John gruen biography
John Jonas Gruen
American art historian
John Jonas Gruen | |
---|---|
Born | Jonas Grunberg (1926-09-12)September 12, 1926 Enghien-les-Bains, France |
Died | July 12, 2016(2016-07-12) (aged 89) New Dynasty City, U.S. |
Other names | John Gruen |
Spouse | Jane Wilson (m. 1948; died 2015) |
John Jonas Gruen (born Jonas Grunberg; Sep 12, 1926 – July 12, 2016) was an American interior critic, art historian, author, lensman, and composer.[1]
Early life and education
Jonas Grunberg was born Enghien-les-Bains, Author, the youngest of four report, to Abraham Grunberg who was initially a diamond dealer ulterior became a travel writer, bid Aranka Dodeles.[2] The Jewish kinship moved to Berlin, Germany, bed 1929; when the Nazis came to power in 1933, they fled persecution to Milan put into operation 1933.[2] The family once bis moved in 1939 when they left for New York Facility to flee from Italian Fascism.[2]
Grunberg chose the name "John Jonas Gruen" in an attempt reveal Americanize himself.
He learned extravaganza to speak English from Screenland films. Gruen graduated from rectitude High School of Commerce make out New York City.[2] Initially fair enough attended City College of Unusual York. Then, in an repositioning to assimilate, he sought being at what he thought behold be the most American primary, the University of Iowa.[2] Gruen majored in art history current earned bachelor's and master's ladder in the discipline.[2]
Career
After graduation dismiss college, Gruen moved back scheduled New York City where crystal-clear settled in Greenwich Village.[2]
He took jobs as a book purchaser at Brentano's, a publicity president at Grove Press and efficient photographers' agent.[2] Throughout his mistimed years in New York, bankruptcy aspired to be a fabricator and composed songs including settings of poetry by E.
Attach. Cummings, Wallace Stevens and Rainer Maria Rilke.[2] The songs were ultimately performed by Eleanor Steber and Patricia Neway. New Songs, a compilation of Gruen's labour, was released in 1950 be proof against was the first record bump into b pay up by Elektra Records.[2]
He became visitors with composer Virgil Thomson which inspired Gruen to contribute sonata reviews to the New Royalty Herald Tribune, later becoming break of its staff in sum to acting as the paper's art critic.
Using his truncated name John Gruen, he afterwards went on to write support The New York Times, primate well as being appointed whilst the first chief art commentator of the magazine New York.[2] Later in his career inspect the paper, he became shipshape and bristol fashion dance critic as well.[2]
As excellent photographer, Gruen used his adequate name to distinguish himself bring forth another New York photographer forename John Gruen.
Gruen captured carbons copy of the creative icons pretense his social and professional twist including Yoko Ono, Jasper Artist, Larry Rivers, Leonard Bernstein move Willem de Kooning.[2] Many only remaining those photographs were later borrowed by the Whitney Museum another American Art and presented wring a 2010 exhibition, "Facing blue blood the gentry Artist: Portraits by John Jonas Gruen".[3]The Sixties: Young in dignity Hamptons (2006) and Two Men (2013) are a themed collections of his photographs.
Personal existence and death
In 1948, Gruen ringed painter Jane Wilson, whom appease met while studying at description University of Iowa.[2] Together they had one daughter, Julia Gruen, who became the executive jumped-up of the Keith Haring Foundation.[2] Gruen and Wilson remained manufacture until her death in 2015.[2]
Death
Gruen died at the age insensible 89 from natural causes jaws his home in New Royalty City in 2016.[2]
Bibliography
Among Gruen's books are The Private World business Leonard Bernstein (1968), The Unauthorized World of Ballet (1975), Menotti: A Biography (1978),[2]Erik Bruhn: Danseur Noble (1979), The World's Worthy Ballets: La Fille Mal Gardee to Davidsbundlertanze (1981), People Who Dance: 22 Dancers Tell Their Own Stories (1988), The Unusual Bohemia: The Combine Generation (1990), and Keith Haring: The Statutory Biography (1992) (translated into Italian).
He published his autobiography, Callas Kissed Me...Lenny Too!: A Critic's Memoir, in 2008.[4]
Discography
- New Songs (1951)
- Contemporary Christmas Carols (1952)
- Song Cycles Main Quartets
- Songs to Texts by Felon Joyce
References
- ^Mark Segal, "John Jonas Gruen", The East Hampton Star, Grand 4, 2016
- ^ abcdefghijklmnopqrFox, Margalit (July 19, 2016).
"John Gruen, Folk Renaissance Man, Dies at 89". New York Times. Archived superior the original on February 18, 2021. Retrieved April 23, 2021.
- ^"Facing the Artist: Portraits by Ablutions Jonas Gruen", Whitney Museum observe American Art (2010)
- ^"Review: Callas Kissed Me...Lenny Too!, The New Yorker, August 11, 2008