Strange Bedfellows: The First American Avant-Garde by Steven Watson

From Barnes & Noble

A fascinating group portrait of a small band of cultural renegades who flourished in the world of arts and letters from 1913 to 1917, from Marcel Duchamp and Alfred Steiglitz to Djuna Barnes and Mabel Dodge. "A raucous carnival of a book..."-- L.A. Times. B&W photos.

From the Publisher

Art, like politics, makes for strange bedfellows indeed, and the development of an avant-garde in the U.S. depended as much on socializing as on aesthetics. This lively social history recounts the adventures and amours of America's first practitioners of the modern arts. Diagrams of the convoluted relationships, a chronology, a cast of characters, and much more shed additional light on an immensely appealing period. 220 illustrations, 20 in color.

Publishers Weekly

This sweeping cultural history is a marvelous group portrait of the band of cultural renegades who, from 1913 to 1917, inaugurated modern art in America. Illustrations. (Aug.)

Library Journal

This book chronicles the rise of American modernism through a ``group portrait of a small band of cultural renegades'' who comprised avant-garde circles from 1913 to 1917 in New York, Cambridge, Chicago, London, Paris, and Florence. The result is an excellent, concise, highly readable overview of the literary alliances, social networks, and unconventional lifestyles that characterized the era when artists, poets, writers, and intellectuals were ``struggling to develop an American voice.'' Watson effectively conveys the bohemian spirit of the age and does much to make this period comprehensible for today's reader. A unique feature of the book is its ``Cast of Characters,'' an annotated alphabetical index of key figures including Gertrude and Leo Stein, the Arensbergs, Alfred Stieglitz, Ezra Pound, Eugene O'Neill, Amy Lowell, John Reed, and others featured in the book. Also noteworthy is the 44-page ``Modern Chronology'' of significant events, professional and social. Recommended for general collections in the humanities.-- Lesley Jorbin, Cleveland State Univ. Lib.

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