Last week, the winner of Australia’s prestigious Archibald Prize was announced, Laura Jones for her portrait of Tim Winton.
Winton, as I read in the Herald’s The Booklist email, is the first novelist to be the subject of an Archibald Prize-winning portrait in more than two decades, with Geoffrey Dyer’s portrait of Richard Flanagan being the previous one in 2003. The email’s author, Melanie Kembrey, adds other Australian writers who have been the subject of prize-winning portraits include George Johnston (1969, Ray Crooke); Patrick White (1962, Louis Kahan); Banjo Patterson (1935, John Longstaff); and Ambrose Pratt (1933, Charles Wheeler). The National Portrait Gallery in Canberra has other portraits of writers, including Murray Bail (1980-1981, Fred Williams); Peter Carey (a few, including 2000, Bruce Armstrong); Robert Dessaix (a couple, including the one I know best, 1998, Robert Hannaford AM); Helen Garner (of whom there are many, including 2003, Jenny Sages); the poet Dame Mary Gilmore (c. 1938, Lyall Trindall); Elizabeth Jolley (2003, Mary Moore); Thomas Keneally (1987, Bernd Heinrich); Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal) (1965, Clif Peir). Writers, like many people in the public eye, are popular portrait subjects, so I’ll stop here!
Kembrey then writes that “just as painters are interested in novelists, so novelists are in painters” and she lists some of her favourite “(more recent) novels about art and artists” – Alex Miller’s The sitters (1995); Peter Carey’s Theft (read before blogging); Emily Bitto’s The strays (my review). Kembrey also names some non-Australian novels but as you know by now, my Monday Musings is Australian-focused. Oh, just to be clear, we are talking visual art/artists, here, not artist in its wider meaning of any creative person).
Kembrey’s little list is just that, a little list to whet the appetite, but there are many more, including these (in alphabetical order by author):
Miles Allinson’s Fever of animals (2015): about a man’s search to solve the mystery of a Romanian surrealist, who had disappeared decades before, but the search brings up issues from his own life.
Jen Craig’s Wall (2023): about a woman who returns to Australia to clear out her father’s house, aiming to turn the contents into an art installation in the tradition of the Chinese artist Song Dong, but gets caught up family tensions.
Julian Davies’ Crow mellow (2014) (my review): a satirical (and illustrated) house party novel about a group of artists staying in a country house/bush retreat with their patrons and admirers; explores the complex relationship between art, its practitioners and followers, and life.
Sulari Gentill’s Rowland Sinclair series, starting with A few right thinking men (2010): Gentill explained during last week’s conversation that she made her protagonist, Rowland Sinclair, an artist, because an artist, particularly back in the 1930s, was a good profession for a character who needed to be able to move through different strata of society.
Gail Jones’ Salonika burning (2022) (my review): draws on the lives of four real people, including British artists Grace Pailthorpe and Stanley Spencer, to explore the experience of war, and, among other things, the idea of witness and representation. (Gail Jones often features art and artists in her novels, including her Miles Franklin award-winning The death of Noah Glass.)
Silvia Kwon’s Vincent and Sien (2023): based on the eighteen months or so that Vincent van Gogh and Sien Hoornik were together.
William Lane’s The salamanders (2016) (my review): about events triggered by an obsessive artist father; “a broad, abstract story about our relationship to art, place and nature, and a more personal story about identity and family”.
Alex Miller’s Prochownik’s dream (2005): “reveals the inner life of an artist, torn between his obsession with his art and his love of his wife and daughter” (Readings). (Like Jones, Miller often features artists, another novel being Autumn Laing).
Ruby J. Murray, The biographer’s lover (2018): about a young writer who is hired to write about the life of an unknown woman artist in a family’s quest to bring her to public attention, and the complex issues re fame, art, memory, that arise. (Readings)
Angela O’Keeffe’s The sitter (2023) (Brona’s review): inspired by Hortense Cézanne, wife of artist Paul Cézanne, who sat for twenty-nine of his paintings, and a writer who is writing about her; another exploration of the tension between artist and subject, art and life.
Edwina Preston’s Bad art mother (2022) (my review): the protagonist is a poet, but two other women feature, a muralist and an ikebana artist; about how hard it is hard for women to make art and be recognised for it, and especially hard for woman who are mothers.
Heather Rose’s The museum of modern love (2016) (my review): inspired by Marina Abramović and her performance piece, The artist is present, exploring, as I suggested in my review, the question of whether art is enough or is love more important?
