The Unknown Night: The Madness and Genius of R. A. Blakelock, an American Painter - Hardcover

Vincent, Glyn; Blakelock, Ralph Albert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802117341 ISBN 13: 9780802117342

Publisher: Grove Pr, 2003

Synopsis

Recounts the tragic life of the celebrated American artist, from his Greenwich Village childhood and journeys among the Sioux and Uinta Indians, through his struggles with mental illness in turn-of-the-century New York, and the exploitation of his work by an unscrupulous philanthropist. 35,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Glyn Vincent is an award-winning playwright and journalist who has written extensively about the arts. His work has appeared in The New York Observer, The New York Times Book Review, Art & Auction, and The Art Journal.

From Publishers Weekly

American painter Ralph Albert Blakelock's tragic life story has all the trappings of a Victorian mystery: kidnapping, madness, seduction, forgery and betrayal. In this spellbinding narrative, playwright and journalist Vincent shows how Blakelock (1847-1919), whose dreamy and haunting landscapes are precursoers to the Abstract Expressionist movement that would follow in 50 years, became one of the country's most innovative and controversial artists. At the height of Blakelock's fame in 1916, however, he had already been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and locked up in a public New York sanatorium, leaving his wife and children destitute. These facts alone would be excitement enough for most "mad artist" biographies. In this case, they represent only the beginning of an increasingly unbelievable story. Beatrice Adams, a seductive and glamorous New York socialite with a shady past, set up a charitable fund to liberate Blakelock from the sanatorium and, supposedly, to provide money for his family. It was a ruse that allowed Adams to gain legal and financial control over the easily manipulated artist and his family, bringing Blakelock's delusional fantasies of persecution to bizarre fruition. Over the next couple of years, using her enormous influence and apparently unstoppable powers of persuasion, Adams isolated Blakelock from his family and retained the profits of his increasingly valuable paintings (here reproduced on eight four-color pages) for herself. Blakelock, eventually fearful of the manipulative and sometimes violent Adams, made repeated attempts to escape from her clutches. The artist's somewhat mysterious death while still under Adams's care only adds to the drama-as does Adams's own eventual diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Compellingly and empathetically told, this chronicle is a must for art lovers and anyone with a passion for turn-of-the-century history and culture.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Grove Pr
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0802117341
• ISBN 13: 9780802117342
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 380