This Fantastic Struggle:  The Life and Art of Esther Phillips

Book Reviews
By Walter C. Kidney

Lisa A. Miles. This Fantastic Struggle:  The Life and Art of Esther Phillips, © 2002.
457 pages, 32 color, 27 b/w illustrations.

This is the story of a Pittsburgh artist who worked here in the 1920s and 30s, moved to New York , spent several years in a mental hospital, recovered, and eventually died in New York . Esther Phillips was an artist never famous, always close to starvation, but with a few loyal friends, including Landmarks’ co-founder James D. Van Trump.

Research for the book took at least 10 years, and it is no surprise that Jamie Van Trump often speaks; when he does, he claims a large share of the interest. According to Jamie, “Esther’s lifestyle might not have been everything, but somehow or other she was a free soul.” He recalled that “she had an attic room in an old Victorian mansion on Dithridge Street —the top story. It only had one dormer. She took the glass out. We said, “Why did you take the window out?” Her response was, ‘Oh, the rain can now come in. I like that.’”

Merle Hoyleman, Leon Arkus, Mary Shaw, and others prominent in the Pittsburgh arts scene a half-century ago are frequently mentioned. Correspondence and other documentation on Esther’s life are cited copiously. This story is told against the background of artistic trends here and in New York. Appropriately, the book itself is artistic and intimate in its design.