Rosamond Bernier has lived an unusually full life―remarkable for its vividness and diversity of experience―and she has known many (one is tempted to say all) of the greatest artists and composers of the twentieth century. In Some of My Lives , Bernier has made a kind of literary scrapbook from an extraordinary array of writings, ranging from diary entries to her many contributions to the art journal L'OEIL , which she cofounded in 1955. The result is a multifaceted self-portrait of a life informed and surrounded by the arts. Through the stories of her encounters with some of the twentieth century's great artists and composers―including Pablo Picasso, Leonard Bernstein, Max Ernst, Aaron Copeland, Malcolm Lowry, and Karl Lagerfeld―we come to understand the sheer richness of Bernier's experiences, interactions, and memories. The result is pithy, hilarious, and wise―a richly rewarding chronicle of many lives fully lived. “In Paris, she had Picasso's ear, and Matisse's, too. Back when blue laws shut Philadelphia down on Sundays, Stokowski came over to her house for dinner. Her long marriage to the art critic John Russell counts as one of the great love stories of our era. Rosamond Bernier, storyteller extraordinaire, friend and confidante to countless of the twentieth century's cultural icons, has written a remarkable memoir of a remarkable life. Intimate, winning, sunny, and smart, Some of My Lives has a voice not unlike the one in Diana Vreeland's autobiography--only here, all of it is true.” ― Michael Kimmelman “Wonders never cease in the life of Rosamond Bernier. As the Paris-based European editor of Vogue , she saw the world through the chiffon trenches of haute couture. As the cofounding editor of L'OEIL , the most influential art magazine of her time, she befriended artists like Picasso, Miró, and Matisse (who suggested she wear a yellow scarf with her orange Balenciaga coat). Some of My Lives is a delicious mosaic of a life elegantly, enchantingly lived.” ― André Leon Talley “Rosamond Bernier's new memoir moves with the unflagging brio, wit, and style of her public lectures and her private conversation. The effect is pure pleasure--a brilliant life, beautifully evoked.” ― Calvin Tomkins “Rosamond Bernier's gorgeous ‘scrapbook' of a memoir is an exhilarating hopscotch through twentieth-century art that had me careening from the middle to the beginning to the back, delighting in her encounters with everyone who mattered. Bernier makes me believe in string theory. She just might be the unifying force behind everything.” ― John Guare Rosamond Bernier was born in Philadelphia and was educated in France, England, and America. In 1955, she cofounded the influential art magazine L'OEIL , which featured the works of the masters of the School of Paris. A renowned lecturer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rosamond Bernier was named for life to the International Best-Dressed List. Some of My Lives A Scrapbook Memoir By Rosamond Bernier Farrar, Straus and Giroux Copyright © 2011 Rosamond Bernier All right reserved. ISBN: 9780374266615 Some of My Lives Disgrace M y English mother, Rosamond Rawlins, left her native shores to marry my father, Samuel R. Rosenbaum, the eldest son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants, at the beginning of World War I. He was brilliant, the president of his class at the University of Pennsylvania, president of his year at law school, editor of the law review, Phi Beta Kappa. And what did he do but marry my mother, an Episcopalian. His family said the Kaddish over him and never met my mother. I hardly ever saw them.I was born in 1916, two years into World War I, in Philadelphia. My mother was quintessentially English and patriotic. Her brother Hugh had been killed fighting in the trenches. His photograph in uniform, a handsome sensitive face, hung over our staircase.I was brought up like a little English girl: riding lessons began at age four. I went for my lessons to Foley's Riding Academy, where Miss Eleanor Foley in admirably fitted jodhpurs guided my efforts from a leading rein. I won my first medal at six. A photograph records me on my pony Teddy happily holding my silver cup. It was only second place--but there was a cup to go with it! Two years later there was a blue medal for jumping, first place!Naturally, I had to have a governess; a French governess would be best. Both parents were excellent linguists. Because my mother missed her family and her country, we went to England several times a year, sailing on one of the ships of the Royal Mail Lines. We stayed at Aunt Queenie's in London. I was very impressed because the toilet in her flat was at the end of a corridor, not part of the bathroom. I had never seen this before. Her daughter was called Aunt Olive. She was always described as the picture of rectitude.Many years later, in 1949, I opened a copy of Time , and therewas an article about Aunt Olive: she had been murdered by someone who came to be calle