From Booklist
The title of distinguished art critic Sandler's piquantly conversational memoir is from a poem by Frank O'Hara and provides a clue to Sandler's candid and humble recognition that as valuable as a critic's work is, it is secondary to the artist's. After experiencing an epiphany while looking at a painting by Franz Kline, Sandler soon became witness to and champion of New York's avant-garde art world, crucial roles he played to perfection for more than 40 years. The author of numerous seminal monographs, Sandler now recounts his unique and felicitous experiences in an irresistible mix of personal reminiscence and penetrating analysis, recalling how his quest to understand the mysterious power of certain works of art led him to visit artists' studios, conduct interviews, direct such pivotal artists' organizations as the Tanager Gallery and the Club, and write countless reviews. Sandler's profiles of Wilhelm de Kooning (his hero), Philip Guston, Alex Katz, and many others are as discerning as they are vivid, and the invaluable insider knowledge he shares brilliantly illuminates a world-changing era in the annals of creativity. Donna Seaman
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Book Description
Frank O'Hara called him, in a memorable poem, the "balayeur des artistes," the sweeper-up of artists. For over fifty years Irving Sandler has been a vital presence in the New York art world. He has been a friend or acquaintance of virtually every important American artist of the postwar period, and his art criticism and books constitute the first and most comprehensive critical and historical account of this extraordinary period. There is no one else whose personal chronicle is also the living memory of the New York art world, from abstract expressionism to the present day. Beginning in 1952, Sandler became "New York schooled...receiving my art education at artists' lofts, the Tanager and other Tenth Street cooperatives, the Cedar St. Tavern, and The Club." At all of these "schools" Sandler experienced firsthand the lives of great artists and the making of great art. His memoir captures the anguished intensity of the period, with World War II an immediate memory and the imminence of nuclear disaster an everyday presence. Here are striking encounters with Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt, Barnett Newman, and David Smith. He was also a witness to, and sometime participant in, the heated critical warfare between Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. We watch the first generation of abstract expressionists give way to a second, and see that in turn succeeded by the artists of the 1960s—Stella, Rauschenberg, and Johns—to be followed by pop and minimalism. At every turn, there was Irving Sandler, intimately conversant with the art and the artists. In this vivid memoir, critical judgments and personal experience are uniquely intertwined. Readers will be captivated by the intelligence, the unassuming confidence, and the sheer personableness that have kept Sandler at the center of the art world for half a century. 20 illustrations.

About the Author
Irving Sandler's four-volume history of postwar American art includes The Triumph of American Painting, The New York School, American Art of the 1960s, and Art of the Postmodern Era. He was the manager of The Club of the Abstract Expressionists, a cofounder of Artists' Space, and is currently the Chairman of the Artists' Advisory Committee of the Sharpe Foundation.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

For over fifty years Irving Sandler has been a vital presence in the New York art world. Frank O'Hara called him, in a memorable poem, "the balayeur des artistes," the sweeper-up after artists. He has been a friend or acquaintance of virtually every important American artist of the postwar period, and his art criticism and books constitute the first and most comprehensive critical and historical account of this extraordinary period. His personal chronicle is the living memory of the New York art world, from abstract expressionism to the present day.

In the early 1950s, Sandler, then a graduate student in American history, was awestruck by his first sight of Franz Kline's painting Chief at MoMA. Following an urgent compulsion to understand the power of this new art he was soon the director of the Tanager Gallery, the legendary Tenth Street artists' cooperative. Graduate school gave way to being "New York schooled ... receiving my art education at artists' lofts, the Tanager and other Tenth Street cooperatives, the Cedar Street Tavern and The Club."

At all of these "schools" Sandler experienced at first hand the lives of great artists and the making of great art. His memoir captures the anguished intensity of the period, with World War II an immediate memory and the imminence of nuclear disaster an everyday presence. Here are striking encounters with Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt, Barnett Newman, and David Smith. Sandler was also a witness to, and sometime participant in, the heated critical warfare between Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. We see abstract expressionism give way to the new approach of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, and see that in turn succeeded by the pop and minimalist artists of the 1960s -- Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella and Donald Judd. At every turn, there was Irving Sandler, intimately conversant with the art and the artists. In Sandler's vivid memoir, critical judgments and personal experience are uniquely intertwined. Readers will be captivated by the intelligence, the unassuming confidence, and the sheer personableness that has kept Sandler at the center of the art world for half a century.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal