Love Affair: A Memoir of Jackson Pollock, by Ruth Kligman
Love Affair: A Memoir of Jackson Pollock by Ruth Kligman is a captivating, intimate, and raw firsthand account of the final months of one of the twentieth century’s most revolutionary artists. Written by the woman who was Pollock’s final mistress, muse, and the sole survivor of the tragic 1956 car crash that ended his life, this memoir offers an unprecedented look behind the myth of the tortured abstract expressionist.
In the summer of 1956, Jackson Pollock’s marriage to artist Lee Krasner had unraveled, leading Krasner to depart for Europe. Ruth Kligman, a young, vibrant aspiring painter, moved into Pollock’s home in East Hampton. What followed was a passionate, chaotic, and deeply volatile love affair. Composed sixteen years after his death, Kligman’s memoir chronicles their intense bond, Pollock’s desperate struggle with severe alcoholism, his creative paralysis, and the bittersweet days leading up to his final, fatal accident.
Key Features
- An Insider’s Perspective: Provides a rare, unvarnished look at Pollock’s daily life, personal demons, and creative environment away from the public eye.
- The Final Masterpiece: Features the backstory of Red, Black & Silver, widely regarded as Pollock’s final painting, created specifically as a love legacy for Kligman during their summer together.
- The Fatal Night: Offers a gripping account of the tragic car crash that claimed the lives of Pollock and passenger Edith Metzger, told by the only person who lived through it.
Product Details
- Author: Ruth Kligman
- Page Count: 220 pages
- Original Publisher: William Morrow & Company (1974)
- Paperback Publisher: Cooper Square Publishers (1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-13: 978-0815410096
Perfect for art historians, biography enthusiasts, and anyone fascinated by the mid-century New York art scene, Love Affair is a poignant, sensitive, and candid testament to a legendary artist caught between destruction and creation.
First printing, fine in dj. In protective Brodart cover. [monog.]
$ 45.00
