The Slip

"""Tenderly researched . . . . The Slip [is filled] with rich art-world anecdotes and respectful gossip . . . . If you wonder why art is migrating to the metaverse, Peiffer's snapshot of this hinge decade in modern art history should be your first port of call."" -- New York Times Book Review ""Things that burn bright and vanish are easily idealized, but in The Slip, the critic Prudence Peiffer opts for a tricky blend of mythmaking and myth-busting [and her] main point . . . is right: Coenties Slip had seedy glamour to spare, but for most of the fifties and sixties it didn't feel like Manhattan . . . . The true hero is an environment, an atmosphere . . . . [the] book is free of the weightless isms that one usually sees in art histories . . . . Peiffer is a lively storyteller."" -- The New Yorker ""Reading The Slip provides a thrill similar to stumbling on hidden treasure in an antique shop. Elegantly wrought, and bristling with unforgettable details, this inspired excavation of a never-before-told chapter in the history of American art is as timeless as it is original. From the serendipity of friendship to the mysterious power of place, Prudence Peiffer brings to vivid life the abstract forces that make it possible for creativity to thrive."" -- Kate Bolick, author of the New York Times best-selling Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own ""In her marvelous, crisply written The Slip, Prudence Peiffer showcases a cadre of artists who resided along Coenties Slip--now a part of the Financial District near Pearl Street--in the late 1950s and '60s, decades after the schooners and frigates moved to the Hudson River."" -- Wall Street Journal ""A vivid and poignant story of a vanished Manhattan, a slip of land and the young artists who worked there, who left their ecstasies, crises, and friendships at that spot, there to be found and held up, in a keen and sympathetic light, by a truly skilled writer."" -- Alexander Nemerov, author of Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York ""Prudence Peiffer has brought a singular mix of style and expertise to the story of Coenties Slip, a sliver of land at the tip of Manhattan that became a legendary art-world address. Here, at last, is the definitive history of the Slip--and of bohemia's final years in New York."" -- Deborah Solomon, art critic and author ""In Prudence Peiffer's new book about Coenties Slip, it's hard to decide which is more fascinating, the place she describes or the community of artists she sets in it: Agnes Martin, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Indiana and a crowd of similar talents discovered themselves as artists in that funny little corner of Old New York. Peiffer's wonderful achievement is to show how the community depended for its existence on the place -- and that American art would have been utterly different without both."" -- Blake Gopnik, author of Warhol and contributing critic to the New York Times ""An insightful and wonderful account of how this disparate group supported and inspired each other and how their work at the Slip altered the course of American art."" -- Town & Country ""An engrossing history . . . . In a precisely detailed, well-contextualized narrative alive with anecdotes, Peiffer considers the dynamic between place and creativity, mutual support and individuality, expertly and insightfully illuminating an underappreciated artistic enclave and its pivotal role in modern art."" -- Booklist (starred review) ""Prudence Peiffer's nonfiction work is not a portrait of an art movement or style, but of a place . . . . Her vivid chapters recount how Ellsworth Kelly made the best of the natural light on the roof of 3-5 Coenties, how the neighboring East River ran through the works of Lenore Tawney and Agnes Martin, and how the fertile milieu led one Robert Clark to reinvent himself as Robert Indiana . . . . The sum is a picture of a community of artists shaped by a place, while actively shaping their own place in a pre-Pop era."" -- ArtNet News ""Prudence Peiffer . . . has written a splendid group biography that pays homage to an irretrievable era of artistic productivity that still resonates today. The Slip is its own masterpiece."" -- AirMail ""An appreciative group biography of a community of artists who lived and worked in cheap lofts and studios on Coenties Slip, at the lower tip of Manhattan, from 1956 to 1967 . . . Besides illuminating the creative work, the author captures the spirit of the ""unique microcosm"" of the ""modest, almost forgotten"" Slip . . . . A warm evocation of a unique place and time."" -- Kirkus Reviews ""[An] enchanting debut . . . . Peiffer vividly traces the community's genesis and makes a detailed and persuasive case for its influence on other ""alternative models to conventional city life."" It's a gratifying deep dive into New York City art history."" -- Publishers Weekly ""This well-researched monograph is a love letter to a unique time and place. It will likely appeal to readers interested in modern art or New York City history."" -- Library Journal ""There is a well-worn conceit that New York is more than just a place but a character in and of itself. When deployed, it runs the risk of over-romanticizing the city and flattening it to the point of abstraction. Under Peiffer's deft hand, though, this motif is anchored to a clear purpose: to make vivid how the post-industrial landscape of lower Manhattan became the material, sometimes literally, of the artists' work."" -- Associated Press"