THE ART OF RIVALRY Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art

This audiobook could have been a conventional biography of eight modern artists and the artistic influence they had on each other, but instead it is lightened with gossipy scandal, drunken fights, slashed paintings, and promiscuity. In a wonderful deep voice that evokes a seriousness of purpose, narrator Bob Souer also subtly incorporates the amusing undertones and explosive meltdowns in the text. The book is an entertaining and informative dive into the fraught relationships between Freud and Bacon, Manet and Degas, Picasso and Matisse, and Pollock and de Kooning. Each painter fed off the other, urging excellence but with undercurrents of jealousy and contempt--the contemporary term "frenemy" comes to mind. This is a fine match of interesting mini-biographies and an absorbing, deft performance. A.B. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine [Published: MARCH 2017]