| BELLE PROKOFF is the last of a famousgeneration of painters for whom art was asecular religion -- worth any amount ofstruggle and sacrifice for its promise ofredemption. She is also the widow of ClayMadden, who revolutionized American art,became a near-mythic figure, and died in adrunken car crash. Blunt, fierce, and scorn-ful of the world s hypocrisy, Belle has pas-sionately protected her husband s memoryin the three decades since his death. She hasalso persevered with her painting while thedenizens of the fashionable art scene fawnover her not for her own work but for thevaluable Madden canvases she clings to asthe last relic of her tormented marriage. Now, facing the prospect of her impend-ing death, Belle is confronted with anotherkind of threat: an unscrupulous biographeris snooping around in her past, working ona sensational book about Madden s life. Be-fore her battle to silence him spirals out ofcontrol, she is forced to make her peace withpeople and events that have haunted her fordecades. But Modern Art is not just Belle s story. Itis the story of all thuse still living in Madden s shadow, from his flamboyant ex-dealer to a paranoid drug addict who sees himself as Madden s spiritual son. It is the story of Paul, a younger painter aspiring to Madden s great- ness but so obsessed with the art world s neglect of him that he becomes a victim of his own bitterness. |
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