Georgia O'Keeffe, one of the most original painters America has ever produced, left behind a remarkable legacy when she died at the age of ninety-eight. Her vivid visual vocabulary -- sensuous flowers, bleached bones against red sky and earth -- had a stunning, profound, and lasting influence on American art in this century.

O'Keeffe's personal mystique is as intriguing and enduring as her bold, brilliant canvases. Here is the first full account of her exceptional life -- from her girlhood and early days as a controversial art teacher...to her discovery by the pioneering photographer of the New York avant-garde, Alfred Stieglitz...to her seclusion in the New Mexico desert, where she lived until her death.

And here is the story of a great romance -- between the extraordinary painter and her much older mentor, lover, and husband, Alfred Stieglitz.

Renowned for her fierce independence, iron determination, and unique artistic vision, Georgia O'Keeffe is a twentieth-century legend. Her dazzling career spans virtually the entire history modern art in America.

"Without Child" challenges the stigma of childlessness by offering childless women the lifeaffirming story of themselves. Beginning with the difficult inner journey a woman faces before finally deciding or realizing she will not bear children, "Without Child" explores the myth of the childless woman's rejection of the maternal instinct. It also examines the childless woman's relationship to mothers and mothering, to her femininity, to men, to achievement, to her body, and to old age.
Laurie Lisle contends that childless women are part of an ancient and respectable cultural tradition that includes biblical matriarchs, celibate saints, and nineteenth-century social reformers. However, like other aspects of women's history, this tradition has been forgotten and, in the process, maligned. "Without Child" bring childless women out of obscurity and places them back in women's history.
"Without Child" brings scope and depth to a subject that has long been misunderstood. Weaving rich materials from history, literature, religion, and sociology with the author's own and other stories, this groundbreaking book does what no other has done before-presents childlessnessin a multifaceted and positive light.
Most women grow up thinking they will become mothers, and many do follow that path. But for those women who are willingly or unwillingly without children, childlessness is a way of life that many of them must constantly defend. "Without Child" explores the facts and fallacies behind childlessness, what it means for women and society, and reminds us of how women can and do embrace this choice.
In the shadow of a culture that claims to adore the child, "Without Child" bring a long forbidden topic into the light. Wide-ranging, yet intimate, philosophical, yet clear sighted, this important book will reassure millions of women that they are not alone, not unusual, and, in fact, are part of a long and honorable tradition.
Laurie Lisle is the author of four other books besides"Without Child" two biographies of women artists, a history of a girls'school, and a memoir from the point-of-view as a gardener. Raised in Rhode Island, she lives with her husband in Litchfield County, Connecticut and in Westchester County, New York. For more information, please see her website at www.laurielisle.com.

Louise Nevelson, one of the most important American sculptors of the twentieth century, was a beautiful woman who lived so audacious a life that by the time of her death she was a legend both inside and outside the art world.   Born Leah Berliawsky in Czarist Russia in 1899, she grew up in Maine, ostracized as a Jew and a foreigner. At twenty she escaped to Manhattan as Mrs. Charles Nevelson, eventually leaving her husband for a life devoted to art. She lived and loved with lusty abandon, often in poverty and obscurity, until she finally achieved fame and fortune at sixty. “This biography of a monstre sacre is a tale of hard-tacks heroism and heedless swipes at those who dared to love her,� said Interview magazine.   Nevelson found inspiration in cubism, primitive art, and her own unconscious, creating a rich iconography of images. With black, white, or gold paint and perfect placement, she transformed old pieces of wood picked up on the street into powerful sculptures.   In later years she appeared in mink eyelashes and flamboyant costumes, all the while going to her studio every day before dawn to add to the astonishing body of work now in collections of museums around the world.   Laurie Lisle interviewed Nevelson before the artist’s death in 1988, as well as her lovers, family members, artist friends, and many others. This biography provides fascinating insights and information discovered in archives and public records, letters and diaries, and the artist’s own prose and poetry.   Now in a revised e-book edition, Louise Nevelson: A Passionate Life is the only biography of this important American sculptor. It is “impressive in its thoroughness, which nonetheless results in ‘good reading’ by virtue of its interweaving of personal and professional information, its eclectic introduction of psychological analysis, and a phraseology that appreciates both the pain and the joy surrounding Nevelson’s eccentric behavior,� according to Woman’s Art Journal.