Sargent's Women - Four Lives Behind the Canvas

With unprecedented access to newly discovered sources, Donna M. Lucey illuminates the lives of four women painted by the society portraitist John Singer Sargent. With uncanny clairvoyance, Sargent's portraits hint at the mysteries, passions and tragedies that unfolded in his subjects' lives. Elsie Palmer carried on a labyrinthine love life in a Rocky Mountain castle; Elizabeth Chanler stepped into a maze of infidelity with her best friend's husband; as the veiled image of Sally Fairchild emerged on the canvas, her sister was lured into an ill-fated life in art; and shrewd Isabella Stewart Gardner collected both art and young men. Born to unimaginable wealth, these women lived on an operatic scale; their letters and diaries create a rich depiction of the Gilded Age and the painter whose canvases defined the era.

About the author

Donna M. Lucey is the author of the New York Times best-selling Archie and Amélie and other books, the recipient of two National Endowment for the Humanities grants, and a 2017 writer-in-residence at Edith Wharton’s The Mount. The media editor at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, she lives in Charlottesville.

Summary

The fascinating backstories of four women painted by John Singer Sargent come alive in this seductive, multi-layered biography.

Product details

• Authors: Donna M. Lucey, Lucey Donna M.
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 22.09.2017
• EAN: 9780393079036
• ISBN: 978-0-393-07903-6
• Dimensions: 168 mm x 244 mm x 30 mm
• Weight: 561 g
• Illustrations: 8 pages of color illustrations
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art; Collected biographies, ART / Individual Artists / General, Biography: arts & entertainment, Individual artists, art monographs, Biography: arts and entertainment