Seldon Rodman was born in New York City and educated at Yale University. His parents were wealthy; his father died before he was a year old, and his mother’s family money provided him with a trust fund. With Alfred Bingham, he co-founded Common Sense, a radical magazine of politics, economics and culture that criticized the New Deal and Communism. From 1943 to 1945, Rodman served in the Office of Strategic Services.
Rodman wrote over forty books, including poetry, travel, cultural criticism, and art history. He was a collector of folk art, promoting especially the work of Haitian artists, and was co-director of Le Centre d’Art in Port-au-Prince. Rodman wrote the first monograph on Horace Pippin and the first biography of Ben Shahn.
Rodman’s books of poetry are: Mortal Triumph and Other Poems (1932), Lawrence: The Last Crusade: A Poem of the Three Lives of T.E. Lawrence (1937), The Airmen: A Poem in Four Parts (1941), The Amazing Year: May 1, 1945 – April 30, 1946: A Diary In Verse (1947), and Death of the Hero (1964), a poem about Frederick Banting, discoverer of insulin. He also wrote one play, The Revolutionists: A Tragedy in Three Acts (1942).
He edited several anthologies, including: Challenge to the New Deal (1938), A New Anthology of Modern Poetry (with Alfred Bingham, 1938), The Poetry of Flight: An Anthology (1941), War and the Poet: An Anthology of Poetry Expressing Man’s Attitudes to War from Ancient Times to the Present (1945), 100 Modern Poems (with Richard Eberhart, 1949), and 100 American Poems (with Richard Eberhart, 1971).
His nonfiction books include: Horace Pippin: A Negro Painter in America (1947), Renaissance in Haiti: Popular Painters in the Black Republic (1948), Portrait Of The Artist As An American, Ben Shahn: A Biography With Pictures (1951), Haiti: the Black Republic, The Complete Story and Guide (1954), The Eye of Man: Form and Content in Western Painting (1955), Mexican Journal: The Conquerors Conquered (1958), The Insiders: Rejection and Rediscovery of Man in the Arts of Our Time (1960), Conversations with Artists (1961), The Heart of Beethoven (1962), Quisqueya, a History of the Dominican Republic (1964), The Road to Panama: A Journey Through Mexico and Central America (1966), The Guatemala Traveler: A Concise History and Guide (1967), The Peru Traveler: A Concise History and Guide (1967), The Caribbean (1968), South America of the Poets (1970), The Columbia Traveler: A Complete History and Guide (1971), The Miracle of Haitian Art (1974), The Brazil Traveler: History, Culture, Literature, and the Arts (1975), Genius in the Backlands: Popular Artists of Brazil (1977), Artists in Tune with Their World: Masters of Popular Art in the Americas & Their Relation to the Folk Tradition (1982), Spirits of the Night: Vaudun Gods of Haiti (with Carole Cleaver, 1992), Geniuses and Other Eccentrics(1994) and Where Art Is Joy: Haitian Art: The First Forty Years (1994).
The Homes
Selden Rodman
1207 35th St NW, Washington, DC
Located in Georgetown neighborhood, Northwest- West of Rock Creek