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Radicals and Rogues

The Women Who Made New York Modern

From artists to activists, an explosive and eye-opening new history of the women who gave us New York.
 
This is the story of a group of women whose experiments in art and life set the tone for the rise of New York as the twentieth-century capital of modern culture. Across the 1910s and ’20s, through provocative creative acts, shocking fashion, political activism, and dynamic social networks, these women reimagined modern life and fought for the chance to realize their visions. Taking the reader on a journey through the city’s salons and bohemian hangouts, Radicals and Rogues celebrates the tastemakers, collectors, curators, artists, and poets at the forefront of the early avant-garde scene. Focusing on these trailblazers at the center of artistic innovation—including Beatrice Wood, Mina Loy, the Stettheimer sisters, Clara Tice, the Baroness Elsa von Freytag Loringhoven, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Marguerite Zorach, and Louise Arensberg—Lottie Whalen offers a lively new history of remarkable women in early twentieth-century New York City.

312 pages | 45 halftones | 6 1/4 x 9 1/4 | © 2023

Biography and Letters

History: American History


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Reviews

"New York is undoubtedly one of the most culturally vibrant cities in the world. But it wasn't always so. In Radicals and Rogues: The Women Who Made New York Modern, the writer and researcher Whalen reveals that its transformation in the early decades of the twentieth Century was largely thanks to a bold, taboo-busting cohort of women who pushed boundaries both creatively and socially. As artists, writers, salon hosts and patrons they passionately embraced new forms of living, loving and creating."

BBC Culture

"We should stand up and salute this astoundingly far-reaching and delightfully detailed history of the salons, exhibitions, groupings, and individual histories of avant-garde artists. Whalen illuminates the distinct moments essential to this panorama. A radical exposition of radical women."

Mary Ann Caws, author of "Creative Gatherings: Meeting Places of Modernism" and "Mina Loy: Apology of Genius"

"A brilliantly entertaining and enlightening study of New York in the early twentieth century, a time when a diverse group of female artists, poets and patrons joyfully dismantled the limits society had set them—and created something new and wondrous in the process."

Jennifer Higgie, writer, art critic, and author of "The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World"

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