The Nephew. [Association Copy] by Purdy, James - 1960

New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1960. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 210pp. 21 cm. Hardcover. Publisher's original cloth over boards, gilt lettering to spine. Book Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. A very sharp copy. (Almost invariably copies of this title have dust jackets with sunned spines, a condition which is sometimes difficult to discern if one has nothing to compare it to. The trick is to look at the yellow field with the author's name: it should be a nice bright yellow, like the front panel.) Warmly inscribed by the author: "For Harold Rosenberg, with sincere good wishes, James Purdy". A sharp copy. A fantastic association! Rosenberg had a long and fruitful career as a writer, a professor, and most importantly a critic, first for literature and then for painting. He spent the last 25 years of his life working for Wallace Shawn at The New Yorker magazine writing about art and the important part that American artists held in reshaping it. From his obituary in the New York Times: "...known for his forthright championship of the American Abstract Expressionist painters, ...In an article written for Art News magazine Mr.Rosenberg gave the general name of "action painting" to the work of the painters among them Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Arshile Gorky, Hans Hofmann and Mark Rothko - who made up what is now generally known as "the Abstract Expressionists" or the "First New York School.".