A stirring, deeply researched history of artists’ response to crisis.
Artists unite against oppression.
Biographer Friend examines a robust artistic resistance to fascism by the Artists International Association, which formed in London in 1933 and took as its mission the “Unity of Artists against Fascism and War and the Suppression of Culture.” Its founders included several artists who had been to the Soviet Union and returned to England inspired by the mutual support among artists in that country. Fearful of the growing threat of fascism throughout Europe, they proclaimed that “now was the time for their generation of artists to organize” in order “to serve shared political goals through their art” and support progressive causes. Focusing on the activities of the AIA from 1933 to 1943, Friend investigates similar organizations outside of England: the International Bureau of Revolutionary Artists in Moscow, for example, and in the U.S., the John Reed Clubs, the Unemployed Artists Group, the Public Works of Art Project, and the American Artists’ Congress. The AIA forged connections with these groups as it grew to become an increasingly visible force in British culture, producing publications and mounting exhibitions, many to raise funds for combatants in Spain and Russia. In its first year, membership tripled; the roster included Julian and Quentin Bell, Augustus John, Henry Moore, and art critics Herbert Read and Kenneth Clark, along with scores of other painters, sculptors, writers, and illustrators whose work appears in the book’s more than 200 illustrations. Many contributors to the AIA’s efforts were 20th-century stars, such as Picasso, who sent his Guernica to be exhibited in London; muralist Diego Rivera; surrealists Joan Miró and Paul Klee; Ben Shahn; and Virginia and Leonard Woolf, who supported the organization. A biographical appendix identifies less familiar participants.
A stirring, deeply researched history of artists’ response to crisis.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780500027417
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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