Annalyn Swan (born ca. 1951 in

Biloxi, Mississippi Biloxi ( ; ) is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, United States. It lies on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast in southern Mississippi, bordering the city of Gulfport, Mississippi, Gulfport to its west. The adjacent cities ar ...

) is an American writer and biographer who has written extensively about the arts. With her husband, art critic Mark Stevens, she is the author of '' de Kooning: An American Master'' (2004), a biography of Dutch-American artist

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning ( , ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married pa ...

, which was awarded the 2005

Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography The Pulitzer Prize for Biography is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. The award honors "a distinguished and appropriately documented biography by an American author." Award winners receive ...

. ''De Kooning'' also won the

National Book Critics Circle The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) is an American nonprofit organization (501(c) organization, 501(c)(3)) with more than 700 members. It is the professional association of American book review editors and critics, known primarily for the N ...

prize for biography and the ''Los Angeles Times'' biography award, and was named one of the 10 best books of 2005 by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''. In her review in ''The New York Times'',

Janet Maslin Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, who served as a film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1977 to 1999, serving as chief critic for the last six years, and then a literary critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000, M ...

wrote: "The elusiveness of its subject makes the achievements of ''de Kooning: An American Master'' that much more dazzling." A

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States. It was founded in 1776 at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, ...

graduate of

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

(Class of 1973), Swan was the first woman editor-in-chief of ''The Daily Princetonian''. She was named a

Marshall Scholar The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is considered among the most prestigious scholarshi ...

and earned her master's degree at

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

. She began her writing career at ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'', then joined ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

'' in 1980 as music critic, becoming the magazine's senior arts editor in 1983. In 1986–1990 she was editor-in-chief of ''Savvy'', a magazine for professional women. She later taught at Princeton University, where she was named a trustee in 1999. Swan has written for numerous publications, including ''The New Republic'' and ''Vanity Fair'', and is the winner of an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award and a

Front Page Award The Front Page Award is an award given by the Newswomen's Club of New York to honor journalistic achievement by women.Newswomen's Club of New YorkThe Front Page Awards, Retrieved August 3, 2015, "...One of the Most Prestigious Awards in Journalism. ...

for her music criticism. She is currently visiting professor and serves on the advisory boards at the Leon Levy Biography Center at the Graduate Center, the

City University of New York The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...

. Swan was named "Biloxian Made Good" in 2011. In 2021, Swan and Mark Stevens published a biography of the British artist

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...

, ''Francis Bacon: Revelations'', with

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...

(UK) and

Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Blanche Knopf and Alfred A. Knopf Sr. in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers ...

(US). They have two children.

Works

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References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Swan, Annalyn Living people Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners Princeton University alumni Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Place of birth missing (living people) American art historians American women art historians 20th-century American historians 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American historians 21st-century American biographers 21st-century American women writers Princeton University faculty CUNY Graduate Center faculty Time (magazine) people Newsweek people People from Biloxi, Mississippi Writers from Mississippi American women autobiographers American autobiographers 1951 births American magazine editors National Book Critics Circle Award winners