Restless Ambition

Tracing Grace Hartigan's rise to fame as America's first self-taught painter, her troubled relationships, alcoholism, and struggles with reinvention, this biography explores her life. Classes to master drawing, friendships with Abstract Expressionists, and critical acclaim for her work followed. She was the youngest artist in MoMA's 12 Americans, and the only woman on The New American Painting's European tour. Moving to Baltimore, she trained students and painted her whole life seeking something truer than beauty.