresses me further is how it would have been easy to assume certain sexualities or to vilify certain persons, but the editors still delicately handled these nuances.

[Dora Carson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book of essays explores how intimate relationships shape the lives and work of various artist. It includes essays on Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, Dashiell Hammett and Lillian Hellman, August Rodin and Camille Claudel, Jackson Pollack and Lee Krasner, and a number of other artist couples. While I most enjoyed the essays about those figures I was already familiar with, all the essays were enlightening and served to heighten and enrich my understanding of these artists and their lives and work. I think relationships are an important avenue of exploration in any artist’s life and I learned a lot from reading this book.

[Iulia · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*

Some fascinating and insightful essays in here - I particularly enjoyed the ones on Sonia & Robert Delaunay, Clara & Andre Malraux, Leonora Carrington & Max Ernst, Kay Sage & Yves Tanguy, Jasper Johns & Robert Rauschenberg, Simone & Andre Schwarz-Bart, Lee Krasner & Jackson Pollock.
By far the worst piece was Tickner’s essay on Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, which had nothing to do with their art and belonged in a tabloid rather than in a critical anthology.

[Sarah Landmesser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Revisited in January all of the books I got half way through. Beautiful essays in this one and offered me a lot of wisdom in Fall of 2022. I love the idea of examining creative partnerships and their work in dialogue together vs. art history normally focusing on the individual

[Kabita Bhandari · Rating 4 out of 5]

“art and feminism have often been thought of as a different kind of social and personal salve…,

[Boorrito · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag of essays. Some of them are very good, the Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West essay in particular is excellent. It felt really inspiring after the preceding essays where the female artists all got dismissed by contemporaries because their male partners were also artists. I found the Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera essay good too, Kahlo didn't come across as a victim alone, but much more rounded. The Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg essay was enough to make me consider going back to their works, which I didn't find engaging when I've previously viewed them.

Some of the essays are not so good, however. The Vanessa Bell and Duncan Smith essay, for example, mostly discusses Virginia and Vanessa's relationship and barely mentions Duncan Smith at all. It feels like the author wanted to write about the sisters' relationship instead. If she has, I'd like to read her pieces but it's an awkward fit in this collection. The Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock essay I'm sure would be fascinating if I was a scholar of either, but as it was a take-down of other critics I've never heard of just left me wondering "okay, so what?".

Also, all the surrealists come across as sexist dicks. Would it kill you to admit women can be artists as well as your "wild woman" muses? So much for being wild non-conformists.

[Bookaholic]

Cealaltă jumătate, volum coordonat de Whitney Chadwick şi Isabelle de Courtivron (trad. Raluca Cimpoieşu, Editura Vellant) cuprinde 13 analize ale modului în care au creat, au trăit şi au fost percepuţi 26 de artişti şi de scriitori care şi-au împărţit, pentru o vreme, şi viaţa, şi interesul pentru acelaşi domeniu de creaţie.

Sînt analizate 13 cupluri de artişti şi de scriitori, unii de notorietatea unor Henry Miller şi Anais Nin, sau Frida Kahlo şi Diego Rivera, alţii cunoscuţi mai puţin, ca de exemplu André Schwarz-Bart şi Simone Schwarz-Bart. Analizele sunt făcute de 13 teoreticieni, cu metode, stiluri şi individualităţi diferite, însă ceea ce au în comun este că ajung, în cele din urmă, să discute stereotipurile de percepţie asupra operelor celor doi parteneri, de cele mai multe ori condiţionate de gen. Cu astfel de tipare şi de norme sociale măcar unul dintre parteneri (şi de cele mai multe ori femeia) a fost nevoit să se confrunte pentru a-şi face vocea auzită. Invariabil. (cronică: http://bookaholic.ro/cealata-jumatate...)

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Are personal relations more complicated for creative people? Do people in the same area of creativity hold each other back or on the contrary stimulate each other. All that and more in this book that I have read for the second time.

¿Qué pasa cuando dos pintores, o dos escritores deciden vivir juntos? Es una relación complicada, hay celos, si uno es más éxitoso que el otro. La vida de 13 parejas. Desde Leonara Carrington y Max Ernst, a Lillian Helman y Dashiel Hammet, de Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo a Virginia Wolf y Sackville West.

[Stephanie Matthews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compared to other books I've been reading lately, it's fair to say that this was hard work, but that's only because I've had a spate of trashy easy reads. It's a fascinating collection of essays about writing and artistic couples - unfortunately, all 20th century, and with some glaring omissions - but there were a few I hadn't heard of or knew little about.

I think you'd need to be interested in art or literary criticism to really appreciate this book. In terms of social history or biography you'd be better off elsewhere.

[Sylvia Flora · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far, a good read. My girlfriend gave it to me when we started our relationship, and I use this for some healthy reference when needed, as we are both writers. Some of the essays are kinda wordy and boring, though. I would recommend this to those who want to explore ways of maximising your creative partnership with your significant other.

[Olga Tsyba · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it on different levels, both as art enthusiast but also as a person who interested in relationships and how people can inspire each other. Some of essays were just amazing and insightful, some were boring, written in formal academic language. I appreciate complexity, the depth of the stories but the book is definitely written for those who knows and appreciate modern art.

[Janellyn51 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always like reading about how creative people bounce off each other.

[Flungoutofspace (Chris) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't read all of the chapters, but really liked the stories about the different creative relationships - Woolf&Sackville-West, Johns&Rauschenberg, Nin&Miller...