Discipline: Literature

Loudon Wainwright

Discipline: Literature
Region: New York, NY
MacDowell Fellowships: 1976, 1977
Loudon Wainwright (1924-1988) joined the staff of Life magazine and worked in a variety of positions over the years, including covering the Mercury astronauts. He and John Glenn listened to the inauguration speech of John F. Kennedy while riding in Glenn's car in 1961. In 1964 he began writing "The View From Here," a regular column in the magazine that appeared until the magazine ceased weekly publication in 1972. From 1969 on he also served as assistant managing editor. When Life resumed publication as a monthly in 1978, he joined its staff as an editor, and continued to contribute to its pages after retiring from that position in 1985. After his death, the magazine published a retrospective in the February 1989 issue with excerpts from some of the 200 columns he had written for it over the years. He was the father of folk singer Loudon Wainwright III, and was also the author of The Great American Magazine: An Inside History of Life, an informal history of the magazine.

Studios

Van Zorn (formerly Kirby)

Loudon Wainwright worked in the Van Zorn (formerly Kirby) studio.

Constructed thanks to a bequest from Sarah L. Kirby, Kirby Studio was the last new building to be erected during Mrs. MacDowell’s leadership (1907-1951). The load-bearing masonry walls were laid by local mason Augustus Beaulieu atop a fieldstone foundation. A 1995 renovation preserved the brick fireplace with wooden mantel and…

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