From Publishers Weekly
The life of Jackson Pollock's widow, Lee Krasner, provides the raw material for this strong, assured debut novel by journalist Toynton, who interviewed Krasner in 1980. Belle Prokoff is the fiery, arthritic octogenarian widow of the great Abstract Expressionist Clay Madden, who, like Pollock, nose-dived into alcoholism by his mid-40s and died in 1955 in a car accident with his young mistress. Decades after Madden's death, BelleAperpetually besieged by art fans, flatterers and critics seeking relics of her dead husbandAjealously guards his memory, his paintings and the truth about her own life as a painter and feminist who ceded to the needs (or genius) of a demanding alcoholic. Now unable to care for herself, Belle takes on a conscientious young assistant, Lizzie, whose older boyfriend, Paul, is an Australian painter on the rise and keen for information about his hero, Madden. Belle is also pursued by Mark Dudley, a pesky English art critic who will do anything for exclusive biographical details for the book he's writing on Madden. Moving from Belle's sleek New York apartment to her longtime residence and Madden's former studio on Long Island, Toynton delves effectively beyond Belle's stubborn wariness and into the vulnerable depths of her psyche, exploring her tough early years as a female artist jockeying for a place in the male-dominated scene of the New York School. Although Belle won't share her memories with opportunists like Dudley because she can't control what he will write, she relays her early "heroic sacrifice" to a sympathetic listener like Lizzie. Some of the plotting is heavy-handed: both Lizzie and Belle's maid, Nina, are struggling to maintain self-respect with dominating men, a perfect device for Belle to administer her hard-won advice. Toynton's prose is crisp, however, her dialogue tightly crafted, her period detail pervasive and her insight into character impressive. The novel succeeds on her memorable portrait of Belle Prokoff as an invincible survivor and her fair if cynical depiction of the New York art scene. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The New York Times Book Review, Francine Prose
Toynton is obviously gifted, and you finish Modern Art eager to find out what she will do when she learns to rely less on the facts of biography and to explore and trust the capacities of her own observation and imagination.
Boston Globe, September 10, 2000
...takes that old and ugly dried up material and gives it ripe flesh and blood. The telling is fresh.
From Booklist
Novelists love to write about painters enthralled by the creative process, but in her sleekly composed debut novel, Toynton focuses on the suffering of women who suppress their own creative needs to serve what they believe is their men's greater genius. Toynton's model is the marriage between modern art's favorite self-destructive rebel, Jackson Pollock, rendered as Clay Madden, and the valiant and feisty painter Lee Krasner, reincarnated as Belle Prokoff. Elderly and ill but very tough, Belle views the fanatic mythologizing of her late husband, and her own concomitant fame, with seasoned cynicism. She doesn't hesitate to threaten an unscrupulous biographer, and, when she realizes she needs live-in help, chooses graduate student Lizzie in the hope of helping her break the spell cast by her self-centered artist lover. As this highly concentrated tale develops, Toynton, who excels at generating quiet suspense and succinctly articulating complex viewpoints, astutely ponders the differences between the sexes, the value of friendship over romance, the greed and pretensions of the art world, and the paradox of old age, when wisdom is muffled by infirmity. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
The New York Times Book Review, Sept 3, 2000
Modern Art maintains a steady hold on the reader's attention...Toynton's perceptions seem sharp and fresh. [She] is obviously gifted.
Publisher's Weekly August 21, 2000
Toynton's prose is crisp her dialogue tightly crafted and her insight into character impressive.
From the Inside Flap
Belle Prokoff is the last of a famous generation of painters for whom art was a secular religion -- worth any amount of struggle and sacrifice for its promise of redemption. She is also the widow of Clay Madden, who revolutionized American art, became a near-mythic figure, and died in a drunken car crash. Blunt, fierce, and scornful of the world's hypocrisy, Belle has passionately protected her husband's memory in the three decades since his death. She has also persevered with her painting while the denizens of the fashionable art scene fawn over her not for her own work but for the valuable Madden canvases she clings to as the last relic of her tormented marriage. Now, facing the prospect of her impending death, Belle is confronted with another kind of threat: an unscrupulous biographer is snooping around her past, working on a sensational book about Madden's life. Before her battle to silence him spirals out of control, she is forced to make her peace with people and events that have haunted her for decades. But Modern Art is not just Belle's story. It is the story of all those still living in Madden's shadow, from his flamboyant ex-dealer to a paranoid drug-addict who sees himself as Madden's spiritual son. It is the story of Paul, a younger painter aspiring to Madden's greatness but so obsessed with the art world's neglect of him that he becomes a victim of his own bitterness. And it is the story of Lizzie, a naive romantic who has made Paul the center of her existenbce -- a mistake Belle recognizes all too well when she hires Lizzie as her live-in companion. Inspired by the lives of Jackson Pollack and Lee Krasner, this elegaic, impassioned novel creates a fictional universe full of vivid characters and intense confrontations. It is a tale of betrayal and longing, renunciation and self-discovery: the age-old conflicts of love and art.
