Stan and Gus - by Henry Wiencek (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A joint biography of the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and the architect Stanford White"--

Book Synopsis

How the architect Stanford White and the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens transcended scandal to enrich their times.

Stanford White was a louche man-about-town and a canny cultural entrepreneur--the creator of landmark buildings that elevated American architecture to new heights. Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the son of an immigrant shoemaker, a moody introvert, and a committed procrastinator whose painstaking work brought emotional depth to American sculpture. They met when Stan was walking down the street and heard Gus whistling Mozart in his studio. They pursued their own careers in Italy and France, then came together again in New York, where they maintained an intimate friendship and partnership that defined the art of the Gilded Age. Over the course of decades, White would help sustain his friend's troubled spirits and vouch for Saint-Gaudens when he failed to complete projects. Meanwhile, Saint-Gaudens would challenge White to take his artistic gifts seriously--and so it went amid brilliant commissions and sordid debaucheries all the way to White's sensational murder by an enraged husband in 1906.

In Stan and Gus, the acclaimed historian Henry Wiencek sets the two men's relationship within the larger story of the American Renaissance, where millionaires' commissions and delusions of grandeur collided with secret upper-class clubs, new aesthetic ideas, and two ambitious young men to yield work of lasting beauty.

Review Quotes

"In Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, a beautiful room can be a dangerous place . . . This paradox would have felt immediately real to Wharton's first readers in Gilded Age New York. Colonnades may have lost some currency, but the dichotomy still stands--and it's the kind that Henry Wiencek captures brilliantly in Stan and Gus . . . a bracing and masterful tag-team glimpse of two giants who helped make the turn of the century look so confident." --Walker Mimms, The New York Times

"In the historian Henry Wiencek's zesty new book Stan and Gus: Art, Ardor, and the Friendship That Built the Gilded Age, the robber barons may have had taste, but it was not their own. It was sourced to a cluster of aesthetes of the period, of whom the architect Stanford White and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens . . . were two of the most prominent . . . [erudite]. . . Readers might want at least a hundred more [pages]."--John Sedgwick, Financial Times

"An intimate account of the professional and personal relationship between architect Stanford White and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens . . . [Stan and Gus] offers a colorful, captivating window into a fascinating historical era." --Publishers Weekly

"Wiencek dexterously chronicles the fruitful 30-year friendship of architect Stanford White and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who designed grand buildings and public art and ignored sexual taboos, leading to lurid tragedy . . . [Wiencek] effectively contextualizes their work and depicts Saint-Gaudens in particularly memorable detail . . . A brisk, absorbing portrait of troubled artistic allies whose work embodied an era." --Kirkus Reviews

"The intertwined biographies of two Gilded Age artists reveal a complex relationship in electrifying, turbulent times . . . Highlighting his subjects' larger-than-life personalities, the imbalances of their relationship, and the glittery, careening mess of their era, Wiencek ultimately celebrates the artistic impact Stan and Gus' relationship would have upon." --Booklist

About the Author

Henry Wiencek, a nationally prominent historian and writer, is the author of several books, including The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1999; An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Award; and Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.