Cathy Curtis | Britannica

Cathy Curtis

Contributor

Websites : Cathy Curtis's blog, CathyCurtis.net

Associated with BIO (Biographers International Organization), part of Encyclopaedia Britannica's Publishing Partner Program.

BIOGRAPHY

Cathy Curtis is a former Los Angeles Times staff writer. A graduate of Smith College, she holds a master’s degree in art history from the University of California, Berkeley, and is a board member and past vice president of Biographers International Organization.

Her new book is A Generous Vision: The Creative Life of Elaine de Kooning, the first full-scale biography of a woman whose intelligence, droll sense of humor, and generosity of spirit endeared her to friends and gave her a starring role in the close-knit world of New York artists. Her zest for adventure and freewheeling spending were as legendary as her ever-present cigarette.

Primary Contributions (2)

Articles

Grace Hartigan

Grace Hartigan was an American painter best known for her Abstract Expressionist works of the 1950s, which gradually incorporated recognizable imagery. Her later paintings were sometimes identified with Pop art despite her distaste for that style. In her heyday, she was the best known woman painter…

Elaine de Kooning

Publications (2)

A Generous Vision: The Creative Life of Elaine de Kooning (Cultural Biographies) (October 2017)

By Cathy Curtis

The first biography of Elaine de Kooning, A Generous Vision portrays a woman whose intelligence, droll sense of humor, and generosity of spirit endeared her to friends and gave her a starring role in the close-knit world of New York artists. Her zest for adventure and freewheeling spending were as legendary as her ever-present cigarette. Flamboyant and witty in person, she was an incisive art writer who expressed maverick opinions in a deceptively casual style. As a painter, she melded...

Restless Ambition: Grace Hartigan, Painter (March 2015)

By Cathy Curtis

This first-ever biography of American painter Grace Hartigan traces her rise from virtually self-taught painter to art-world fame, her plunge into obscurity after leaving New York to marry a scientist in Baltimore, and her constant efforts to reinvent her style and subject matter. Along the way, there were multiple affairs, four troubled marriages, a long battle with alcoholism, and a chilly relationship with her only child. Attempting to channel her vague ambitions after an early marriage,...