Looking for a particular book on my crowded shelves, I came across a catalogue of the work of the artist Jay de Feo. It sparked a recollection of the day when the head of the Jay de Feo Trust told me that she would not allow access to the artist's archives for my planned biography. This person, who had known my writing during my years as an art critic in the San Francisco Bay Area, initially agreed to meet with me in Berkeley, where the archive is located. I purchased an air ticket and looked forward to starting my new project. Then, about forty-eight hours before the flight, I received an ominous email requesting a phone call—during which she informed me that I was not sufficiently "scholarly" to write the de Feo biography.
At the time, I was in shock and just muttered something to get off the phone. Now—with the hindsight of having written four more biographies and having weathered many other biography-related disappointments—I see what the problem really was. What this person wanted was a critical endorsement of de Feo's body of work, presented as a series of aesthetic triumphs and written in the detailed, measured style of an academic monograph. After she read my Grace Hartigan biography, a narrative that traces the ups and downs of the artist's personal life and finds fault with the late work, it was clear that I was not going to deliver the book the Trust wanted.
I am hardly alone in this dilemma. Gatekeepers of various kinds are always trying to keep biographers from presenting a fallible human being whose work, however significant, was sometimes lacking, and whose personal life must also be documented as fully as possible. When the subject is an artist, the gatekeepers' underlying motivations include not only maintaining a reputation but also boosting future auction sales and encouraging museum acquisitions.
The monetary value of a unique artwork at any particular time is based in part on the fashion of the day, the artist's previous sales, her fame or notoriety, and the size, medium, and subject matter of the work. But as a biographer, I am indifferent to the commodity value of art beyond its ability to keep the artist afloat during her lifetime. What matters to me is the journey—the artist's attempts and failures and occasional successes, the responses of critics, the tussles with dealers, the effects of soured romances and financial troubles.
Also, although I have an academic background in art history, I write for people who may never have taken a single course in the subject. My goal is always to bring readers back to the work, and I would hate to have academic language become a barrier to understanding. Of course I hope that people in the art world don't have too many quibbles with my biographies, but my allegiance is only to the facts I uncover, my own sense of appropriateness, and the goal of telling these stories in an involving way.
© Cathy Curtis 2025