A Place for the Arts: The Macdowell Colony, 1907-2007 - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1584656093 ISBN 13: 9781584656098

Publisher: Univ Pr of New England, 2007

Synopsis

The MacDowell Colony has nurtured some of the nation's most influential talents in the creative arts, from Edward Arlington Robinson and Thornton Wilder to Leonard Bernstein, Milton Avery, and Alice Walker. Founded in 1907 in Peterborough, New Hampshire, by the pioneering composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, Marian, the MacDowell Colony soon became a catalytic element in American culture. Based on the radically simple idea that creative people work best when they have time, space, privacy, and the opportunity to interact with fellow artists, the Colony has for the past century provided individual studios as well as living accommodations to thousands of writers, visual artists, composers, filmmakers, architects, and interdisciplinary artists who have gone on to chart the course of the nation's artistic life.

Richly illustrated with original and vintage photographs, this volume includes a colorful history of the Colony, as well as insightful essays by leading cultural commentators Vartan Gregorian and Robert MacNeil. In addition, it contains pieces by former MacDowell Fellows--Pulitzer Prize-winners Michael Chabon, Paul Moravec, and the late Wendy Wasserstein--on what it means to make art in America. A Place for the Arts documents what this country and the rest of the world continue to gain from the unique support MacDowell provides to the creative process.

The book also includes contributions by Joan Acocella, Peter Cameron, Carol Diehl, Verlyn Klinkenborg, Robin Rausch, Ruth Reichl, Jean Valentine, Jacqueline Woodson, and Kevin Young.

About this title

About the Author:

CARTER WISEMAN is President of the MacDowell Colony and teaches at the Yale School of Architecture. He was the architectural critic at New York magazine for sixteen years, and he has written on architecture and design for Newsweek, Architectural Record, Interior Design, ARTnews, and American Heritage, among other publications. He is the author of I. M. Pei: A Profile in American Architecture (2001) and Twentieth-Century American Architecture: The Buildings and Their Makers (2000). Mr. Wiseman was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard's Graduate School of Design.

Review:

"By incorporating its history with personal perspectives of former fellows, essays on the role of art in society and vintage and contemporary photographs, Carter Wiseman, MacDowell's president, brings readers an intimate portrayal of this groundbreaking artist residency program. The book stands as solid evidenceof the wisdom of the founders' vision."
--American Craft

"The photographs alone are worth the purchase of the book. The MacDowell grounds are closed to the public and most people will never have the opportunity to see the studios scattered through the woods, let alone the interior spaces where these artists do their work. All in all, this book is a rare opportunity to understand at least some small part of what makes MacDowell so special, and how fortunate the residents of the Monadnock region are to have such an amazing legacy from Marian and Edward MacDowell right in their midst."--Academia

" . . . Established in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, Marian, a pianist, the colony has served as a retreat for the likes of writers Willa Cather and James Baldwin, composers Virgil Thomson and Leonard Bernstein, and visual artists Milton Avery, Faith Ringgold, and Heide Fasnacht. Plaques shaped like tombstones and signed by previous occupants hang on studio walls, offering inspiration to some, intimidation by others."--Art News

About this edition

• Publisher: Univ Pr of New England
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1584656093
• ISBN 13: 9781584656098
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 239
• Editor: Wiseman Carter, Acocella Joan Ross