In Passionate Pursuit: A Memoir

Art historian Comini is the author of a number of books on such notably tortured artists as Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. But in this warm memoir of her intellectual discovery of these and other artists, she exhibits few of their neuroses, and the contrast between their brooding lives and work and Comini's relentlessly chipper tone is a little unsettling. Her discovery of the grim prison cell in which Schiele spent a month in 1912 is viewed neither in terms of the artist nor the repressive culture that produced him, but as a pivotal moment in Comini's career, recounted with the same breathless enthusiasm as a musical performance or a mountain hike. And it is Comini's undeniably distinguished career that is the focus of her memoir. While not every memoirist is required to be a confessional Elisabeth Wurtzel type, too often this book is anything but. In small doses, Comini's narrative of warm friendships, rewarding research and endless, exotic travel is not without charm, and it is easy to see how she came to be voted ""outstanding professor"" at both Columbia and Southern Methodist, but the book's lack of darker notes, or even of simple reflectiveness, becomes wearying. The result is an adequate, if faintly self-regarding, outline of a life well lived, but its narrowness of focus represents a lost opportunity. 30 b&w illus.