Alexander Nemerov Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Alexander Nemerov is an American author and a scholar of American art.

He is known for writing about the presence of art, how the past is recollected, and the importance that the humanities plays in our lives today. He is dedicated to teaching the history of art more broadly in addition to topics in American visual culture, such as the history of American photography.

Alexander is a noted writer and speaker on the arts. He is known for such books as Wartime Kiss, Acting in the Night, Fierce Poise, and the Forest. In 2011, he released To Make a World: George Ault and 1940s America, which was a catalog to an exhibition with the same title that he curated at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He has written essays on Peter Paul Rubens, on Thomas Eakins and JFK, on Henry James, and on Rothko and Rembrandt.

Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York is a 2021 book written by Alexander Nemerov. If you enjoy a good biography and love learning interesting new facts and more about the lives of certain people, this is a great selection for you. Whether you are already familiar with Helen Frankenthaler’s life or completely new to her, this is a great chance to find out more about one of the most highly respected painters of the twentieth century.

Follow along as a reader as Helen comes of age as a woman and an artist, all taking place against the vibrant backdrop of the art world taking place in New York in the fifties.

In the beginning of the 1950’s, Helen was a young painter with a lot of promise. She had just gotten out of college and decided to move to New York City. By the end of the decade, she had managed to make a name for herself as an important artist of the postwar period. In the years between that time, Helen was also able to create some of the most daring paintings of her time while also coming into her own as an individual and woman.

She traveled all over the world, fell in love and out of it, and took part in an ongoing artistic education. She also experienced and made her mark on the city that she was raised in, having grown up in a privileged life as the daughter of a judge. She then left that world to pursue her passion in art.

Nemerov takes these details of this artist’s life and brings them to life. The biography includes some defining moments for Helen. These include her first encounter with drip paintings done by Jackson Pollock to the first time that she had a solo gallery show to her breakup with Clement Greenberg, the art critic.

Together they make up a portrait that is distinctive and bold, just like Helen. Frankenthaler was admittedly inspired by Pollock as well as the other male artists taking part in Abstract Expressionism. Despite this, she was also determined to make her own course. Throughout, she remained an artist with the kind of talent that was matched by her determination to make her own place in a man’s world and set herself apart.

This is a fun ride through the art scene of New York in the fifties and a portrait of a young artist in the moments that ended up shaping her. Go along on a journey and find out more about this fascinating artist!

The Forest: A Fable of America in the 1830s is a 2023 book by Alexander Nemerov. This is a historical imagining of how life was in the early United States and a book that Annie Proulx called one ‘of the richest books’ to ever come her way! New York Times bestselling author Edmund de Waal also had positive things to say, calling The Forest an ‘extraordinary achievement’.

This book is set in the natural world of the early United States, with its glimmering beautiful lakes and its disappearing forests. It takes an imaginary look at the way that many Americans during this time period may have experienced their lives. The Forest is partially fiction and partially truthful, and features characters that are pulled from history as well as imagination.

This Nemerov tome follows along with poets, painters, the enslaved, farmer, and artisans, all of whom were residing and working in a world that was still constructed mainly of wood. Readers may be familiar with some of the historical characters mentioned within, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Thomas Cole, Edgar Allan Poe, Nat Turner, and Fanny Kemble. Despite this, they are creators of grand and private designs.

The Forest ends up unfolding in shortened stories, with each of the episodes showing an intricate lost world. Characters go on their own ways or end up crossing paths, each of them attempting to achieve something that is different but coming together to form a pattern of life.

For the author, the forest is a way that American society can be described. It includes the dense woods of the nation, the thoughts of different people that spread their foliage and enjoy different amounts of sun and shade. Nemerov describes in great detail the people, the smells, the sights, and the sounds of America at this time, illustrating things further with prints, paintings and photographs.

The historical foray into a country and its nature is something that you’ll have to read for yourself in order to fully appreciate as descriptions do not do it justice. American history comes to life through text in a way that the reader can appreciate. You’ll not only feel more intelligent and informed after reading this book, you’ll have a new in depth nonfiction topic to discuss with others and a new nonfiction recommendation for friends!

This book was published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Get a copy of The Forest: A Fable of America in the 1830s by Alexander Nemerov to read the book from start to finish and learn something new.