A picture is not only worth a thousand words: It can sometimes inspire a whole invented world. Independent art historian Heidi Applegate explores the art and artists behind three works of historical fiction. Gain new perspectives on 18th-century portraits and landscapes by British painter Thomas Gainsborough; the imagined inspiration behind one of Asher Brown Durand’s best-known forest interiors; and the tragically brief life of Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta by delving into the novels, followed by Applegate’s examination of the factual background along with the fiction. It’s a “novel” way to explore the arts.
June 18 Emily Howes, The Painter’s Daughters, 2024
Peggy and Molly Gainsborough grow up running free in the countryside of Ipswich, aware of their father’s famous patrons as well as his preference for painting landscapes. The sisters come of age in the city of Bath, where they are compelled to behave more like the genteel subjects of a formal portrait, in hopes of attracting suitable husbands. A family secret rises like a pentimento—the detail of an earlier version that refuses to stay hidden below the surface layers of paint—and plot twists play out in parallel to the canvases that illustrate the novel.
July 23 Daniel Mason, North Woods, 2023
North Woods is the story of a place through time, including its human inhabitants as well as the flora and fauna that cycle through life over the span of centuries. Asher Brown Durand makes an appearance, in the guise of an artist named William Henry Teale, whose correspondence with a writer refers to key aspects of the New York City art world and exhibition scene of the mid-19th century.
August 20 Xochitl Gonzalez, Anita de Monte Laughs Last, 2024
Xochitl Gonzalez bases her character Anita de Monte on Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta, whose husband, the minimalist sculptor Carl Andre, was acquitted of murder by pushing her from the balcony of their 34th-floor apartment in Greenwich Village in 1985. The novel opens with Anita’s death, then alternates with events from the life of Raquel Toro, an art history student who devotes her senior thesis to Anita’s work. There is no question of Andre’s guilt in the novel, and Anita remains actively involved in the story from beyond the grave.
3 sessions
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