Join the Burchfield Penney for a reading, book signing and reception celebrating Pieces of Glass by John Sacret Young.
Joyce Carol Oates recently tweeted: “Warmly engaging "artoir" is Pieces of Glass by John Sacret Young. Wonderfully readable ; very smart on art.”
From the forward by Jonathan Galassi, Publisher, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux: “This is one of the best books I know about why and how art--the creating but also the apprehending of it--gives meaning to life, becomes a way of living.” John Sacret Young is a writer, art collector, producer, director, and screenwriter (China Beach, The West Wing, Testament). Young has been nominated for or won multiple Emmy, Writers Guild of America, Humanitas, Peabody, Christopher, and Golden Globe Awards. He has a solid track record from his previous books, a film/TV fan base, an impressive art collection, and a keenly anticipated art sale at Sotheby’s on May 18th, which ties in with the publication and publicity of Pieces of Glass.
Pieces of Glass — the lead Spring title from the recently revitalized Tallfellow Press — is a memoir: a tour of a life enriched by a private and eclectic art collection of works owned by the author, and those he wished he owned. The book is by John Sacret Young, who moved from the Atlantic east coast, and is now a long-time L.A resident. The story starts in the 1960’s — his adolescent years, and follows an illuminating journey through adulthood. After writing about and collecting art for much of his life, Young has decided it’s time to release his beloved works back out into the world to be cherished by the next lovers of beauty. “We really don’t own art, we just borrow it for a time,” said Young, who will be selling choice pieces from his collection in New York in May. In Pieces of Glass, Young mixes the "art" side of his life with a personal memoir to create a unique Artoir spotlighting and exploring the deep, moving, and explosive effect art has had on him, his work, and his soul. From Mark Rothko, John Marin, and Richard Diebenkorn to Johannes Vermeer, Norman Rockwell and Charles Burchfield, Young comes to realize that paintings, drawings, sketches, and even chalk on an old garage wall have helped shape him into the best of what he is today. With chapters reflecting on family, cancer, women, sailing, summer storms, car accidents, Hollywood, swindlers, shady art dealers, and more — he paints haunting portraits with a sensitivity and lushness readers will soak up, and be moved by.
From A New Jersey Story: “Long after I had left New Jersey, decades later and decades after I became interested in art, I was sent a transparency. I don’t recall why. It was a painting by an artist I was only hazily aware of. His name was John Koch and he had little or no relationship with those I had come to know and buy. The painting was vastly alluring and “realist.” The painting was painstakingly and radiantly so. A still life. A painter’s palette board smeared with brilliant colors, a bed with rumpled sheets that seemed in themselves a living canvas, and as stunningly wrought and as sensuous as skin. It wasn’t cheap; in fact it was startlingly expensive. Even if I could’ve afforded it — and by begging or borrowing maybe I could have — I didn’t buy it, which I regret.”
Pieces of Glass has over 80 full color images, and 27 chapters that wander across the U. S. and Europe exploring traditional artists such as Paul Cezanne, Andrew Wyeth and Henri Matisse, as well as lesser-known contemporary artists as Andrew Stevovich and Lois Dodd, and even pulp artists such as Robert McGinnis and Rafael DeSoto, among others.
Praise for Young’s previous books: Elmore Leonard: “Young writes so well, his memoir works as a novel. He brings to life real people in dramatic situations with indelible grace and the restless energy of emotions that even the passage of time cannot quell.” The New Yorker called him “a writer of effortless dexterity and a true, unaffected originality . . . The story he tells cuts right to the bone.” Los Angeles Times: “This is serious, touching, original fiction.” And for Pieces of Glass: “Young has made his masterpiece.” —Scott Eyman. Best-selling author of John Wayne: Life and Legend.