~Book Riot.com
One good artist deserves another, and so we come to a list of novels written about the art world, art, artists, and everything in between. If you love art - if you have have enjoyed films such as Basquiat, Frida, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Goya, The Rape of Europa, Pollock, Surviving Picasso, Exit Through the Gift Shop, The Art of the Steal, and Herb and Dorothy - if you read biographies of artists and check out art books from the catalog - perhaps you'd like to try something fictional but still firmly planted in the art world? We have compiled a list of likely contenders to stimulate your senses from the library catalog.
Do you have a favorite novel which features art? Let us know in the comments!
The Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber [art forgers, extortion]
The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland [Artemisia Gentileschi, 1593-1652 or 1653; painting]
The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro [Edgar Degas; art forgers]
Sacré Bleu by Christopher Moore [blue in art; humor]
Cascade by Maryanne O’Hara (eBook) [artists; marriage; 1930s]
Theft by Peter Carey [Australia; painting]
The Floating Girl by Sujata Massey [Japan; manga; mystery]
Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins [postmodern art; sculpture]
The Recognitions by William Gaddis [art forgeries]
An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin [art auctions, humor]
The Horse’s Mouth by Joyce Cary [painters; psychological fiction]
The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Costova [painters; art appreciation]
Asylum by Patrick McGrath [sculpture; psychological fiction]
The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone [Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564; biographical fiction]
The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham [Paul Gauguin, 1848-1903; psychological fiction]
The Book of Evidence by John Banville [art theft; psychological suspense]
My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok [artists; young men; New York]
The Moor’s Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie ["the seductions and mysteries of art"]
The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour (YA) [artists; road trip; coming of age]
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner [women artists; Futurism]
Murder as Fine Art by David Morrell [historical mystery; Thomas De Quincey, 1785-1859]
The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier [textile industry; Belgium & France; 15th century]
Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut [Abstract Expressionism; Armenian American artists]
Tell The Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt [painters; family; coming of age]
The Art of Murder by Jose Carlos Somoza [Modern Art; mystery]
I Am Madame X by Gioia Diliberto [John Singer Sargent, 1856-1925; historical fiction]
The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan [Paris; 1870-1940; artists' models]
The Sarantine Mosaic (duology) by Guy Gavriel Kay [mosaicists; Byzantine Empire]
Memory and Dream by Charles de Lint [women artists; fantasy fiction]
The Fallen Angel by Daniel Silva [art restoration; spy fiction]
And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander [archaeological thefts; mystery]
What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt [art history; domestic fiction]
Hunting and Gathering by Anna Gavalda [women artists; men/women relations; Paris]
Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood [women painters; Toronto; female friendships]
Life Class by Pat Barker [physicians as artists; World War I]
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde [portraits; mystery]
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant [women painters; Florence; 1421-1737]
The Matisse Stories by A.S. Byatt [stories inspired by art]
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson [performance artists; family]
This list compiled from a list in the article "43 Novels Featuring Art" and the "Art & Artists in Fiction" list on Goodreads.
2 comments:
The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
Also, The Altarpiece by Lauren Fogle Boyd -- about Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece during World War II. I wouldn't call it great writing, but it's an interesting story -- and mostly a fictional account of what The Monuments Men by Robert Edsel covers.
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