ISBN: 0-88739-467-1
456 pp.
Size: 6 x 9
Pub Date: 11/2002
Paperback Original
Price: $18.00
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This Fantastic Struggle
The Life and Art of Esther Phillips
Lisa A. Miles
Rarely if ever does the creative artist receive the recognition or the recompense she deserves or needs. Lisa A. Miles brings this truism to vibrant life in This Fantastic Struggle, the biography of Esther Phillips. Woven together with letters, interviews, scholarly source material, institution documents and art work, this unique cultural essay presents an absorbing glimpse at what it means to be an artist.
Born in Russia, raised in Pittsburgh by a family that denigrated her artistic identity, Esther left for Greenwich Village in the 1930's and never looked back. And an artist Esther was, though it cost her deeply. Despite early critical success, she was not able to make a living during the Depression and was institutionalized for over six years, likely for the results of starvation and stress. After her release, she returned to her art and to the Village, where her struggle continued. Eventually she lapsed into obscurity, but not before saying she had lived a wonderful life. This Fantastic Struggle is also the story of friendship - the kind that keeps alive both friends and art work that would otherwise have been lost to the world.
Review: "A remarkable book...both educational and provocative. [It] will arouse attention."
-Robert Henkes, author of American Women Painters of the '30s & '40s
"Miles is the most great-hearted biographer of a cantankerous artist since Irving Stone wrote of Van Gogh. May Swenson would have loved again meeting her friend Esther Phillips in these pages."
-R.R. Knudson, author of The Amazing Pen of May Swenson
"Interviews with aging bohemians and bountiful reproduced documents... Miles immerses the reader in the world of Esther Phillips with an intensity that matches her subject. I couldn't stop reading!"
-Brian Butko, editor of Western Pennsylvania History Magazine
Bio: LISA A. MILES is a professional creative artist who writes original music, collaborating with theatre, visual, and movement artists. A violinist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she has been awarded grants for her creative work. She has published prose and poetry in Unsilenced: The Spirit of Women (Commune-A-Key).
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