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I’m 15 months away from being 100, so
listen carefully,” said Joan Kron, now
98 years young. “Apparently you’re all
here because you’ve heard about my
latest book, The Renegade Housewives of
Pop Art: A Memoir of the 1960s which
Suzy Slesin forced me to write. So far
as I’m concerned, it's the book of the
year.” Over 100 friends and admirers
came to see Joan, crowding into the
art-filled triplex of LaVon Kellner,
hosted by her son, Daniel Kron, and
stepson, Jonathan Marder, as well as
Pointed Leaf Press publisher Suzanne
Slesin.
Kron had come back to her native New
York for the opening of the Whitney
Museum’s Roy Lichtenstein exhibition
that features Super Sunset, a billboard
she commissioned from the artist in
1967.
In the 1960s, Joan Kron and Audrey Sabol
made history, collaborating with an
emerging group of artists—Jim Dine,
Jasper Johns, Allan Kaprow, Claes
Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed
Ruscha, George Segal, Jean Tinguely, and
Andy Warhol, to name a few. In 1962,
Kron and Sabol presented the first group
show of Pop Art on the East Coast. They
also went into business, producing
multiples with Robert Indiana, Roy
Lichtenstein, and Marisol Escobar. Sabol
and Kron’s swan song was the Museum of
Merchandise; it had a storefront by an
unknown named Christo and a
trouble-making product for sale by
rising star Andy Warhol.
Joan Kron was born and raised in New
York City. She graduated in costume
design from the Yale School of Drama
(now the David Geffen School of Drama at
Yale) before moving to Philadelphia. As
a founding member and head of the YM/YWHA
Arts Council, she co-produced several
Pop Art exhibitions. In her 40s, she
wrote for Philadelphia magazine, New
York Magazine, and The New York Times,
later joining The Wall Street Journal,
where she initiated the fashion beat.
She served as editor-in-chief of Avenue
magazine, before joining Conde Nast’s
Allure, where she created the
plastic-surgery beat. She went on to
produce and direct the prize-winning
documentary film Take My Nose Please!
Comediennes and Plastic Surgery. She is
the author of books including High-Tech:
the Industrial Style and Source Book for
the Home, with Suzanne Slesin (Clarkson
Potter, 1978) and Home-Psych: The Social
Psychology of Home and Decoration
(Clarkson Potter, 1983). Currently she
lives in Miami, Florida, and is at work
on her second film, Weapon of Beauty:
The Cloak and Dagger History of Botox.
At her book party Joan’s friends
included Teri Agins and J. Paul Hands,
Steven M.L. Aronson, Jeffrey Banks, Bina
and Walter Bernard, Myrna Blyth, Michele
Oka and Fred Doner, RoseLee Goldberg and
Dakota Jackson, Andrew Hawkins, Phoebe
Hoban, Jackie Hoffman, Michele Gerber
Klein and Leigh Seippel, W. Wilder
Knight II, Helen Little, Fern Mallis,
Gillian McCain and Jim Marshall, Liane
Pei, Virginia and Steve Postrel, Pascale
Richard, Jeff Roth, Susan Roy, Dan Shaw,
Barbara Tober, Désirée von la Valette,
and Saundra Whitney.
The Renegade Housewives of Pop Art,
published by Pointed Leaf Press, can be
pre-ordered at
www.pointedleafpress.com/order/the-renegade-housewives-of-pop-art-a-memoir-of-the-1960s
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