This is the first book to closely examine the curatorial work that the celebrated poet Frank O’Hara (1926-1966) undertook for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, from 1950 to his death. It traces O’Hara’s distinguished curatorial career at home and abroad, situating his work for MoMA’s International Program, as well as the Jewish Museum in New York, within the Cold War politics of the day.
Upon his premature death, the New York Times obituary ran with the headline: ‘Frank O’Hara, 40, Museum Curator / Exhibitions Aide at Modern Art Dies – Also a Poet’. However, in the half a century since, his fascinating career as a curator, where he oversaw exhibitions of the likes of Helen Frankenthaler, Jackson Pollock, Mark Tobey and Seymour Lipton, among others, has been eclipsed by the critical attention given over to his poetry. Drawing on a broad range of unpublished archival material, Curating Modern Life reveals the impact O’Hara’s curatorial work had both on the reception of American modern art abroad and on the curatorial profession itself. Through close examination of O’Hara’s curatorial practice and career, the book illuminates the organization and reception of modern art exhibitions during the 1950s/1960s Cold War period more broadly, and also considers the ways in which O’Hara’s style of thinking and writing about art were prescient in terms of the methodologies championed today.
Bringing together readings of O’Hara’s poems and letters with a selection of illustrations, Curating Modern Life argues for O’Hara’s sense of exuberant continuity between life as a writer and a curator, an American and a cosmopolitan – revealing that he was so much more besides the quintessential New York poet. It is perfect reading for anyone interested in American art in the mid-20th century, curatorial and museum studies, or simply this lesser-known but fascinating aspect of the legendary poet’s career.
By:
Matthew Holman (the University of Hertfordshire UK)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 236mm,
Width: 162mm,
Spine: 20mm
Weight: 660g
ISBN: 9781350398597
ISBN 10: 1350398594
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 24 July 2025
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Acknowledgments List of Illustrations Introduction: New York Poet, Global Curator 1. This is All Living Art 2. The Bar Américain Continues to be French 3. In Favor of One’s Time 4. Blue Territory 5. Make it New, Make it Over 6. The Slightest Loss of Attention Leads to Death Afterword: Living Situations in New York and London Appendix: O’Hara’s exhibition record for MoMA Notes Index
Matthew James Holman is Lecturer in English and Fine Arts at The University of Hertfordshire, UK. He has held research fellowships at The Courtauld, UK, Yale University, USA, the Smithsonian, USA, and the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies in Berlin, Germany.
Reviews for Frank O’Hara and MoMA: New York Poet, Global Curator
An extraordinary achievement. In thrilling prose that moves effortlessly between art history, literary criticism, and biography, Matthew Holman surveys the full scope of Frank O’Hara’s achievement as a curator. This book fills a crucial gap in the scholarship of 20th-century art. * Saul Nelson, author of Never Ending: Modernist Painting Past and Future (2024) * Although Holman writes (to our immediate joy) less like an academic than a good novelist, his conjuring of a formative American cultural moment is assiduously researched. It helps that his subject, Frank O’Hara, had an amphetaminate personality and contagious passions. * Forrest Gander * Holman brilliantly asks new aesthetic, historical and ethical questions about the status of O’Hara’s multifarious curatorial practice. Though written with a scholarly rigour that illuminates junctures between art historical scholarship and literary criticism, Holman’s richly researched and highly enjoyable book will reward any reader interested in interactions between art and poetry in the mid-20th century. * Rebecca Birrell, author of This Dark Country: Women Artists, Still Life and Intimacy in the Early Twentieth Century (2021) * A fascinating account of Cold War diplomacy, seen through the artworks and paperwork crossing the desk of the 20th century’s greatest courtier-poet. Holman adjusts the set for future studies of O’Hara, seeing his influence on the walls of galleries across Europe and South America, as well as Manhattan. * Sam Ladkin, author of Frank O'Hara's New York School and Mid-Century Mannerism (2024) * Matthew Holman is a writer who shares Frank O'Hara's protean talents, delving into the poet's many selves. He reveals how O'Hara used the museum bureaucracy to forge dizzy new vocations: Cold Warrior for American abstract art, and the leading art critic of his generation. * Benita Eisler *
