Milton Gendel (1918-2018) was an American photographer and art critic who lived and worked in Rome. He studied at Columbia University and served in the US Army in China before moving to Italy on a Fulbright Scholarship, where he worked as a correspondent for ARTnews. His photographs have been shown in numerous galleries in Italy and abroad. Cullen Murphy is an editor at large at The Atlantic, where he was the longtime managing editor, and has also been the editor at large at Vanity Fair. He is the author of Cartoon County: My Father and His Friends in the Golden Age of Make Believe (FSG, 2017) and is at work on a book on the fountains of Rome.
Abundantly illustrated with the late photographer Gendel's images, these diary entries show off his fabulously wealthy and cultured milieu . . . An intimate series of snapshots and vignettes of [. . .] gilded 1970s-era Rome . . . Those who know the art world will delight in these fresh and often funny notes on some of the 20th century's most well-known cultural figures. --Publishers Weekly A rich portrait of an alluring character with an enviable talent for living. --Kirkus Reviews Milton Gendel had the good fortune to have lived a wildly-entertaining life in Rome--a charmed, romantic period he captured in diaries and photos. Milton had the further good fortune to have Cullen Murphy bring this vanished dolce vita to life. --Graydon Carter, coeditor of Air Mail I love these diaries. Milton Gendel was the perfect guide to the times in which he lived for nearly 100 years. He was an insider, but an outsider observing--and he was lucky to know writers, artists and society figures in London and Rome. From his perceptive analysis of Gore Vidal to his take on Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon, I was gripped from the first page. --Hugo Vickers, author of The Quest for Queen Mary Milton Gendel was the soul of Rome, and for decades all roads truly did lead to him. He never stopped amazing us with his wit, his knowledge, and his social life (ranging from the local trattoria to Buckingham Palace, with people like Evelyn Waugh tossed in the mix). To fill the void left by his death in 2018, we have the surprise of this gorgeous book. What a gift he left with his diaries and photographs. As someone said to us all those years ago: 'You don't know Milton Gendel? You must meet him.' --John Guare, playwright, and Adele Chatfield-Taylor, former president and CEO of the American Academy in Rome