The last weekend in June will see scores of devoted historical fiction fans and authors (some are both!) descend upon Denver, Colorado to enjoy three days of talks, dinners, costume pageants, and special workshops--all about Historical Fiction!
I will be a member of a very special panel about Art & Artists in Historical Fiction, led by Stephanie Renee dos Santos, and featuring Alana White, Donna Russo Morin and Stephanie Cowell -- all of us have written books about famous artists or art pieces, and we are eager to share our love of art in historical fiction and our experiences writing about it.
In addition, I am the moderator for a second panel on the subject of The Historical Mystery Series, with Anna Lee Huber, Samuel Thomas, Lauren Willig, and Lindsey Davis. Mysteries are tricky enough to write, but add in the historical element and the fun gets even more intense! Hear all about it at our Saturday morning panel.
More information about the Historical Novel Society North American Conference can be found here: www.hns-conference.org. Check it out today!
Serendipity strikes again! The Historical Novel Society Conference in June in St. Petersburg, Florida, has yielded up a great new connection and resource from the extensive network of the historical fiction sister-and-brother-hood! Bruce Macbain, author of Roman Games and The Bull Slayer, and his wife Carol, purchased my Sargent book and lent it to a friend, Wendy Soneson, who happens to be a terrific artist and great fan of Sargent's. Wendy is currently scheduled to give demonstrations of Sargent's watercolor technique at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in October, in conjunction with the huge exhibit of Sargent's watercolors there. Her websites are well worth looking at: www.wendysoneson.com and www.watercolorweekly.com for both the Sargent paintings and her own portraits and landscapes.
In the meantime, here is a wonderful version by Wendy of that infamous Amelie Gautreau (Madame X) in one of the gazillion poses Sargent tried before he found the right one. And a few more of his paintings, a la Wendy.
I just read an oddly entertaining historical novel, A Weekend at Blenheim, by J.P. Morrissey, that included not only Winston Churchill (as might be expected) but also John Singer Sargent! It is a gnarly tale of deceit, arrogance, lust, hate and blind ambition, and the aristocracy comes off as most unattractive to say the least. Consuelo (nee Vanderbilt) was an American heiress who was quite blatantly "married off" to the 9th Duke of Marlborough (known as "Sunny" which he absolutely was not) when they were both quite young, in 1895. Consuelo's wedding present of $2.5 million pretty much saved Blenheim from crumbling to pieces. The two were divorced, quite messily, by 1921. Anyway, in the novel, Sargent is there for the weekend, along with the purely fictional protagonist who is the plebian observer of all the wretched goings-on. Sargent is spoken of, sotto voce, as a "sodomist", yet is witnessed in flagrante with the Duchess by our intrepid observer who sees them through a window--the Duchess is posing nude while Sargent, also nude, makes ardently drawn charcoal sketches of her, then falls upon her with decided passion! (my my!)
Sargent did indeed paint an enormous portrait of the Duke's family (above)--not at all his best effort, imho--but he was "told" that it was to complement an earlier painting of the 4th Duke and his family by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Here is Reynolds' portrait, as well as a sketch of Duchess Consuelo by Sargent.
Hmm, maybe there was something to that fictional affair after all?
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| Bedouins |
The Brooklyn Museum of Art is about to open a major exhibition of John Singer Sargent's watercolors, from April 5 through July 28th. As described on the museum's website: "This landmark exhibition unites for the first time the John Singer
Sargent watercolors acquired by the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston, in the early twentieth century. The culmination of a
yearlong collaborative study by both museums, John Singer Sargent Watercolors explores
the watercolor practice that has traditionally been viewed as a
tangential facet of Sargent’s art making. The ninety-three pieces on
display provide a once-in-a-generation opportunity to view a broad range
of the artist’s finest production in the medium."
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| Bridge of Sighs, Venice |
I'm delighted to add that the museum gift store will have my novel, Portraits of an Artist, in stock and for sale during the exhibition.Thanks, Brooklyn!
