Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith
The already noteworthy career of the writing team of Steven Naifeh (1952--) and Gregory White Smith (1951–2014) took a dramatic turn when they moved from New York to South Carolina in 1989. That year marked the publication of their celebrated biography of Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1991 and served as the basis for the motion picture released in 2000 and starring Ed Harris.
Their relocation to the Palmetto State was prompted by their purchase in Aiken of the rambling Joye Cottage, the 1897 estate that once served as the winter home of financier William C. Whitney. The often-challenging renovation of the sixty-room residence became the basis for their bestselling On a Street Called Easy, In a Cottage Called Joye, published in 1996. The house and grounds became the inspiration for the annual Joye in Aiken festival for the performing arts.
Following the move to Aiken, Naifeh and Smith continued their experimentation in a variety of genres. They published two works in the category of true crime, Final Justice (1993), which was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and A Stranger in the Family (1996). The year 1997 saw the publication of Making Miracles Happen, Smith’s personal narrative of his then-ten-year quest to manage an inoperable brain tumor. Given only three months to live, Smith survived until 2014 through a combination of 13 surgeries and experimental treatments.
The ultimate achievement of Naifeh and Smith was the publication of their monumental biography Van Gogh: The Life (2011), which garnered worldwide attention, including two segments on the CBS weekly news program 60 Minutes. Ten years in the making and nine hundred pages in length, the book is now the definitive work on the topic.
Although both graduates of Harvard Law School, Naifeh, born to parents in the diplomatic corps, and Smith, a native of Ithaca, New York, decided instead to pursue paths tied to the arts and humanities. Most recently, Naifeh has renewed his career as a painter and sculptor, producing works that stand at the intersection of Middle Eastern geometric design and mid-twentieth-century hard-edge abstraction.
-- Tom Mack
Their relocation to the Palmetto State was prompted by their purchase in Aiken of the rambling Joye Cottage, the 1897 estate that once served as the winter home of financier William C. Whitney. The often-challenging renovation of the sixty-room residence became the basis for their bestselling On a Street Called Easy, In a Cottage Called Joye, published in 1996. The house and grounds became the inspiration for the annual Joye in Aiken festival for the performing arts.
Following the move to Aiken, Naifeh and Smith continued their experimentation in a variety of genres. They published two works in the category of true crime, Final Justice (1993), which was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and A Stranger in the Family (1996). The year 1997 saw the publication of Making Miracles Happen, Smith’s personal narrative of his then-ten-year quest to manage an inoperable brain tumor. Given only three months to live, Smith survived until 2014 through a combination of 13 surgeries and experimental treatments.
The ultimate achievement of Naifeh and Smith was the publication of their monumental biography Van Gogh: The Life (2011), which garnered worldwide attention, including two segments on the CBS weekly news program 60 Minutes. Ten years in the making and nine hundred pages in length, the book is now the definitive work on the topic.
Although both graduates of Harvard Law School, Naifeh, born to parents in the diplomatic corps, and Smith, a native of Ithaca, New York, decided instead to pursue paths tied to the arts and humanities. Most recently, Naifeh has renewed his career as a painter and sculptor, producing works that stand at the intersection of Middle Eastern geometric design and mid-twentieth-century hard-edge abstraction.
-- Tom Mack
