Weldon Kees and the Arts at MidcenturyDaniel A. Siedell Born in 1914 in Beatrice, Nebraska, and presumed dead in 1955 (when he apparently leapt from the Golden Gate Bridge), Weldon Kees has become one of the better-known ?unknown? American poets of the twentieth century, his fiction and poetry largely kept alive by other poets. But Kees was also that rare artist who excelled in many genres and media: a skillful painter, filmmaker, jazz musician, and composer. He was a gifted critic as well, and his criticism bears the marks of his own deep and broad engagement with the arts.øWeldon Kees and the Arts at Midcentury is the first book to reflect the full range and reach of Kees?s artistic activities. Bringing together writers from various disciplines?art historians, poets, literary critics, curators, and cultural scholars, including Dore Ashton, James Reidel, Dana Gioia, and Stephen C. Foster?this volume offers a wide variety of perspectives through which to evaluate the meaning and significance of Kees?s achievement. Although the essays themselves partake of the diversity of Kees?s impact on the culture, all agree on one fundamental point: any history of postwar American culture that neglects Kees?s multifaceted contribution is ultimately incomplete. |
Contents
DORE ASHTON | 1 |
IRVING SANDLER | 39 |
B H FRIEDMAN | 51 |
JAMES REIDEL | 105 |
Literature of Weldon Keess Poetry | 147 |
DANA GIOIA | 187 |
and the Crisis of Identity | 205 |
List of Contributors | 215 |
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Abstract Expressionism Abstract Expressionists academic Adolph Gottlieb aesthetic Agee American art American Painting art criticism art world artists avant-garde becoming-animal Berman Clement Greenberg collages Collected Poems contemporary crisis Deleuze and Guattari Donald Justice edited Eliot exhibition fiction Fritz Bultman Gallery Gottlieb Hans Hofmann Harold Rosenberg Hofmann Hollywood intellectual interest Irascibles James Reidel jazz Jencks Joyce Justice Kafka Kees continued Kees wrote Kees's art Kees's criticism Kees's poetry Kees's verse Knoll Kootz late modernism letter Lincoln literary MacAgy magazine Mellard ment Michael Grieg minor literature Modern Art modernist Motherwell's movie Museum Nebraska Press newsreel novel painters Partisan Review political popular culture postmodern Provincetown published reference referential reterritorialization Reviews and Essays Rexroth Robert Motherwell role Rothko seemed Sheldon Memorial Art significant story Studio 35 suggested Surrealist T. S. Eliot theater tion tradition University of Nebraska visual arts Weldon Kees William Baziotes writing York School