Niamh Twomey
Doctoral Student in Literature - Niamh’s thesis is entitled ‘“Ease them into sight”: The Women of the New York School'.
Research Project Title:
“Ease them into sight”: The Women of the New York School
Supervisors:
Dr Mark Byers and Dr Stephen Moonie (SACS)
Contact Details:
Email: n.twomey@newcastle.ac.uk
Research Interests:
- Poetry in 1950s 1960s
- The visual art scene of New York; Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, Minimalism
- The historical context of New York’s rise to cultural and economic superpower following the Second World War
- The Mimeograph Revolution of the 1960s
Brief Outline of Research Project:
This intersectional, multi-disciplinary study pays close attention to the women of a group of poets and painters operating in mid-twentieth-century New York named the “New York School”. In academia, more often, space has been given to the male poets and painters of the era, such as Frank O’Hara, Jackson Pollock, Kenneth Koch and Willem de Kooning. The women they collaborated with, were inspired by, and drew from are lesser-known. This thesis sheds light on Abstract Expressionist painters Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler, alongside poet Barbara Guest. Guest serves as the centre of the project, given the elements of her poetry that are likened to the mood of the visual art scene during this period - both by Guest herself and her critics.