Overview

The vivid and masterful story of an American original—creator of one of America’s most stunning museums—whose own life was remade by art Isabella Stewart Gardner’s museum, with its plain exterior enfolding an astonishing four-story Italian palazzo, rose from Boston’s Fens at the turn of the twentieth century. Its treasures encompassed not only masterwork paintings but tapestries, rare books, prints, porcelains, and fine furniture—all in evocative, intimately personal arrangements. An extraordinary achievement of storytelling and scholarship, Chasing Beauty provides compelling insight into the multilayered self-portrait encoded in the museum’s objects and rooms—and delivers the absorbing story of a life every bit as dazzling and haunting. Born in 1840 to a privileged New York family, Isabella Stewart married Boston Brahmin Jack Gardner as she turned twenty. She was misunderstood by Boston’s insular society and suffered the death of her only child, a beloved boy, not yet two years old. But in time came friendships, glittering and bohemian; awe-inspiring world travels; and collecting beautiful things with a keen eye and competitive pace—all these were balm for loss. Henry James and John Singer Sargent—whose portrait of Isabella was a masterpiece and a scandal—came to recognize her originality. Bernard Berenson, leading connoisseur of the Italian Renaissance, was her art dealer. From award-winning author Natalie Dykstra, Chasing Beauty is the story of the complex and singular woman behind one of the most fascinating museums in the nation and the world—a tale of beauty and loss, grit and American self-invention.

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9781328515759

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Reviews

"""Dykstra...finds the living Clover [who] was able to transform her feelings of loss and isolation into art."" -- New York Times Book Review on Clover Adams ""A beautifully written and immensely satisfying new biography...what emerges is a clear and nuanced image of Clover that makes previous accounts seem as vague and shadowy as photographic negatives."" -- Boston Globe on Clover Adams ""Reveals a complex woman grappling with betrayal, loss and her era's discomfort with female ambition. A startling, original portrait of a woman in a shining cage discovering the terrible strength of its bars."" -- People magazine on Clover Adams ""Tautly conceived and concisely written...What Dykstra brings to a fuller understanding of Clover's plight is a fresh and generous response to her work as a photographer."" -- New York Review of Books on Clover Adams ""Dykstra's contextually rich and psychologically discerning portrait of an underappreciated luminary is enlightening and affecting."" -- Booklist on Clover Adams ""This compelling narrative reads as well as any page-turning novel."" -- Library Journal on Clover Adams ""With empathy and compassion, [Dykstra] gives voice to a woman nearly written out of existence . . . With this volume Dykstra provides Clover's life renewed significance."" -- Publishers Weekly on Clover Adams"

“Isabella Stewart Gardner has found the ideal biographer in Natalie Dykstra, who gives Gardner, her nerves of steel, her expert eye, and her singular curiosity their due in this wise, sparkling book.” — Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams and Cleopatra: A Life “Natalie Dykstra has written an absorbing, deeply researched biography that is also a travelogue, Edwardian period drama, and art history primer, with a supporting cast that includes Henry James, John Singer Sargent, Edith Wharton, and Henry Adams. In these pages, Isabella Stewart Gardner comes to life as a feminist pathbreaker finally given her due—and an artist in her own right.” — Heather Clark, author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath “The complex, magnificent life of Isabella Stewart Gardner pours through the pages of Natalie Dykstra’s wonderful, definitive biography. Gardner left an incomparable legacy; at long last, she has found a biographer who can match her in range, profundity, and eye for detail. It is thrilling to watch the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum rise again in this powerful, timely book.” — Rachel Cohen, author of A Chance Meeting: American Encounters “Dykstra’s deeply researched biography reveals the complex modern woman behind Isabella Stewart Gardner’s trademark gauzy veils. It’s such a compelling tale, how a woman born into a Victorian world of privilege and propriety stepped outside the dos and don’ts of her social set to become an incomparable entrepreneur and cultural visionary.”  — Wanda M. Corn, author of Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern “A lifelong friend of Henry James, Gardner inspired some of his fictional heroines yet surpassed them all in her psychological complexity, the magnificence of her vision, and her zest for experience. Dykstra tells a captivating story of an artist and her time.”  — Linda Leavell, author of Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore   “Copiously researched and engagingly written, Chasing Beauty is biography at its best: a vivid, empathic portrait of an extraordinary woman.” — Caroline Weber, author of Proust's Duchess: How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-de-Siècle Paris “Thoroughly researched . . . the author captures the sweep and energy of [Gardner’s] life . . . A richly detailed biographical portrait.” — Kirkus Reviews “An elegant depiction of a larger-than-life trailblazer.” — Publishers Weekly

"""Isabella Stewart Gardner has found the ideal biographer in Natalie Dykstra, who gives Gardner, her nerves of steel, her expert eye, and her singular curiosity their due in this wise, sparkling book."" -- Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams and Cleopatra: A Life ""Natalie Dykstra has written an absorbing, deeply researched biography that is also a travelogue, Edwardian period drama, and art history primer, with a supporting cast that includes Henry James, John Singer Sargent, Edith Wharton, and Henry Adams. In these pages, Isabella Stewart Gardner comes to life as a feminist pathbreaker finally given her due--and an artist in her own right."" -- Heather Clark, author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath ""The complex, magnificent life of Isabella Stewart Gardner pours through the pages of Natalie Dykstra's wonderful, definitive biography. Gardner left an incomparable legacy; at long last, she has found a biographer who can match her in range, profundity, and eye for detail. It is thrilling to watch the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum rise again in this powerful, timely book."" -- Rachel Cohen, author of A Chance Meeting: American Encounters ""Dykstra's deeply researched biography reveals the complex modern woman behind Isabella Stewart Gardner's trademark gauzy veils. It's such a compelling tale, how a woman born into a Victorian world of privilege and propriety stepped outside the dos and don'ts of her social set to become an incomparable entrepreneur and cultural visionary."" -- Wanda M. Corn, author of Georgia O'Keeffe: Living Modern ""A lifelong friend of Henry James, Gardner inspired some of his fictional heroines yet surpassed them all in her psychological complexity, the magnificence of her vision, and her zest for experience. Dykstra tells a captivating story of an artist and her time."" -- Linda Leavell, author of Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore ""Copiously researched and engagingly written, Chasing Beauty is biography at its best: a vivid, empathic portrait of an extraordinary woman."" -- Caroline Weber, author of Proust's Duchess: How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-de-Siècle Paris"

Author Information

Natalie Dykstra is the author of Clover Adams: A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life. Her work on Isabella Stewart Gardner has won a Public Scholars Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities and an inaugural Robert and Ina Caro Research/Travel Fellowship sponsored by the Biographers International Organization (BIO). Dykstra, emerita professor of English at Hope College in Michigan, lives with her husband in Waltham, MA.

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