Annalyn Swan

Annalyn Swan
Born1951 (age 72–73)
Biloxi, Mississippi
Occupation
  • Author
  • editor
  • professor
NationalityAmerican
Alma materPrinceton University, King's College, Cambridge (MA)
GenreBiography
Notable worksde Kooning: An American Master, Francis Bacon: Revelations
Notable awardsPulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography
SpouseMark Stevens
Website
www.stevensandswan.com

Annalyn Swan (born ca. 1951 in Biloxi, Mississippi) is an American writer and biographer who has written extensively about the arts. With her husband, art critic Mark Stevens, she is the author of de Kooning: An American Master (2004), a biography of Dutch-American artist Willem de Kooning, which was awarded the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.[1] De Kooning also won the National Book Critics Circle prize for biography[2] and the Los Angeles Times biography award, and was named one of the 10 best books of 2005 by The New York Times.[3] In her review in The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote: "The elusiveness of its subject makes the achievements of de Kooning: An American Master that much more dazzling."[4]

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Princeton University (Class of 1973), Swan was the first woman editor-in-chief of The Daily Princetonian.[5] She was named a Marshall Scholar[6] and earned her master's degree at King's College, Cambridge. She began her writing career at Time, then joined Newsweek in 1980 as music critic, becoming the magazine's senior arts editor in 1983. In 1986–1990 she was editor-in-chief of Savvy,[7] a magazine for professional women.[8] She later taught at Princeton University, where she was named a trustee in 1999.[9]

Swan has written for numerous publications, including The New Republic and Vanity Fair,[10] and is the winner of an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award[11] and a Front Page Award for her music criticism. She is currently visiting professor[12] and serves on the advisory boards[13] at the Leon Levy Biography Center at the Graduate Center, the City University of New York.[14] Swan was named "Biloxian Made Good" in 2011.[15]

In 2021, Swan and Mark Stevens published a biography of the British artist Francis Bacon, Francis Bacon: Revelations, with HarperCollins (UK) and Knopf (US).[16][17] They have two children.

Works

  • Mark Stevens; Willem De Kooning; Annalyn Swan (2004). De Kooning: An American Master. A.A. Knopf. ISBN 978-1-4000-4175-6.[18]
  • Peter W. Bernstein; Annalyn Swan (December 2, 2008). All the Money in the World. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-26770-2.
  • Annalyn Swan; Mark Stevens (2020). Francis Bacon: Revelations. HarperCollins. ISBN 9780007298419.

References

  1. ^ "2005 Pulitzer Prizes". www.pulitzer.org. Retrieved October 22, 2018.
  2. ^ "All Past National Book Critics Circle Award Winners and Finalists". National Book Critics Circle. Archived from the original on October 18, 2015. Retrieved October 22, 2018.
  3. ^ "The 10 Best Books of 2005". The New York Times. December 11, 2005. Retrieved October 22, 2018. A sweeping biography, impressively researched and absorbingly written, of the charismatic immigrant who stood at the vortex of mid-20th-century American art.
  4. ^ Maslin, Janet (November 8, 2004). "Messy Life and Genius: The Portrait of an Artist". The New York Times. Retrieved October 22, 2018.
  5. ^ "New Spring Course: ENG 374 - Life Writing: The Art of Biography | Department of English". Archived from the original on September 4, 2014. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  6. ^ "Class of 1973". www.marshallscholarship.org. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  7. ^ "Savvy". www.savvy.co.in. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  8. ^ Dougherty, Philip H. (February 26, 1987). "ADVERTISING; Savvy Magazine to Get A New Thrust in April". The New York Times. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  9. ^ "A Princeton Profile, 1997–1998". Princeton University. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
  10. ^ Magazine, Vanity Fair. "Annalyn Swan". Vanity Fair. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  11. ^ "14th Annual ASCAP Deems Taylor Award Recipients". ASCAP Foundation. Retrieved December 31, 2018.
  12. ^ "Members: Annalyn Swan". CUNY Academic Commons. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
  13. ^ "About Us". Leon Levy Center for Biography. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
  14. ^ "New Spring Course: ENG 374 - Life Writing: The Art of Biography | Department of English". Archived from the original on June 27, 2015. Retrieved May 17, 2015.
  15. ^ "Swan's incredible journey brings her back to Biloxi". Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  16. ^ "FRANCIS BACON | Kirkus Reviews". Kirkus. November 24, 2020. Retrieved March 12, 2021.
  17. ^ Rachel, Cooke (January 17, 2021). "Francis Bacon: Revelations by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan review – a captivating triumph". The Guardian: Observer book of the week. Retrieved March 12, 2021.
  18. ^ Wilkin, Karen (February 2005). "De Kooning Declined". The New Criterion. Vol. 23, no. 6. pp. 64ff. Retrieved September 3, 2014. The most recent examination of these heady years is Mark Stevens's and Annalyn Swan's biography, De Kooning: An American Master, a thorough, well-written, and even-handed account that is at once an unvarnished portrait of an individual and an informative study of the New York art world that he helped to shape and that shaped him.