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Fortune's Favorite Child: The Uneasy Life of Walter Anderson
Fortune's Favorite Child The Uneasy Life of Walter Anderson Author:Christopher Maurer The first biography to explore the troubled life of one of Americas most prolific, and visionary artists. Few American painters have lived so intimately with nature as Walter Anderson, and few have lived as adventurously as he did, on the edge of society, a voluntary exile from "the sordid thing most people call reality." Walter Inglis... more » Anderson (1903-1965) is only now finding his place in American painting, partly because he spent much of his life in a small Mississippi town, more intent upon "natural forms" than upon his own place in the annals of painting. Afflicted with mental illness that baffled some of Americas leading psychiatrists, alienated for long periods from his wife and children, he led a life of passion and adventure. In pursuit of nature, he rowed frequently to a wilderness island in the Gulf of Mexico; biked and walked thousands of miles across the American landscape; roamed through China during the Maoist revolution; and secluded himself in a cottage where he produced an astonishing abundance of watercolors and drawings, ceramics, wood carvings, and a mural of thanksgiving for the gifts of nature. Though indifferent to fame, Anderson was acknowledged, after his death, as the Souths greatest painter. John Russell of the New York Times spoke of the "quietly excellent power" that makes his watercolors "among the best of their date," and others compared his vision to that of VanGogh and Georgia OKeeffe. This compelling, prize-winning biography explores the painting, writing, and uneasy life of a major artist, a fiercely individualistic painter who despite adversity and hardship considered himself "Fortunes Favorite Child."« less