This week’s Performing Arts pick comes from Calvin Tomkins, who has been writing exquisite profiles of artists for the New Yorker since 1962. “Living Well Is the Best Revenge,” a book that developed out of an early profile, has recently been reissued by the Museum of Modern Art, and expanded with additional information.
The book chronicles the many lives of Gerald and Sara Murphy, the free-spirited couple who played an integral role in the lives of such famous artists as Cole Porter, Ernest Hemingway, and Pablo Picasso. Tomkins, as he notes in the introduction, literally stumbled upon the story. One day, as he chased his young daughters into a neighboring yard, he found Gerald Murphy, now and old man, tending to his garden. From there, a burgeoning friendship blossomed.
Both coming from wealthy families, the Murphys had the financial means to decamp to Europe, which was then witnessing a moment of artistic brilliance. Expatriate artists had landed in Paris from all over, making the city a global hub of modern art and literature. The Murphys, a little older than most of the artists in their circle, became figureheads of the scene, their vibrant presence adored by all. Gertrude Stein admired them; Man Ray would take their family photographs. To read their life is to read a compacted history of 20th century art. Their impact would be cemented in history by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who based the main characters of his novel “Tender is the Night” on the couple.
Almost unbelievably, the Murphys also had a hand in the early days of Ballets Russes, where they volunteered to help paint scenery. Later, Gerald would co-write his own ballet that satirized the tabloid nature of Hearts newspapers, with a score by his old friend Cole Porter.
The book includes an expanded version of the original profile, along with a prologue that considers the brief painting career of Gerald Murphy. His total output was just 15 paintings, only seven of which have survived, but as Tomkins perceptively notes, the small collection “has come to seem increasingly significant in the history of twentieth century art.”
In addition to “Living Well Is the Best Revenge,” MoMA will reissue Tomkins’s biography of Marcel Duchamp, first published in 1996, at the end of January.
"Living Well is the Best Revenge" ($14.95) can be purchaed at the MoMA Store.
