Nemerov

Or, as her brother, the poet Howard Nemerov, put it, “freaks, professional transvestites, strong men, tattooed men, the children of the very rich.”

Andrew Nemerov’s ‘Fierce Poise: Helen Frankenthaler and 1950s New York’ charts the rise of an Abstract Expressionist painter knocked for her privilege.

Alexander Nemerov has taken the latter approach in “Fierce Poise,” his vibrant, sympathetic portrait of Helen Frankenthaler.

Nemerov, the son of the celebrated poet Howard Nemerov and nephew of photographer Diane Arbus, grew up in the same rarified world as Frankenthaler.

An art historian at Stanford, Nemerov is a thoughtful and judicious writer.