Helena Rubinstein: Beauty Is Power
by: Klein, Mason

Hardcover. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 168 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy still in shrink wrap. Color and black & white images throughout. Tight copy. Helena Rubinstein: Beauty Is Power traces the path of this remarkable early feminist and visionary art patron. In Rubinstein's world, art and commerce blended seamlessly. She ornamented her salons and homes with splendid artworks--Surrealist murals, modernist portraits, Art Deco furniture, Venetian mirrors, and one of the era's great collections of African and Oceanic art. Her understanding of beauty was similarly expansive and democratic: she saw the face as the site for self-expression and the exploration of identity. The Rubinstein beauty program thus included not only makeup and hairdressing, but also lessons in health, deportment, and culture. Such features, innovative at the time and wildly popular, today provide a fascinating glimpse into popular culture as it affected women in the 20th century.