Meryle Secrest

Meryle Secrestis an American biographer, primarily of American artists and art collectors.

Biography

Secrest was born inBath, England,and educated at the City of Bath Girls School, a city-run grammar school strong in the arts and Humanities.^[1]^[2]Her family emigrated to Canada, where she began her career as ajournalist.She worked as women's editor for theHamilton NewsinOntario, Canada;shortly thereafter she was named "Most Promising Young Writer" by theCanadian Women's Press Club.After marrying an American in 1964, she began writing forThe Washington Post,^[1]doing profile interviews of notable personalities fromLeonard BernsteintoAnaïs Nin.

In 1975, she left thePostto write books full-time. Since then she has written a number of biographies; her subjects have includedFrank Lloyd Wright,Lord Duveen,Stephen Sondheim,Leonard Bernstein,Salvador Dalí,Kenneth Clark,Bernard Berenson,Romaine Brooks,Richard Rodgers,andAmedeo Modigliani.Her autobiography is entitledShoot the Widow.

She lives inWashington, D.C.^[3]

Awards and recognition

Secrest'sBeing Bernard Berensonwas a finalist for thePulitzer Prizein 1980^[4]and for the American Book Awards in 1981. In 1999, she received the George Freedley Memorial Award of the American Library Association for her outstanding contribution to the literature of the theatre. In 2006, she received the Presidential National Humanities Medal from PresidentGeorge W. Bushat the White House for illuminating the lives of great architects, artists and scholars of the 20th century.^[5]

Books

Between Me and Life: A Biography of Romaine Brooks,1974.OCLC 969614
Being Bernard Berenson,1979.OCLC 4549289
Kenneth Clark: A Biography,1984.OCLC 11113241
Salvador Dalí,1986.
Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography,1992.OCLC 26613089
Leonard Bernstein: A Life,1994.
Stephen Sondheim: A Life,1998.
Somewhere for Me: A Biography of Richard Rodgers,2001.OCLC 849259450
Duveen: A Life in Art,2004.
Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject,2007
Modigliani: A Life,2011
Elsa Schiaparelli,2014
The Mysterious Affair at Olivetti: IBM, the CIA, and the Cold War Conspiracy to Shut Down Production of the World’s First Desktop Computer,2019

References

^^a ^bJaniga, Bruce."Side by Side with Meryle Secrest".Sondheim.com.Retrieved20 August2018.
^Secrest, Meryle (2007).Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject.Knopf Doubleday.ISBN 9780307497864.Retrieved20 August2018.
^"Meryle Secrest - Penguin Random House".www.randomhouse.com.
^"The 1980 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Biography".The Pulitzer Prizes.New York: Columbia University.Retrieved24 June2018.
^White House—Office of the Press Secretary (8 November 2006)."President Bush Announces 2006 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal Recipients".The White House.Washington, DC: U. S. National Archives and Records Administration.

External links

Library of Congress bio
Transcript of an interviewbyNEHchiefBruce Cole
Meryle Secrest Papers.James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Meryle SecrestatIMDb

[sondheim-interview-1] Janiga, Bruce."Side by Side with Meryle Secrest".Sondheim.com.Retrieved20 August2018.

[secrest-2011-2] Secrest, Meryle (2007).Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject.Knopf Doubleday.ISBN 9780307497864.Retrieved20 August2018.

[3] "Meryle Secrest - Penguin Random House".www.randomhouse.com.

[4] "The 1980 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Biography".The Pulitzer Prizes.New York: Columbia University.Retrieved24 June2018.

[5] White House—Office of the Press Secretary (8 November 2006)."President Bush Announces 2006 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal Recipients".The White House.Washington, DC: U. S. National Archives and Records Administration.

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