Dominic Smith’s The last painting of Sara de Vos (2016) (kimbofo’s review): a multi-pronged story spanning three centuries that “shines a light both on the hidden world of art forgery and women’s unrecognised contributions to the Dutch Golden Age”.
Patrick White’s The vivisector (1970): life story of a fictional artist/painter Hurtle Duffield; “explores universal themes like the suffering of the artist, the need for truth and the meaning of existence”. (Wikipedia)
Chris Womersley’s Cairo (2015): set in a bohemian world peopled by painters and poets, and explores deception and betrayal, within the context of one of the greatest unsolved art heists of the twentieth century, the infamous theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman. (Readings)
So many novels, most from this century. Like Kembrey, I’ve barely touched the surface.
Some of these novels reference known artists, while others imagine their artists, but the question is, why do novelists choose to write about artists, real or otherwise? Chris Hammer said (in the abovelinked conversation with Sulari Gentill) that if you have 12 authors in a room, you’ll have 14 ways of doing things. This probably also works as an answer to my question here, but we can glean some recurring threads. A common one concerns the (often difficult) artist and his or her relationships (with partners, children, and others), alongside some sort of exploration of what price art in a wider life. There are many variations on this theme, because art is a rich vehicle for examining how we express ourselves and find meaning, how the all-consuming drive to create can become exploitative, how we balance our inner selves with the reality of existence, and so on. Another common theme is the feminist one of retrieving known women artists or muses from their undervalued or misrepresented place in history and/or exploring that challenges women artists face in practising their art.
Have you read any of these? Do you like novels about artists, and do you have any favourites?
Whispering Gums 
What a great list of books! I’ve not read any of them. You did make me think of a Haruki Murakami book though, Killing Commendatore, in which the main character is a portrait painter. In fine Murakami style, the painter is asked to paint a seemingly impossible portrait. 🙂
Oh thanks Stefanie … I’ve heard of that Murakami but haven’t read it. Sounds like a great Murakami read.
Hi Sue, I have read a few of the above and do enjoy them. My favourite being the Vivisector. Last month, I read new one about the Archibald Prize. Kim E Anderson, has written a fiction account about the William Dobell and Joshua Smith affair, The Prize. I thought it was quite good, and provided an interesting follow up of both William Dobell and Joshua Smith.
Thanks Meg … I hadn’t heard of that one. Sounds the perfect example for my list!
I have my own personal ‘protocol’ regarding the two words, author and writer.
Imnsho, an author has written a book.
A writer writes books.
The former can become the latter, but the latter cannot regress to being the former.
I have spoken.
[grin]
Haha … MR. My sense though I don’t apply it rigorously is that an author has had one or more books published whereas a writer writes and may not have any books to their name. It’s the more generic term.
We are not in agreement. [gasp !]
Continuing in my highly egocentric way of thinking, someone who has no books to his/her name cannot possibly be called a writer. A would-be writer, mebbe. Perhaps an aspiring writer ? – yes. The adjective is good: an aspiring writer.
“Aspiringwriter Fred Kafoops said today that he fears he might be obliged to change his name in order to get published.”
I like it ! [grin]
So a journalist who has many articles published but no books is neither author or writer? Doesn’t make sense to me MR! Are they permanently to be called “aspiring writers”? Back to you…
No, s/he’s a journo.
As long as s/he writes without being published, aspiring is all s/he’s doing.
Oh, you are tough MR! What about short story writers, who have a story published in a boo, aka anthology?
Then they are authors !
You haven’t convinced me of your view of the writing world – yet! But I’m giving up for the moment … haha!
An interesting topic. Not within the scope of MM of course but I was immensely impressed at, say, 16 reading The Agony and the Ecstasy (about Michaelangelo).
The two Australians who came to mind were Gerald Murnane, Landscape with Landscape – for the title, but also for the final story, about attending a party at an artist’s house in Eltham
“If she read my fiction closely, I tell her, she would seem to be stepping inside a painting of a landscape with one or more figures and walking back as far as the furthest painted detail and then seeing still further off other landscapes rising to view” [Landscape With Artist].
And, Drusilla Modjeska who incorporates Aust art history into The Orchard.
Thanks Bill … I haven’t read that Murnane and wasn’t aware of that subject matter. I nearly included the Modjeska in my list, but the list was getting long and I wondered how to articulate its subject matter. I’m glad to have these added to the list.