About the Author
Evelyn Toynton's work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Book Review, The American Scholar, Art and Antiques and other publications. She is at work on another novel.
Modern Art
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Belle Prokoff is the formidable widow of the tormented Clay Madden—an alcoholic, Montana cowboy who blazed through the New York art world and revolutionized it. Blunt, fierce, and scornful of the world's hypocrisy, Belle, a painter herself, has passionately protected her husband's memory since his death in a car accident three decades earlier.
Full of vivid characters and intense confrontations, this highly charged tale moves towards its startling conclusion as Belle battles Madden's would-be biographer and changes forever the lives of the people in her orbit. Inspired by certain principal events in the lives of the artists Jackson Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner, this beautifully writer novel imagines dialogue, events, and characters in a fictional universe.
FROM THE CRITICS
Book Magazine
Toynton's novel chiefly concerns itself with the reminiscences of Belle Prokoff, the widow of abstract expressionist Clay Madden, whose intemperate lifestyle led him to an early grave. When a predatory young biographer shows up and starts asking a lot of potentially hurtful questions, Belle paints a picture of her and Madden's sad, misunderstood place in a contemporary art world that bears a striking resemblance to New York in the 1950s. The historical similarities are no accident, and it should hardly come as a surprise that the besotted and reckless Madden is inspired by the most spectacular martyr the art world has known since Van Gogh—Jackson Pollock. In fact, Toynton began work on this novel not long after she interviewed Lee Krasner, Pollock's widow, for an article on Pollock's life. Krasner, herself famously tenacious and resilient, became the blueprint for Toynton's heroine. This is a book about memory and sacrifice: Belle, a talented painter, is overshadowed by Madden's greatness, even after his death. She is, at the end of her life, misunderstood and alone. This isn't the happiest material, yet things are kept from getting too dismal by the presence of Rosie Dreyfus, a devoted art patron whose serial seductions of struggling geniuses recall the late Peggy Guggenheim. —Kevin Greenberg
Publishers Weekly
The life of Jackson Pollock's widow, Lee Krasner, provides the raw material for this strong, assured debut novel by journalist Toynton, who interviewed Krasner in 1980. Belle Prokoff is the fiery, arthritic octogenarian widow of the great Abstract Expressionist Clay Madden, who, like Pollock, nose-dived into alcoholism by his mid-40s and died in 1955 in a car accident with his young mistress. Decades after Madden's death, Belle--perpetually besieged by art fans, flatterers and critics seeking relics of her dead husband--jealously guards his memory, his paintings and the truth about her own life as a painter and feminist who ceded to the needs (or genius) of a demanding alcoholic. Now unable to care for herself, Belle takes on a conscientious young assistant, Lizzie, whose older boyfriend, Paul, is an Australian painter on the rise and keen for information about his hero, Madden. Belle is also pursued by Mark Dudley, a pesky English art critic who will do anything for exclusive biographical details for the book he's writing on Madden. Moving from Belle's sleek New York apartment to her longtime residence and Madden's former studio on Long Island, Toynton delves effectively beyond Belle's stubborn wariness and into the vulnerable depths of her psyche, exploring her tough early years as a female artist jockeying for a place in the male-dominated scene of the New York School. Although Belle won't share her memories with opportunists like Dudley because she can't control what he will write, she relays her early "heroic sacrifice" to a sympathetic listener like Lizzie. Some of the plotting is heavy-handed: both Lizzie and Belle's maid, Nina, are struggling to maintain self-respect with dominating men, a perfect device for Belle to administer her hard-won advice. Toynton's prose is crisp, however, her dialogue tightly crafted, her period detail pervasive and her insight into character impressive. The novel succeeds on her memorable portrait of Belle Prokoff as an invincible survivor and her fair if cynical depiction of the New York art scene. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|
Internet Book Watch
Belle Prokoff is the widow of Clay Madden, a legendary painter whose life and career were suddenly ended by a fatal car accident more than thirty years ago. Still proud and irascible, Belle has become fragile, arthritic, and ailing when she discovers that Mark Dudley is writing an unauthorized biography of Madden's wild and intemperate life, threatening to expose painful secrets in her own past. As Bell recalls her life with Madden she's reminded of the sacrifices she made for him: of her own career as a painter, of her separate identity, and of her relationship with the Sophie Arnonow. Then there is Lizzie, a young student Belle hires as a companion in her country house, Paul Doherty, an Australian painter and passionate disciple of Madden. Modern Art is Evelyn Toynton's truly outstanding debut novel and demonstrates an ability to involve the reader into the intricacies of one aging woman's memories and regrets, the relationships possible between the generations, and the sacrifices people make for love and art.
Francine Prose - The New York Times Book Review
Toynton has taken the recipe for a literary disaster
and managed to cook up something quite
presentable and lively. . . . keeps you reading
contentedly, even after (or especially after) you
have figured out that it has no startlingly new
insights to offer...Toynton is obviously gifted,
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
A wise, adroit novel, resplendent with shimmering, incisive writing, about the New York art scene and what it's like to be young there, or aging. A mature, accomplished debut. — Edward Hoagland
Art & Photography
Book Info
