Hilla Rebay : in search of the spirit in art /

Presented in 35 short, subdivided chapters, this conscientious but disjointed book is less a full-fledged biography than a showcase for the correspondence of Hilla Rebay (1890-1967), who ""envisioned, promoted, and brought into existence the Museum of Non-objective Painting, the forerunner of the present Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum."" Lukach, longtime curator of the Hilla von Rebay Foundation Archive, convincingly argues that Rebay's role in the Guggenheim's history has been unfairly belittled by some writers, that she has been miscast as ""a high-decibel, low-talent, grasping adventuress."" (Was she SRG's mistress? ""There are no documents to suggest"" so.) And Rebay's life story is sketched in here--from German-aristocrat background to Paris/Berlin bohemianism, her own painting eventually taking second place, neurotically, to that of her foul lover/nemesis Rudolf Bauer; from Europe to America, with patronage by the Guggenheims and her expanding role as buyer/curator for SRG's collection. For the most part, however, Lukach structures her roughly chronological narrative around professional/artistic subject-matters--each involving a selection of letters to and from Rebay. There are chapters on exhibitions, the establishment of the Guggenheim Foundation, ""Early Museum Plans and Proposals,"" the opening of the Museum of Non-objective Painting. There's substantial correspondence with Kandinsky (debating ""abstract"" vs. ""non-objective') and other collection standouts. And, above all, there's Rebay's stormy, mystical, 16-year dialogue with Frank Lloyd Wright about the design for the museum's permanent Fifth Avenue home. (Between 1943 and 1946, ""when she was the target of scathing and slanderous attacks on her integrity,"" the letters display ""a pervading fear that her wishes and Guggenheim's might be ignored."") Spotty as a biography, then, and uncoordinated as an indirect history of the Non-objective art movement--but the shrewdly annotated correspondence will interest students of modern painting (Calder notwithstanding, Rebay was largely hostile to sculpture) and museum history. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.