Steven Watson (author)

Steven Watson (born 1947) is an author, art and cultural historian, curator, and documentary filmmaker.

His 1991 book Strange Bedfellows: The First American Avant-Garde was called "a chapter in our national biography" by Stefan Kanfer for the Los Angeles Times[1] and "a marvelous group portrait of a band of cultural renegades" by Publishers Weekly.[2] Watson has written five books about 20th century American avant-garde and counterculture movements, curated two exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery ("Group Portrait, The First American Avant-Garde" and "Rebels: Painters and Poets of the 1950's"),[3][4] and served as consultant curator for the Whitney Museum exhibition "Beat Culture and the New America".[5]

Background

Steven Watson was born in 1947 and grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After studying English at Stanford University and psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he received his Ph.D. in 1976 and worked for nineteen years as the staff psychologist of a community mental health clinic. At the same time, he began writing books about key circles of the twentieth century. He currently lives in New York City.

Published works

Books:

  • Strange Bedfellows: The First American Avant-Garde (1991)
  • The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of African American Culture 1920-1930 (1995)
  • The Birth of the Beat Generation: Visionaries Rebels and Hipsters 1944-1960 (1995)
  • Prepare for Saints: Gertrude Stein, Virgil Thomson, and the Mainstreaming of American Modernism (2000)[6]
  • Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties (2003)

Films:

  • Prepare for Saints: The Making of a Modern Opera, documentary, for Connecticut Public Television (writer, director).
  • Beatrice Wood Remembers, short documentary, (2019) (writer, director).

References
  1. "The Young and the Restless : STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: The First American Avant-Garde, By Steven Watson". Los Angeles Times. 1991-06-02. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
  2. "Nonfiction Book Review: Strange Bedfellows: The First American Avant-Garde by Steven Watson, Author Abbeville Press $19.98 (439p) ISBN 978-0-89659-934-5". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
  3. "GROUP PORTRAIT". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
  4. "Show of rebels fascinating, as far as it goes Art review: Portrait Gallery focus on Beat Generation writers and abstract expressionists is stimulating and marked by an admirable clarity of presentation". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
  5. "On the Road Again : Beat Culture Is Revisited in an Exhibit at the Whitney Museum". Los Angeles Times. 1995-11-09. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
  6. Watson, Steven (2000). Prepare for Saints: Gertrude Stein, Virgil Thomson, and the Mainstreaming of American Modernism. ISBN 978-0-520-22353-0.


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