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Daybook, Turn, Prospect
The Journey of an Artist
Part of A Three-Book Collection
By Anne Truitt
Introduction by Audrey Niffenegger
Table of Contents
About The Book
“Anne Truitt’s frankness and intellectual curiosity about the hows and whys of a working artist’s life” (Megan O’Grady, The New Yorker) are compiled in this one e-volume of all three of her journals, the illuminating, inspiring record of reconciling the call of creative work with the demands of daily life.
Anne Truitt kept a journal throughout her adult life, from her early years as one of the rare, celebrated women artists in the early 60s, through her midlife as an established artist, and into older age when she was, for a time, the director of Yaddo, the premier artists’ retreat in Saratoga. She was always a deep, astute reader, and a woman who grappled with a range of issues—moral, intellectual, sensual, emotional, and spiritual. While working intensely on her art, she watches her own daughters journey into marriage and motherhood, meditates on criticism and solitude, and struggles to find a balance in life. “Balance not stability is the source of security,” she says. Anne Truitt re-creates a life in which domestic activities and the needs of children and friends are constantly juxtaposed against the world of color and abstract geometry to which she is drawn in her art.
Anne Truitt kept a journal throughout her adult life, from her early years as one of the rare, celebrated women artists in the early 60s, through her midlife as an established artist, and into older age when she was, for a time, the director of Yaddo, the premier artists’ retreat in Saratoga. She was always a deep, astute reader, and a woman who grappled with a range of issues—moral, intellectual, sensual, emotional, and spiritual. While working intensely on her art, she watches her own daughters journey into marriage and motherhood, meditates on criticism and solitude, and struggles to find a balance in life. “Balance not stability is the source of security,” she says. Anne Truitt re-creates a life in which domestic activities and the needs of children and friends are constantly juxtaposed against the world of color and abstract geometry to which she is drawn in her art.
About The Author
Photograph © annetruitt.org/Bridgeman Art Library
Anne Truitt (1921–2004) had her first solo exhibition at the André Emmerich Gallery in New York in 1963. Her work is in the collections of major museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the National Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC; the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. The recipient of many grants, she was the director of the artists’ colony Yaddo for several years in the early 1990s.
Product Details
- Publisher: Scribner (October 8, 2013)
- Length: 240 pages
- ISBN13: 9781476745015
Raves and Reviews
“Most spectacular... Daybook is full of all the luminous colors Truitt evoked—the soothing lilacs, blaring yellows, revolutionary reds. It’s a powerful lesson that an artist is not only a person who planes towering poplar sculptures but also someone who removes a splinter from a child’s finger.” —Hillary Kelly, The Atlantic
"Truitt’s frankness and intellectual curiosity about the hows and whys of a working artist’s life has made Daybook something of a touchstone for aspiring artists and writers." —Megan O'Grady, The New Yorker
“A remarkable record of a woman’s reconciliation of art, motherhood, memories of childhood, and present-day demands." —Anne Morrow Lindbergh
“Daybook is a rare gift, illuminating and nourishing, a journal to read and re-read.” —May Sarton
“One of the great artists of our time, it’s a treat to be allowed into Anne Truitt’s mind as she contemplates the ups and downs of being an artist, mother and friend.” —Brie Larson
“A natural and graceful writer…Truitt’s self-examination is unflinching and, at every moment, possessed of the inevitable dignity that attends a genuine commitment to telling the truth about oneself.” —Art in America
Resources and Downloads
High Resolution Images
- Book Cover Image (jpg): Daybook, Turn, Prospect eBook 9781476745015
- Author Photo (jpg): Anne Truitt Photograph © annetruitt.org/Bridgeman Art Library(0.1 MB)
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