Ninth Street women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler : five painters and the movement that changed modern art

Introduction

Prologue: The Ninth Street show, New York, May 1951

Part One, 1928-1948. Lee: Lena, Lenore, Lee ; The gathering storm ; The end of the beginning

Elaine : Marie Catherine Mary Ellen O'Brien Fried's daughter ; The master and Elaine

Art in war : The flight of the artists ; It is war, everywhere, always ; Chelsea ; Intellectual occupation ; The high beam ; A light that blinds, I ; A light that blinds, II

The turning point : It's 1919 over again! ; Awakenings ; Separate together ; Peintres maudits ; Lyrical desperation ; Death visits the Kingdom of the Saints ; The new Arcadia

Part Two, 1948-1951. Grace : The call of the wild ; The acts of the Apostles, I ; The acts of the Apostles, II ; Fame ; The flowering ; Riot and risk

Helen : The deep end of wonder ; The thrill of it ; The puppet master

Joan : Painted poems ; Mexico to Manhattan via Paris and Prague ; Waifs and minstrels

Part Three, 1951-1955. Oh, to leave a trace : Coming out ; The perils of discovery ; Said the poet to the painter ; Neither by design nor definition

Discoveries of heart and hand : Swimming against a riptide ; At the threshold ; Figures and speech ; Refuge ; A change of art ; Life or art ; The Red House

Five women : The grand girls, I ; The grand girls, II ; The grand girls, III

Part Four, 1956-1959. The rise and the unraveling : Embarkation point ; Without him ; The gold rush ; A woman's decision ; Sputnik, beatnik, and pop ; Bridal lace and widow's weeds ; Five paths... ; ...Forward

Epilogue.