Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art

In 1951, the Ninth Street Show exhibited works by abstract expressionist artists in a decrepit downtown New York storefront, bringing extensive attention to the city's expanding avant-garde movement. Many of the trailblazing creators were highly talented women who brought a vital artistic force to the era but were later overlooked. Five of these individuals are brought to life by Pulitzer Prize finalist Gabriel (Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Mark and the Birth of a Revolution), who shows how each defied social convention and professional boundaries to create new creative forms and attain equality with their male counterparts. Gabriel carefully examines these women's personal and professional lives and unique social, creative, and economic struggles, including a wealth of descriptive anecdotes, historical details, and artistic references. Moreover, the author vividly reflects the multifaceted texture of the period's avant-garde community as well as the impact of a changing societal and cultural framework as it moved from the Depression and World War II into the 1950s.