I’ve read a few of the ones you’ve listed (and Museum of Modern Love by far my favourite, even though I haven’t enjoyed Rose’s subsequent novels much) and can’t think of anymore to add…
Thanks for commenting Kate. You didn’t have to add one. Naming a favourite is a great contribution. I’ve only read The museum of modern love and Bruny, and certainly I thought Bruny, though passionate, was not of the same interest to me.
WOT ??? – you haven’t enjoyed “The Butterfly Man” or “Bruny” ?
I am sad for you. 😉
😀 Well, it was Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here where I really ran into problems…
Yeah, I read a review of that. [grin]
Try “The Butterfly Man”: it’s, like, BRILLIANT !! 🙂
I do want to read that – it’s one of her earlier ones isn’t it?
Dunno, ST: know only that it gripped me throughout !
Agreed! The Butterfly Man is brilliant, especially if you are familiar with Lord Lucan’s exploits!
He was only 10½ years older than me, so the story was doing the rounds as I grew up.
Ah, thanks MR, that explains your strong interest, though I have heard it’s a great book too so I believed your recommendation anyhow.
Thanks Kimbofo … I do want to read this one!
That’s her memoir isn’t it. I bought it but I don’t think I’ll read it.
Yes, her memoir. Deeply problematic on a number of levels, most significantly from a cultural appropriation point-of-view.
I can’t really comment on that … wasn’t she welcomed into that ceremony? I don’t know how she uses it in the book though.
There are a few elements to the book, notably her participation in Lakota ‘sun dance’ ceremonies and then her desire to participate in Aboriginal ceremonies at Uluru (which she was not permitted to).
Was she invited to participate in the Lakota ceremonies? I can’t remember the exact details, but I do know that since then there has been a Lakota Declaration of War Against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality… which makes this memoir, and her promotion of ‘white woman finding herself’ pretty questionable.
I had other issues with the book but honestly, have tried to erase it from my mind! That said, would be VERY interested on your take, should you decide to read it!
That ceremony went on for many years so I thought – but I can’t remember the details now – that she was invited/welcome at the time. I’d find it hard to question her if the goalposts had shifted but who knows what the story is. I think many FN communities welcome others into their midst but again I don’t know. And of course there is the issue of what you experience privately and how you might then make it public, which risks overlaying a genuine personal journey with that “white woman finding herself” spin which I agree can be problematic. My problem is that I’m not hugely interested in these sorts of spiritual journeys. I don’t disbelieve them, but they are not the sort of journeys I seek for myself. The mysteries I care about are more moral/ethical than spiritual, if that’s a valid contrast. Is it? Anyhow, this is why I probably won’t read the book – sorry!
Great post, Sue. I love novels about artists and are pleased to see some of my favourites here, especially The Vivisector, Museum of Modern Love and Carey’s Theft. Can I also suggest Alex Miller’s Autumn Laing and Angela O’Keefe’s Night Blue ?
Thanks Kimbofo. I did mention Autumn Laing in my Alex Millar paragraph, but just in passing. I’d forgotten about Night blue. I didn’t mention every book by some of the authors I named, but I would have mentioned that if I’d remembered it. It’s interesting how many authors have returned to the art and artist subject matter, and how many of us love these sorts of stories?
Good question! Maybe writers write about artists as a break from all the books where writers write about writers 🙂 A way of exploring the creative process with a slight shift to a different genre?
In any case, there are some great books on that list. I searched my blog and found a few along the same lines that I’ve enjoyed in the past (not Australian, unfortunately): Nightshade by Annalena McAfee, An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro, and Lote by Shola van Reinhold.
Thanks Andrew. Good thinking about why. I can see that being true for some.
And thanks for your suggestions. You are allowed to suggest non Aussie books! And thanks for those. I love the Ishiguro, but I don’t know the other two. Will check them out.
How did I not know Paul Cézanne painted his wife 29 times? I’m really hoping that was a deep love and that he wasn’t off cheating on her the rest of the time.
How can we know everything Melanie! (I haven’t read the full Wikipedia article but it says this of his marrying Hortense, some years after they had a son together “On April 28, 1886, Paul Cézanne and Hortense Fiquet were married in Aix in the presence of his parents. The connection to Hortense was not legalized out of love, as their relationship had long since broken down. Cézanne was shy of women and terrified of being touched, a trauma that stemmed from his childhood when, by his own admission, a classmate had kicked him from behind on the stairs”. They married to legitimise the son. Presumably he didn’t have a lot of affairs if he didn’t like bringing touched.
