A candid and irreplaceable memoir of the mid-twentieth-century New York art scene and its colorful characters, by renowned artist and critic Edith Schloss. The Loft Generation: From the de Koonings to Twombly; Portraits and Sketches, 1942–2011 is an invaluable account by Edith Schloss, an artist at the center of a landmark era in American art. Born in Germany, Schloss moved to New York City during World War II and became part of a thriving community of artists and intellectuals that included Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Larry Rivers, John Cage, and Frank O'Hara. She married the photographer and filmmaker Rudy Burckhardt. As both a working artist and an incisive critic, Schloss was a candid and gimlet-eyed witness to the close-knit community that shifted the center of the art world from Paris to New York. In Italy, she spent time with Giorgio Morandi, Cy Twombly, Meret Oppenheim, and Francesca Woodman. The Loft Generation offers a rare and up-close record of an era of artistic innovation and the colorful characters who made it happen. Schloss's canny observations are indispensable reading for all critics and researchers of this vital period in American art.