The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art by Sebastian Smee
Pulitzer Prize–winning art critic Sebastian Smee tells the fascinating story of four pairs of
artists—Manet and Degas, Picasso and Matisse, Pollock and de Kooning, Freud and
Bacon—whose fraught, competitive friendships spurred them to new creative heights.
Rivalry is at the heart of some of the most famous and fruitful relationships in history. The Art of
Rivalry follows eight celebrated artists, each linked to a counterpart by friendship, admiration, envy,
and ambition. All eight are household names today. But to achieve what they did, each needed the
influence of a contemporary—one who was equally ambitious but possessed sharply contrasting
strengths and weaknesses.
Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas were close associates whose personal bond frayed after Degas
painted a portrait of Manet and his wife. Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso swapped paintings,
ideas, and influences as they jostled for the support of collectors like Leo and Gertrude Stein and
vied for the leadership of a new avant-garde. Jackson Pollock’s uninhibited style of “action
painting” triggered a breakthrough in the work of his older rival, Willem de Kooning. After Pollock’s
sudden death in a car crash, de Kooning assumed Pollock's mantle and became romantically
involved with his late friend’s mistress. Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon met in the early 1950s,
when Bacon was being hailed as Britain’s most exciting new painter and Freud was working in
relative obscurity. Their intense but asymmetrical friendship came to a head when Freud painted a
portrait of Bacon, which was later stolen.
Each of these relationships culminated in an early flashpoint, a rupture in a budding intimacy that
was both a betrayal and a trigger for great innovation. Writing with the same exuberant wit and
psychological insight that earned him a Pulitzer Prize for art criticism, Sebastian Smee explores
here the way that coming into one’s own as an artist—finding one’s voice—almost always involves
willfully breaking away from some intimate’s expectations of who you are or ought to be.
Praise for The Art of Rivalry
“Gripping . . . Mr. Smee’s skills as a critic are evident throughout. He is persuasive and vivid. . .
. You leave this book both nourished and hungry for more about the art, its creators and patrons,
and the relationships that seed the ground for moments spent at the canvas.”—The New York
Times
“With novella-like detail and incisiveness [Sebastian Smee] opens up the worlds of four pairs of
renowned artists. . . . Each of his portraits is a biographical gem. . . . The Art of Rivalry is a pure,
informative delight, written with canny authority.”—The Boston Globe
“Bacon liked to say his portraiture aimed to capture ‘the pulsations of a person.’ Revealing these
rare creators as the invaluable catalysts they also were, Smee conveys exactly that on page after
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page. . . . His brilliant group biography is one of a kind.”—The Atlantic
“Perceptive . . . Smee is onto something important. His book may bring us as close as we’ll ever
get to understanding the connections between these bristly bonds and brilliance.”—The Christian
Science Monitor
“In this intriguing work of art history and psychology, The Boston Globe’s art critic looks at the
competitive friendships of Matisse and Picasso, Manet and Degas, Pollock and de Kooning, and
Freud and Bacon. All four relationships illuminate the creative process—both its imaginative
breakthroughs and its frustrating blocks.”—Newsday
From the Hardcover edition.
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The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern
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