That is so interesting!
I thought so too … makes you think!
One I loved so much I read it twice, back-to-back, when I realised the clues I had missed on the first reading. The Artist’s Portrait by Julie Keys. I have to confess we both live in the Illawarra and our paths occasionally cross but that’s not the reason I suggest it for your list.
Oh thankyou Gwendoline. I’ve not heard of this at all. I’m glad to have it added to the list.
I’ve not read any of these (as per ujj) but I agree with Andrew’s comment above that often writers engage with artists on the page to express ideas about creativity, whether or not the exact nature of the characters’ art suits the story. And I’m not mad at that: it usually works for me! lol In the past, I really enjoyed A.S. Byatt’s fiction (short, mostly) about artists. And, more recently, I enjoyed this slim volume from Stelliform, which I mention because I know you and others here enjoyed Arboreality, one of their other titles from last year. I had to read it very attentively for a review, and the horror aspects fit with the story, so even if you are normally a reader who shies away from that genre, these elements are not totally overwhelming; there’s so much to appreciate about how the artist’s painting reflects her psychological journey and her Mi’kmaw heritage.
So sorry about the delayed reply, Marcie. I have just found this and another comment of yours in SPAM. Why? I try to check SPAM about weekly, and these two were posted in the last 4-5 days.
Anyhow, thanks for this comment. I like your and Andrew’s ideas about authors using often using artists to express their ideas about creativity. Makes reasonable sense to me. I will note your recommendation of Green Fuse Burning, even though horror is not really something that I gravitate to!
Something’s at work in the WP lagoon I think, all sorts of weirdness in the past week once again. My sense is that it’s marketed as horror (and, certainly, that cover!), but it’s a work that reflects an Indigenous worldview of the relationship between people and their surroundings and there are some dark periods in the artist’s life, things she needs to travel through in her mind and heart. My favourite part was the structure of looking at the individual paintings-with titles and other details, as though in a gallery, another artist’s commentary about their significance-then the alternating creative scenes from the artist’s perspective. But I completely understand that the cover alone could be off-putting.
Haha, yes, I did look at the cover and thought – hmmm. You are intriguing me though because I know we like to think about similar things in our reading, but probably the main thing affecting me right now are all the books I really want to read that are in my piles! Your description of how the art is used in the work interests me in particular.
As for WP, yes … something is happening … again.
Totally understandable. I wasn’t carrying on from an effort to convince you, only that I felt I’d represented it incompletely and not done it justice (and to counter that cover image). Although I do read horror for its social commentary, and understand that many Indigenous people have been surviving a horrifying apocalypse for generations, I also think this novella would appeal to those who read to widen their horizons even if they never/rarely read horror and it really does fit with Stelliform’s offerings. Such a smart press!
Completely understand – I just love exploring any ideas you throw my way! If I weren’t up to my eye-balls in novellas for Novella November, I think I’d be tempted.
Proust put a writer, an actress, a composer, and a musician into <i>Swann’s Way</i>. Those who study him have provided identifications of them. As I recall, the writer is Anatole France, the actress Sara Bernhardt, the composer perhaps Debussy.
I suppose he included them for the reason that he included the rich and well-born: the artists require leisure to create, the rich have leisure. And it is in the time away from paying occupations that people do what most interests novelists.
The American novelist Dawn Powell had many painters and writers in her novels. She lived in Greenwich Village, so to some degree this is like Norman Maclean growing up in Idaho and writing novellas about fly fishing and logging. Anthony Burgess had plenty of writers and artists in his novels. Some were as real as John Keats (<i>Abba, Abba</i>), others as imaginary as Enderby, some I suppose modeled on actual writers like the narrator of <i>Earthly Powers</i>, who sounds a lot like Somerset Maugham.
Thanks George … these are great. Your point about Proust’s creators in Swann’s Way – “the artists require leisure to create, the rich have leisure” – is partly I think what Gentill draws on to make her detective an artist. He’s all-off enough to have the time to investigate, but as an artist he is more able to move across the classes.
I have Dawn Powell in my sights, but have yet to read her.
Harland’s Half Acre by David Malouf. A fine novel about the the life of a gifted artist.
Oh thank you fourtriplezed. I haven’t read that Malouf. He’s such a lovely writer.