This is the first book to examine the art and life of Boston-born artist Francesca Alexander (1837- 1917). Francesca and her parents moved to Florence in 1853 and became part of a thriving international community. Her long residence in Italy was important; Francesca was a largely self-taught artist, and both her art and writing focused on Italians and Italian life. Her portraits and nature studies, and her translations of songs and stories, were celebrated by people from all walks of life, including John Ruskin, who published three of her manuscripts and promoted her work to his followers. She used her earnings from the sale of these publications, and her art, to fund her many charitable endeavours; both friends and admirers marvelled at her saintly character, which they linked to a romantic view of Italy itself. Nonetheless, in spite of her celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic, she has been largely forgotten. Drawing on her art and writings, as well as letters, diaries, guidebooks, newspapers, and magazines, this book provides a vivid biography of Francesca Alexander, her art, and her place in history.

Thousands of travelers visit Tuscany and Umbria each year to follow the Piero della Francesca Trail. John Pope-Hennessy examines each work of Piero della Francesca. Included is Aldous Huxley's essay "The Best Picture, " which inspired Pope-Hennessy to seek out these paintings and frescoes. 56 photos.

As the title suggests, this book concerns the art and life of the world's only "American Linear Impressionist", Lilian Westcott Hale. Born in Connecticut in 1881, Hale was educated primarily at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and lived for many years in nearby Dedham, moving to Charlottesville, Virginia after the death of her beloved educator, art critic, author, and painter husband, Philip Leslie Hale. A woman, Hale far outpaced the success of many men, including her husband. During her early decades of activity, Hale garnered innumerable naational awards, accolades, and prizes, and international acclaim for her oil portraits of children, women in interiors, and charcoal sketches of snowy landscpes, all created in an Impressionist style utilizing only vertical strokes. Hale was the originator and sole practitioner of a technique which paradoxically used line in an Impressionist manner. While her classic art fell out of favor during the Modernist 1940s and later, it is now once again very much in vogue. My relationship with the artist's only child, her daughter, Nancy, was of immeasurable assistance in the production of this book. Diane Elizabeth Kelleher Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, 2013.