Women in Art, Women 

Dust jacket notes: "Without Betty Parsons and her gallery, it is doubtful whether Abstract Expressionism would have been recognized in America as early and enthusiastically as it was. How this tiny, reclusive woman from a very proper New York society family came to champion the then struggling avant-garde is a little-known but vital chapter in postwar cultural history. Rebelling against the dictates of her parents, Betty Parsons escaped for ten years to France, where she became part of the circle of intellectual American expatriates. Subsequent events took her to Hollywood, where she hoped to live by portrait painting and teaching. But this was the 1930s, and even Hollywood was not exempt from the pinch of the Depression. Returning to New York, she took a job dealing in other people's art, but continued to paint and to make sculptures of her own. In 1947 she opened her own gallery, which quickly became known as the leading showcase for the Abstract Expressionists. In the historic photograph of 'The Irascibles,' in LIFE magazine in 1951, all but one of the fifteen artists pictured - including Rothko, de Kooning, Reinhardt, and Motherwell - showed at the Betty Parsons Gallery. Yet despite her triumphs, Parsons suffered acute disappointments: defecting artists and bruising clashes with other dealers that foreshadowed the big-business aspects of current art dealing. The unique story of this pioneering woman is essential for an understanding of the state of American art yesterday and today." - from Amzon