“Living with him was like living at the centre of the universe. It was electrifying and humbling, blissful and destructive, all at the same time.” Paris in 1936, and when Dora Maar, a talented French photographer, painter and poet, is introduced to Pablo Picasso, she is instantly mesmerized. Drawn to his volcanic creativity, it isn’t […]
Holbein: The Ambassadors by Tracy Borman
Holbein’s The Ambassadors is one of the most famous paintings in the National Gallery. It is also one of the most intriguing. Laden with hidden symbols and mysteries, the work has been the subject of intense debate among historians during the five centuries since it was created. Tracy Borman’s book unpicks the secrets of this enigmatic artwork, […]
Madame Matisse by Sophie Haydock
This is the story of three women — one an orphan and refugee who finds a place in the studio of a famous French artist, the other a wife and mother who has stood by her husband for nearly forty years. The third is his daughter, caught in the crossfire between her mother and a […]
The hidden stories of the First World War
When Lucy Steeds was researching her debut novel, The Artist, she realised that writing about art in the 1920s was impossible without an understanding of how the First World War had left its mark — physical or mental — on everyone who lived through it. One powerful source was nurses’ testimonies. Here she writes about […]
Dora Maar: much more than a muse
Even now, Dora Maar is probably remembered for being Picasso’s lover and the subject of many of his paintings rather than as the innovative artist she was. Louisa Treger, whose latest novel retells her story, explains why Dora was much more than a muse. For years, the epithet ‘Picasso’s Weeping Woman’ has followed every mention […]
Review: Later Stuart Queens, 1660–1735
Linda Porter reviews a new and timely book about the later Stuart queens. This is an important and interesting collection of essays, she says — but how many will be able to afford to read it? Historia readers may be taken aback by a review of a book with the eye-watering price of more than […]
Disobedient by Elizabeth Fremantle
Rome in 1611 is a jewel-bright place of change, with sumptuous new palaces and lavish wealth on display. A city where women are seen but not heard. Artemisia Gentileschi dreams of becoming a great artist. Motherless, she grows up among a family of painters — men and boys. She knows she is more talented than […]
Disobedient by Elizabeth Fremantle
Rome in 1611 is a jewel-bright place of change, with sumptuous new palaces and lavish wealth on display. A city where women are seen but not heard. Artemisia Gentileschi dreams of becoming a great artist. Motherless, she grows up among a family of painters — men and boys. She knows she is more talented than […]