Old in Art School

Reviews

“Historian Nell Painter…bring[s] her fierce intelligence to questions not just of age but also race and what it means to be an artist.”

“Her memoir…is many things: an appraisal of artists living and dead, a hymn to her home state of New Jersey, a meditation on her parents’ deaths, a reflection on the travails of leading a scholarly association. It’s also a sharp critique of the teaching methods and social environment in MFA programs.”

“Through her narration, we witness her journey toward realizing her dream of being a painter…Listeners suffer and celebrate with her through each dip and rise along the way.”

“Candid and cheerfully irreverent.”

“A smart, funny, and compelling case for going after your heart’s desires, no matter your age or what your critics say.”

“While exploring what it truly means to be an artist, this book asks honest and important questions about how our definition of identity influences our shared concept of art.”

“In this sweet, nuanced memoir, revered historian Painter recounts…how getting an up-close view to all things art changed her life.”

“Charts her exhilarating journey—from a BFA student at Rutgers to a master’s candidate at the Rhode Island School of Design.”

“Painter is well-equipped to dissect the various forms of discrimination she faces in these programs. And she does it all with a sense of humor, honoring, above all else, creativity, and openness.”

“Witty and perceptive…A courageous, intellectually stimulating, and wholly entertaining story of one woman reconciling two worlds and being open to the possibilities and changes life offers.”

“With honest and elegant prose…her narrative weaves expertly among her art school experience, family upbringing, the loss of her mother, caring for her father at a distance, and art itself…as well as the potentially damaging subculture of art school.”

“The author offers perceptive insights about the meaning of art: the difference between thinking like a historian and an artist; the ‘contented concentration’ she feels when making art; and the works of many black artists. A spirited chronicle of transformation and personal triumph.”

“A cup of courage for everyone who wants to change their lives. This is not a story about starting over; it’s about continuing on the journey.”

“Reading Nell Painter’s Old in Art School gave me immense pleasure. Memoirs by black women artists are extremely rare, and this one is so beautifully written, so perfectly formed in terms of its storytelling trajectory, with so many delectable details about art techniques and subject matter, the relationship of the work to her previous projects as a celebrated historian, and her life struggles as the daughter of once-perfect parents, now aged and with health difficulties. Old in Art School seems both definitive and unforgettable. The idea that this brilliant woman would move from a field in which her accomplishments are regarded as superlative to one in which she is constantly plagued by self-doubt and the shortcomings of her ‘twentieth-century eyes’ alone makes it worth the price of admission.”

“One of our most distinguished scholars of race and racism has written an incisive, surprising, eloquent, and often wry account of what it means to go back to school at sixty-four, the age at which most academics contemplate retiring from it. Along the way, Nell Painter helps us to see the world as art, art as the world, and to understand arduous, creative self-transformation as toil worth the trouble. Old in Art School is as edgy as a contemporary work of art: bold in form, assured in line and shape, unflinching in its textured analysis of the ways race, gender, and age color how we perceive the world and how the world perceives us.”

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