Audiobooks by Blake Gopnik

The Maverick's Museum: Albert Barnes and His American Dream

"A fascinating biography of the philanthropist Albert Barnes, whose pioneering collection of modern art was meant to transform America’s soul From prominent critic and biographer Blake Gopnik comes a compelling new art collector biography of America’s first great collector of modern art, Albert Coombs Barnes. Raised in a Philadelphia slum shortly after the Civil War, Barnes rose to earn a medical degree and then made a fortune from a pioneering antiseptic treatment for newborns. Never losing sight of the working-class neighbors of his youth, Barnes became a ruthless advocate for their rights and needs. His vast art collection—181 Renoirs, 69 Cézannes, 59 Matisses, 46 Picassos—was dedicated to enriching their cultural lives. A miner was more likely to get access than a mine owner. Gopnik’s meticulous research reveals Barnes as a fierce advocate for the egalitarian ideals of the Progressive Era. But while his friends in the movement worked to reshape American society, Barnes wanted to transform the nation’s aesthetic life, taking art out of the hands of the elite and making it available to the average American. The Maverick’s Museum offers a vivid picture of one of America’s great eccentrics. The sheer ferocity of Barnes’s democratic ambitions left him with more enemies than allies among people of all classes, but for a circle of intimates, he was a model of intelligence, generosity, and loyalty. In this compelling portrait, Gopnik reveals a life shaped by contradictions, one that left a lasting impact through the renowned Barnes Foundation. This definitive biography goes beyond the collection to reveal the complex, controversial man who changed American art. - A Gilded Age Rags-to-Riches Story: Follow Albert C. Barnes from a Philadelphia slum to a medical degree and a fortune built on a revolutionary antiseptic, driven by a ferocious ambition to upend the established order. - The World’s Greatest Modern Art Collection: Discover the story behind the staggering collection—including 181 Renoirs, 69 Cézannes, and 59 Matisses—and the radical vision to make it a tool for educating working-class Americans, not the elite. - A Fierce and Contradictory Figure: Uncover the portrait of one of America’s great eccentrics—a ruthless businessman, a fierce advocate for social justice, and a loyal friend whose terrible temper became legendary."

Blake Gopnik (Author), Jeremy Arthur (Narrator)

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Warhol: A Life as Art

"Brought to you by Penguin. When critics attacked Andy Warhol's Marilyn paintings as shallow, the Pop artist was happy to present himself as shallower still: He claimed that he silkscreened to avoid the hard work of painting, although he was actually a meticulous workaholic; in interviews he presented himself as a silly naïf when in private he was the canniest of sophisticates. Blake Gopnik's definitive biography digs deep into the contradictions and radical genius that led Andy Warhol to revolutionise our cultural world. Based on years of archival research and on interviews with hundreds of Warhol's surviving friends, lovers and enemies, Warhol traces the artist's path from his origins as the impoverished son of Eastern European immigrants in 1930s Pittsburgh, through his early success as a commercial illustrator and his groundbreaking pivot into fine art, to the society portraiture and popular celebrity of the '70s and '80s, as he reflected and responded to the changing dynamics of commerce and culture. Warhol sought out all the most glamorous figures of his times - Susan Sontag, Mick Jagger, the Barons de Rothschild - despite being burdened with an almost crippling shyness. Behind the public glitter of the artist's Factory, with its superstars, drag queens and socialites, there was a man who lived with his mother for much of his life and guarded the privacy of his home. He overcame the vicious homophobia of his youth to become a symbol of gay achievement, while always seeking the pleasures of traditional romance and coupledom. (Warhol explodes the myth of his asexuality.) Filled with new insights into the artist's work and personality, Warhol asks: Was he a joke or a genius, a radical or a social climber? As Warhol himself would have answered: Yes. © Blake Gopnik 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020"

Blake Gopnik (Author), Graham Halstead (Narrator)

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