Contact: Peter Kayafas, Director, Eakins Press Foundation
(212) 764-2255

THE EAKINS PRESS FOUNDATION AND BALLET SOCIETY, INC. ANNOUNCE THE ONLINE PUBLICATION OF THE COMPLETE CATALOGUE OF THE PUBLISHED WRITINGS OF LINCOLN KIRSTEIN

A fully searchable database-driven interactive site representing the vast literary output and key life events of one of America's greatest cultural figures. www.lincolnkirstein.org 

New York City — The Eakins Press Foundation has just posted a website that will serve as the main source for learning about Lincoln Kirstein (1907-1996) and the massive contribution he made to American culture. Kirstein was one of America's most important cultural figures. Co-founder, with George Balanchine, of the School of American Ballet and the New York City Ballet, he was also a great patriot and champion of the arts in America. Starting in his early years at Harvard University, Kirstein used the written word to influence how audiences looked at classical art and new movements within a variety of media. He was the founder and publisher of the journal Hound & Horn; and founder of the Harvard Society for Contemporary Art, a precursor to the Museum of Modern Art. Kirstein wrote extensively, with force and erudition on all that interested him. This website presents a thorough listing, with excerpts and illustrations, of the writings published throughout his protean life. On these pages the reader will find an unmatched record of American cultural history— which will inform future generations in perpetuity—set forth through the prism of one of the great minds of the 20th century.

The website is designed with several sections in addition to the database-driven search engine of Kirstein's published writings. There is a comprehensive "About Lincoln Kirstein" section where users can click through a decade-by-decade biographical chronology of Kirstein's life; a section of short essays by such scholars as Leslie George Katz, A. Hyatt Mayor, Harvey Simmonds, Louis H. Silverstein and Nancy Lassalle; and there is a "Resources" page with descriptions of and links to the institutions that are central to Kirstein's posterity.

The intention of this website, in addition to serving as the primary internet portal for scholarship and interest in the life and accomplishments of Lincoln Kirstein, is to maintain the capacity to continually evolve and expand with changing technologies, so that, for instance, when full books become "readable" on line, much or all of Kirstein's writing can actually be read through this source.