Anne Truitt's Daybook

"Artists have no choice but to express their lives. They have only ... a choice of process."                             ~~Anne Truitt


Renowned American artist Anne Truitt kept this illuminating and inspiring journal over a period of seven years, determined to come to terms with the forces that shaped her art and life. Her range of sensitivity—moral, intellectual, sensual, emotional, and spiritual— is remarkably broad. She recalls her childhood on the eastern shore of Maryland, her career change from psychology to art, and her path to a sculptural practice that would “set color free in three dimensions.” 

She reflects on the generous advice of other artists, watches her own daughters’ journey into motherhood, meditates on criticism and solitude, and struggles to find the way to express her vision. Resonant and true, encouraging and revelatory, Anne Truitt guides herself—and her readers—through a life in which domestic activities and the needs of children and friends are constantly juxtaposed against the world of color and abstract geometry to which she is drawn in her art


Beautifully written and a rare window on the workings of a creative mind, Daybook showcases an extraordinary artist whose insights generously and succinctly illuminate the artistic process.     (Scribner Summary)   

The Estate of Anne Truitt is represented exclusively by Matthew Marks Gallery. Truitt, a major figure in American art for more than 40 years, abandoned work in psychology and nursing in the 1950s to concentrate on art. Truitt drew, painted, and wrote, but she is best know for her large, vertical, wooden sculpture meticulously covered in many coats of pain.  (Matthew Marks Gallery website)   

Anne Truitt (March 16, 1921 - December 23, 2004) born Anne Dean, was born in Baltimore and grew up in Easton, on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Her eyesight was so poor when she was a child that until she got glasses she didn't realize trees had individual leaves. Instead, she saw them as large masses of color and form which critics have suggested was an influence on her later work. In her late teens, she was sent to North Carolina to recover from a burst appendix and spent a summer playing volleyball with the writer Zelda Fitzgerald, who was a patient at a nearby psychiatric hospital.  She graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a degree in psychology in 1943.

Thanks to Scribner, a division of Simon & Shuster via NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review the e-book ARC (advance readers copy) for the newest edition of Anne Truitt's Daybook was published October 8th 2013.