Despite being one of the foremost American intellectuals of the
mid-twentieth century, Harold Rosenberg (1906-1978) was utterly
incapable of fitting in-and he liked it that way. Signature cane in
one hand and a cigarette in the other, he cut a distinctive figure
on the New York City culture scene, with his radiant dark eyes and
black bushy brows. A gangly giant at six foot four, he would tower
over others as he forcefully expounded on his latest obsession in
an oddly high-pitched, nasal voice. And people would listen,
captivated by his ideas. With Harold Rosenberg: A Critic's Life,
Debra Bricker Balken offers the first-ever complete biography of
this great and eccentric man. Although he is now known mainly for
his role as an art critic at the New Yorker from 1962 to 1978,
Balken weaves together a complete tapestry of Rosenberg's life and
literary production, cast against the dynamic intellectual and
social ferment of his time. She explores his role in some of the
most contentious cultural debates of the Cold War period, including
those over the commodification of art and the erosion of
individuality in favor of celebrity, demonstrated in his famous
essay "The Herd of Independent Minds." An outspoken socialist and
advocate for the political agency of art, he formed deep alliances
with figures such as Hannah Arendt, Saul Bellow, Paul Goodman, Mary
McCarthy, Jean-Paul Sartre, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock,
all of whom Balken brings to life with vivid accounts from
Rosenberg's life. Thoroughly researched and captivatingly written,
this book tells in full Rosenberg's brilliant, fiercely independent
life and the five decades in which he played a leading role in US
cultural, intellectual, and political history.
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