A Man Named Jed

New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century, by Jed Perl (Knopf, 656 pp., $35)

THE last time I saw Jed Perl, he was bounding down the long ramp of New York’s Guggenheim Museum, just as I was hoofing it up. The occasion was the press preview for “David Smith: A Centennial.” In my bag, I happened to be carrying Perl’s massive new book, New Art City: a Sisyphean labor of a read, the type of book you curse for its length as you turn the page for more. Hauling it up the endless spiral of Frank Lloyd Wright’s museum, I found the moment appropriately poetic.

JP

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James Panero

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New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century, by Jed Perl (Knopf, 656 pp., $35)

THE last time I saw Jed Perl, he was bounding down the long ramp of New York’s Guggenheim Museum, just as I was hoofing it up. The occasion was the press preview for “David Smith: A Centennial.” In my bag, I happened to be carrying Perl’s massive new book, New Art City: a Sisyphean labor of a read, the type of book you curse for its length as you turn the page for more. Hauling it up the endless spiral of Frank Lloyd Wright’s museum, I found the moment appropriately poetic.