An extraordinary achievement. In thrilling prose that moves effortlessly between art history, literary criticism, and biography, Matthew Holman surveys the full scope of Frank O'Hara's achievement as a curator. This book fills a crucial gap in the scholarship of 20th-century art.

Saul Nelson, author of Never Ending: Modernist Painting Past and Future (2024)

Although Holman writes (to our immediate joy) less like an academic than a good novelist, his conjuring of a formative American cultural moment is assiduously researched. It helps that his subject, Frank O'Hara, had an amphetaminate personality and contagious passions.

Forrest Gander

Holman brilliantly asks new aesthetic, historical and ethical questions about the status of O'Hara's multifarious curatorial practice. Though written with a scholarly rigour that illuminates junctures between art historical scholarship and literary criticism, Holman's richly researched and highly enjoyable book will reward any reader interested in interactions between art and poetry in the mid-20th century.

Rebecca Birrell, author of This Dark Country: Women Artists, Still Life and Intimacy in the Early Twentieth Century (2021)

A fascinating account of Cold War diplomacy, seen through the artworks and paperwork crossing the desk of the 20th century's greatest courtier-poet. Holman adjusts the set for future studies of O'Hara, seeing his influence on the walls of galleries across Europe and South America, as well as Manhattan.

Sam Ladkin, author of Frank O'Hara's New York School and Mid-Century Mannerism (2024)

Matthew Holman is a writer who shares Frank O'Hara's protean talents, delving into the poet's many selves. He reveals how O'Hara used the museum bureaucracy to forge dizzy new vocations: Cold Warrior for American abstract art, and the leading art critic of his generation.

Benita Eisler