Art and literature have always been close companions, each inspiring and complementing the other endlessly. Throughout time, writers have been captivated by the lives of artists, just as artists have been driven to bring fictional characters to life through their work. Novels, much like works of art, have the remarkable power to take us us beyond our everyday routines and into the realm of imagination.
As summer draws to a close, I’ve curated a selection of novels for art lovers, books with the power to transport you to a whole new, imaginative world.
Bianca Bosker, an award-winning journalist obsessed with obsession, found her life turned upside down when she wandered into the art world, yet couldn’t look away. Plunging deep inside the world of art and the people who live for it, she discovers not only the inner workings of the art-canonization machine but also a more expansive way of living.
Bianca immerses herself as a gallery assistant, artist assistant, museum security guard, and more, as part of a journey to understand why art matters and how we can engage with it more deeply.
When Annie McDee stumbles across a dirty painting in a junk shop while looking for a present for an unsuitable man, she has no idea what she has discovered. Soon she finds herself drawn unwillingly into the tumultuous London art world, populated by parties who would do anything to possess her picture: a lost eighteenth-century masterpiece called ‘The Improbability of Love’. In her search for the painting’s identity, Annie will unknowingly discover some of the darkest secrets of European history—and the possibility of falling in love again.
Claire makes her living reproducing famous works of art for a popular online retailer. Desperate to improve her situation, she agrees to forge a stolen painting in exchange for a one-woman show in a renowned gallery. But when the long-missing painting is delivered to Claire’s studio, she begins to suspect that it may itself be a forgery. Claire’s search for the truth about the painting’s origins leads her into a labyrinth of deceit where secrets hidden since the late nineteenth century may be the only evidence that can now save her life. Based on the famous Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art heist, it’s a dazzling novel about seeing—and not seeing—the secrets that lie beneath the canvas.
Featuring a clever dual timeline plot, we are first introduced to Odelle Bastien, a young woman from Trinidad with ambitions as a writer, who applies for a job at the Skelton art gallery. It’s when Odelle encourages her love interest, Lawrie Scott to bring a painting he wants to sell to the gallery, that things get interesting. The truth about the painting lies in 1936 and a large house in rural Spain, where Olive Schloss, the daughter of a renowned art dealer, is harbouring ambitions of her own. Burton moves between these two timeframes with care and craft. There are parallels and echoes between the two stories, both featuring young women with creative gifts, who, for different reasons, lack confidence in themselves. Burton’s descriptions of doubt and anxiety, about the purpose of art and what it means to think of yourself as an artist, especially as a young woman, are particularly resonant.
This is a story about rivalry among artists. Not the kind of rivalry that grows out of hatred and dislike, but rather, rivalry that emerges from admiration, friendship, love. The kind of rivalry that existed between Degas and Manet, Picasso and Matisse, Pollock and de Kooning, and Freud and Bacon. These were some of the most famous and creative relationships in the history of art, driving each individual to heights of creativity and inspiration—and provoking them to despair, jealousy and betrayal. The book explores how, as both artists struggled to come into their own, they each played vital roles in provoking the other’s creative breakthroughs, ultimately determining the course of modern art itself.
Theo Decker is a young boy who survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. This becomes the catalyst for a decade of adventure, sorrow, mystery, and redemption for Theo. Combining unforgettably vivid characters and thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph— a sweeping story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, friendship, identity and fate, as well as the meaning and purpose of art.
A masterclass in contemporary art by one of the preeminent painters of our time. How does art work? How does it move us, inform us, challenge us? David Salle’s criticism reads like a conversation with an artist because, well, it basically is. His incisive essay collection illuminates the work of many of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, replacing the jargon of art theory with precise and evocative descriptions that help the reader develop a personal and intuitive engagement with art. Each essay in the painter’s book of critical essays offers cerebral ruminations on art that can challenge your sensibilities, make you laugh out loud and, of course, teach you how to see art as an artist does.
Johannes Vermeer’s portrait of the anonymous Girl with a Pearl Earring has exerted a particular fascination for centuries—and it is this magnetic painting that lies at the heart of Tracy Chevalier’s novel of the same title.
It tells the story of Griet, a poor young girl living with her family in Delft (The Netherlands), in the 17th century. She is hired as a maid in the house of the Dutch painter, where she secretly becomes the painter’s assistant, too. The story follows Griet as she grows up from girl to woman while going through intense emotional transformations and turmoil caused by her family, her feelings, and the Dutch painter himself.
An inspiring true story of hope and survival, this is the testimony of a 13-year-old boy who was imprisoned for 22 months in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau and recorded his experiences through words and color drawings. After the Allies freed the prisoners, he was initially too weak to leave. He spent his two months of recovery making over 80 drawings, 56 of which are published here with a revised version of Geve’s first-hand account of life in the camp. “These stories,” he wrote, “give voice to my comrades who did not get to see the day of liberation. My world was their world as well. My words would give their personalities and dreams, which had perished so unfairly and too soon, eternal life.”
An amazing collection of stories about different colors, the way they’ve been made through history, and the lengths to which people will go to get the brightest splash of color. From cochineal red to mummy brown, this book unveils the fascinating stories behind the colors we see every day. Kassia St. Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colors and where they come from (whether Van Gogh’s chrome yellow sunflowers or punk’s fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilization. Across fashion and politics, art and war, the secret lives of color tell the vivid story of our culture.
We’d love to hear from you—what book would you add to this list?
