MONDAY, JULY 6 / 2-4PM. A PRESENTATION BY ELIZABETH LEAVY STROMAN. We are excited to announce the upcoming publication of an important book about the legendary iconoclast in the 20th century art world – a visionary artist who live large in Europe, then in California’s central coast, before slipping through the cracks of historical memory.
In this first full-length biography Elizabeth Leavy Stroman vividly brings this piece of hidden history back to light. Stroman takes the reader from Varda’s birthplace in the ancient Ottoman Empire to France and England, where he was at the forefront of the modernist movement, consorting with Braque, Picasso, Matisse, and writers like Ezra Pound, Aldous Huxley, and Dylan Thomas. Readers then follow Varda as he travels to the United States, settling in California and presiding over a raucous, often libertine sub-culture of artists – with cameos from Henry Miller, Anais Nin, Maya Angelou, and Alan Watts among others – who scandalized mainstream society with their antics.
About the author: Elizabeth Leavy Stroman is the author of A place of Innocent Recreations: History of the Sausalito Library. She has been an editor and writer for the Sausalito Historical Society and an occasional contributor to The Marin Scope. She is past president of the Sausalito Library Board and a retired attorney. She lives in Sausalito.
“The Art and Life of Jean Varda makes it clear that Varda, better known today as an outlandish character than as a serious artist, was in fact both. Stroman cuts through the myths that Varda created about himself, while celebrating them at the same time. A lively book, deeply researched, well illustrated.” – David Weinstein, CA-Modern Magazine / Eichler Network
Old Capitol Books 