The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein

By Martin Duberman

Book Overview

Finalist, 2008 Pulitzer Prize Lincoln Kirstein was a tireless champion of the arts in America. Working behind the scenes to provide artists with money, space, audiences, and, at times, emotional support, he helped found such landmark cultural institutions as the New York City Ballet, the School of American Ballet, New York's Lincoln Center and Stratford's American Shakespeare Festival. Duberman's biography sheds light on this lamentably neglected cultural figure. Though best known as a benefactor of the arts, Kirstein was also an adept critic, poet and novelist who published some fifteen books in his lifetime. From his undergraduate years at Harvard, where he established the influential literary magazine Hound and Horn , as well as the Harvard Society for Contemporary Art (precursor to the Modern Museum of Art), to his complex and historically significant relationship with George Balanchine, Kirstein's contributions were indespensible to the development of the arts in America. Authoritative and elegant, Duberman's biography utilizes previously unavailable documents, including Kirstein's diaries, to reveal the keen eye, incessant self-doubt, and enormous ambition that drove Kirstein's relentless advocacy. The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein brings attention to an important, but until-now unappreciated figure whose individual contribution to the arts was one of the greatest of the twentieth century.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0810125188
• ISBN13: 9780810125186
• Release Date: August 1970
• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Length: 736 Pages
• Weight: 2.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

One Man's Art World

A superb biography of a complicated person who was not only a key figure in the development of ballet in America, but a cultural leader in a wide sweep of artistic endeavors over most of the last century. While his creative partnership with George Balanchine is central to this book, Lincoln Kirstein also had important early roles in introducing many modern painters to the public and with various fine literary endeavors. The author, Mr. Duberman, does not flinch from Mr. Kirstein's "own varied sexual-affectionate history." Potential readers should know this is an unusually candid account of a notable person's private life. While not a high-lighted part of this book, I especially admire Mr. Kirstein's service in World War II as one of the "Monuments Men", who helped save a large part of European art at the end of World War II. Readers interested in this overall effort might wish to read "Rescuing Da Vinci" by Edsel. (The book's jacket design by Chip Kidd is first rate.)

Overwhelmed me with nostalgia

The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein is terrifically detailed and sweeps the reader into the best years of New York, especially. I could not put it down and walked around carrying this massive tome everywhere because I could not be parted from it. He truly crossed paths with EVERYONE, and it was enthralling to realize how one did that then. Duberman is frank and honest about the material that causes unease, particularly about fascism and social ambitions of some of Kirstein's colleagues over the years. His life was so layered, like a mille-fleur pastry, that Duberman has to keep sweeping back across the same period of months again and again to get it all, which takes some getting used to, but, by 1934, seems as natural a way as any to make the portrait complete.

New York City Ballet

Anyone attending performances of New York City Ballet will benefit from reading Martin Duberman's book. The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein details the history and the development of the company and illuminates Lincoln's contribution to City Ballet's standing as one of the best dance companies in the world.