{"title":"Penelope Niven","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"steichen-book-penelope-niven-9781590910269","title":"Steichen","description":"Not since 1929 has there been a biography of Edward Steichen, photographer, painter, and a pivotal yet enigmatic figure in twentieth-century art and culture on two continents. Steichen, who died just short of his ninety-fourth birthday, was fifty and internationally famous when Steichen the Photographer was written by his brother-in-law, the poet and biographer Carl Sandburg. Now Penelope Niven, whose highly acclaimed biography of Sandburg appeared in 1991, has written the first comprehensive biography of Steichen. \u003cbr\u003eHere, she illuminates the full story of Steichen's avant-garde life in Paris and New York and his roles in introducing modern art to the American audience, in shaping aerial reconnaissance photography in World War I and navy photography in World War I, in revolutionizing American fashion and portrait photography through his years as chief of photography at Vanity Fair and Vogue, and in creating the unprecedented photographic exhibition The Family of Man, which has touched a global audience of millions since it opened in 1955. \u003cbr\u003eSearching the world over for Steichen's letters, paintings, and photographs, Niven has reconstructed his major, pioneering achievements. Steichen's enduring contributions to the fine art of photography have not been fully recognized because they have not, until now, been fully documented and placed within the context of his times and his turbulent, romantic, and often tragic personal life. \u003cbr\u003eWith the help of public and private papers and interviews, Niven builds a compelling portrait of the charismatic, complex, very human man behind the camera. We explore Steichen's gardens and his artful love of nature, manifested in his obsessiveachievements as a master breeder of delphinium. We step inside his intimate, private world--and view his passionate attachment to his mother, his sister, and his two daughters; the heartrending battles of his first marriage; and his alleged and actual love affairs. This biography also explores Steichen's catalytic relationships with August Rodin, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Alfred Stieglitz, Gertrude and Leo Stein, and Carl and Lilian Steichen Sandburg. \u003cbr\u003eSteichen was a rebel, stubbornly independent and largely self-taught, who also believed passionately in the fundamental intersections of art and life, Penelope Niven writes. As this biography reveals, Edward Steichen's life, like his art, was brilliantly original, dramatic, and unforgettable.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49609404383505,"sku":"GOR013589014","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50038296412433,"sku":"CIN1590910265VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51038126702865,"sku":"NIN9781590910269","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1590910265.jpg?v=1751150978"},{"product_id":"thornton-wilder-book-penelope-niven-9780060831370","title":"Thornton Wilder","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Thornton Wilder: A Life brings readers face to face with the extraordinary man who made words come alive around the world, on the stage and on the page.\" --James Earl Jones, actor\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Comprehensive and wisely fashioned....A splendid and long needed work.\" --Edward Albee, playwright\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThornton Wilder--three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, creator of such enduring stage works as Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and beloved novels like Bridge of San Luis Ray and Theophilus North--was much more than a pivotal figure in twentieth century American theater and literature. He was a world-traveler, a student, a teacher, a soldier, an actor, a son, a brother, and a complex, intensely private man who kept his personal life a secret. In Thornton Wilder: A Life, author Penelope Niven pulls back the curtain to present a fascinating, three-dimensional portrait one of America's greatest playwrights, novelists, and literary icons.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49724203008273,"sku":"CIN0060831375G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51164837118225,"sku":"NIN9780060831370","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51409658642705,"sku":"CIN0060831375VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0060831375.jpg?v=1750736680"},{"product_id":"steichen-book-penelope-niven-9780517593738","title":"Steichen","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50025580658961,"sku":"CIN0517593734A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52772570497297,"sku":"CIN0517593734VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53605382947089,"sku":"CIN0517593734G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0517593734.jpg?v=1750815177"},{"product_id":"old-salem-book-penelope-niven-9781879704077","title":"Old Salem","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50172148744465,"sku":"CIN1879704072G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51327163531537,"sku":"CIN1879704072VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":52819225116945,"sku":"CIN1879704072A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53438946607377,"sku":"GOR008184962","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53462140420369,"sku":"GOR008268054","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1879704072.jpg?v=1750964279"},{"product_id":"carl-sandburg-book-penelope-niven-9780152046866","title":"Carl Sandburg","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50207254741265,"sku":"CIN0152046860G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50445862830353,"sku":"CIN0152046860VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0152046860.jpg?v=1751389420"},{"product_id":"carl-sandburg-book-penelope-niven-9780684192512","title":"Carl Sandburg","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50308646011153,"sku":"CIN0684192519VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50355701809425,"sku":"CIN0684192519A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50762580459793,"sku":"CIN0684192519G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0684192519.jpg?v=1751294363"},{"product_id":"thornton-wilder-book-penelope-niven-9780060831363","title":"Thornton Wilder","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eArt is confession; art is the secret told. . . . But art is not only the desire to tell one's secret; it is the desire to tell it and hide it at the same time. And the secret is nothing more than the whole drama of the inner life.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--Thornton Wilder\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThornton Wilder: A Life\u003c\/em\u003e, the first biography of the playwright and novelist since 1983, is also the first to be based on thousands of pages of letters, journals, manuscripts, and other documentary evidence of Wilder's life, work, and times. For more than a decade, biographer Penelope Niven has worked with unprecedented access to Wilder's papers, including his family's private journals and records, searching for the secrets that illuminate Wilder's public life and work, as well as the hidden inner self sometimes concealed and sometimes revealed in his art and in his papers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThornton Wilder was a multifaceted man: a teacher, novelist, playwright, lecturer, actor, musician, soldier, man of letters, outspoken citizen, and international public figure. He was also an enigmatic, intensely private man. He belonged to a close-knit, complicated family--two brilliant parents, four gifted siblings, and the specter of his twin brother lost at birth. His biography is also a compelling family saga, starring Thornton Wilder, with strong supporting roles played by his father, mother, brother, and sisters.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe was a gypsy, wandering the world, writing, he said, for and about everybody--a fact international audiences still embrace. \u003cem\u003eThe Bridge of San Luis Rey\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Eighth Day\u003c\/em\u003e, and his other novels are still read in the United States and abroad. His plays, especially the iconic Our Town and the revolutionary \u003cem\u003eSkin of Our Teeth\u003c\/em\u003e, are still performed on stages around the globe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYet despite the international fame and visibility of Wilder the writer, far too little has been known or understood about Wilder the man--until now. Comprehensively researched and richly detailed, \u003cem\u003eThornton Wilder: A Life\u003c\/em\u003e brings the private man center stage and sheds new light on his published and unpublished work.\u003c\/p\u003e--\u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50342679970065,"sku":"CIN0060831367G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51398122275089,"sku":"CIN0060831367VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52083399164177,"sku":"GOR008321101","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52725811314961,"sku":"GOR014600365","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/B07TPYY5DF.jpg?v=1751194454"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-au\/collections\/author-books-by-penelope-niven.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}